With the holidays upon us and the weather being consistently cooler, I have not made it out into the garden nearly as often. We have at least a dozen of cherry tomatoes ripening weekly and the SO has ended up being their harvester. Some of the Bird's Eye chilies have been used to give a quick strong kick to dishes, but I have to dry any batches. Trying to hold out for them to become ruby red. Right now they get to be bright red and then just hover in that state. There pictures were taken almost two weeks ago.
Slytherin.
Phineas.
The experiment has ended with the Jalapeños. The ones that remained in my makeshift garden area that faced East and received healthy doses of morning sun did the best. I think being near the house also helped protect them from gusty winds. On average, they are twice as big as the plants anywhere else.
The one that sat on a bucket in the middle of the yard to the North had quite a bit of sun burnt spots, but it's leaves were the darkest green. The plant that was in partial shade underneath the Mesquite tree in the West did poorly. It's the second smallest and was super droopy a few days before we decided to end the tests. We tried moving it out of the shade and then javelinas came and knocked it down as they tried to eat it. The one that was not shaded but also in the West fared much better and was often growing sideways. For fun, we kept one in the western window inside and not only did it the worst, but two days before we decided that we would bring all of the peppers together outside, one of the cats/dog chewed off all but one leaf! Didn't even eat them, just chewed them off the stems. Sigh. Surprisingly, each plant did begin to flower around the same time no matter where they were.
The eastern group with a ghost chili, the original parsley, and another ghost pepper.
From the second to last.
The herb planter is still recovering. Oregano died off and Sage never made it. The lettuce has had a big growth spurt lately and the bell peppers have slowed down significantly. The SO is helping me determine a game plan for the winter. There's not much room in my original garden corner inside, we do have spare blankets for covering my bigger plants. The most difficult is trying to figure out whether or not to try to save any tomato plants if they begin to die off and which young plants should be kept inside until they get stronger (and how).
Alright, that helped calm me down considerably, but I'm still ticked. Have been trying to keep myself busy with holiday-related things but it hasn't lifted my spirits as it has done in past years. While I continue to keep my fingers crossed about getting any work that I can, I'm doing my best to heed my my mother's advice and keep myself busy at home and doing good things. Idle hands really are the Devil's playground, lol.
Such projects have included trying to knit my first baby afghan blanket to donate, but I am terribly slow! I thought I chose a simple pattern, but it's turning out to be more tedious than expected. I should have started it much earlier. That has taken the back burner to crocheting various clothing accessories with food-themes and sweet faces to give as gifts. Doing my best to think of thoughtful gifts to hunt for within our means for the people that matter the most. There are not enough hours in the day for me to make it all! I am forever grossly overestimating my crafting speed. I'm trying really hard to finish making everything that needs to be sent out in a package by the end of this week to avoid too much delay.
My other big hope is to make a significant dent in writing and addressing the handmade cards I made a little while ago. FMIL and I still need to set two days aside to work on hers. Another big endeavor that I'm very excited about is making a little gift in the form of treats for all of the staff members at school. There are just so many genuinely good people there that I have felt very compelled to give even more back to them. I'm learning how to make cake pops but out of Oreo truffles and I think I have all of the supplies for that project this weekend. I hope that it turns out better than our original test batch, lol.
This does not include getting ready for a particular weekend in the middle of December in which there's the school office party Friday night, a graduation party Saturday afternoon for a family friend, and then the SO and I will be driving up to the Phoenix Metro for a holiday dinner the next day. I also plan to make another batch of cake pops for that occassion too. We haven't even brought out the Christmas decorations yet. FMIL has a tradition of getting together with her girlfriends to bake various holiday cookies. At the end, everyone takes a bit of everything and the results are delicious. We still need to figure out how the big days are going to work out between the two households and with more people to take into account.
Okay, here's when I unleash some of my rage. I treat people with the courtesy that I was raised to give to another human. Do not dare to mistake my kindness for weakness. Respect is to be earned and not given. When someone does you a favor and lets you borrow something of theirs, you give it back within a reasonable amount of time in equal or better condition than it was given to you. There is always something you can do, within your own reasonable means, to pay it forward and pay it back. I am only holding back in my confrontations because people I actually care about and have a lot of respect for have asked me not to- I am not lacking in courage or maturity. What I am lacking in is patience - The patience I need to tolerate the utter disregard for the feelings of others, common courtesy/ morals/ rules/ order. During these rougher than typical times, I understand how tensions can run high and stress can break one down to their core, but that does not excuse the behaviors and actions that continue to happen around me.
That is as level-headed as I can be and I'm sure you can imagine what extras I thought and/or said aloud. My heart is also aching for the slew of misfortunes that many of my friends are experiencing lately too... Sigh, I need to get back to crocheting. I'll see you soon. <3
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