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Cheer Me Up
Jul. 2nd, 2020 09:39 pmHey congrats everyone, we made it to July!
For whatever reason right now I keep thinking about what the holiday season is liable to be like.
I'd really like to visit my parents, but will that even be possible? An east coast drive is not a problem for me, but will I be able to get the time off that would require?
There's so much unknown all the freaking time. Gettin' tired of it yo.
At work, more and more cased of Covid are appearing.
It started indirectly, with people finding out their friends outside of work had it and going to get tested.
Now it's actual employees felling ill and then getting tested, getting positive results, and reporting them to HR.
So far no one from my shift or section of the building has tested positive, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
One of the supervisors I work with went home with flulike symptoms last week. I mean we often stood around the central desk area chatting in the days leading up to his illness. I won't be shocked if he gets a positive result. But if so, then what?
We have officially started going forward with a work from home program for the supervisors (captionists may already work from home). I really hope I get to take part, because it would get me a little more sleep, save me a little more time, and cost me a little less money. Maybe by the end of next week I will hear something about that.
On Tuesday Jameson had a few friends over (responsibly, distancing). They had some nice pool time, keeping 6ft apart and staying outdoors for most of the time. I was sorry I had to work, but was glad that Jameson got a little social interaction. It's the little things that sustain us.
My weekend was full of little sustaining things. I've started reading "So You Want to Talk About Race" with my sisters. I'm only on Chapter 1 but so far it's pretty excellent. A lot of just basic points and examples that, as a white person, I have been privileged to not have had to consider up until now. This is exactly what I was hoping for. I want to understand what I haven't been able to see. Even if I can never know what it is to be a POC, at the very least I want to know what really needs to change. And I can't do that without getting an education. Even if parts of it make me feel guilty or ashamed. It needs to be faced. And it needs to STOP.
I had a good steno class on Monday, getting into some pretty complicated concepts now. I can write some big paragraphs, but there's still such a long way to go.
Oh, I forgot to mention that on Tuesday one of Jameson's friends found a wolf spider in a corner of the pool deck. He left it there until I got home to show it to me. It might be the biggest spider I've ever seen in person besides a tarantula...it was almost two inches long if you count the legs. At the time I didn't know it was a wolf spider, and iNaturalist was useless for identifying it possibly because it was confused by other aspects of my photo. To make matters worse, when I tried to get the spider to move it crammed itself into the corner so that I couldn't figure any way of getting it out without hurting it. In the end I decided to kill it. I felt I couldn't risk one of us getting bitten, or it trying to get in the house because it couldn't get off the deck. It was really unpleasant and I hope I don't have to resort to that again. I'd much rather relocate lost arachnids.
Our orb weaver spider is still here, and seems content to remain next to my planter. The warm soil seems to attract flies, which she is able to catch and enjoy. I was delighted to see her holding this fly one evening. What a good spider!
All of my plants are doing pretty well, although I think it will soon finally be time to throw the tomato away. It's nearly completely dead. The cuttings I took from it are alive, and I will try to keep them through the summer.
I've cut the Italian basil down to nothing, and it has regrown itself. In addition, it has dropped two little seedlings. I'm considering cutting the Thai basil but will wait a little longer until it seems ready (don't ask me what I mean by "ready", I guess I'll know when it happens).
The vanilla orchid has grown insanely quickly. I don't know if you remember just a few months ago when I found some new growth that was about two inches tall, barely poking above the rim of the pot. Well now that's the tallest part of the plant, and it's almost at my eye level (I'm 5'5"). Crazy!
The watermelons are doing great. Yes, watermelons plural. A second one has sprung up so I'll be keeping an eye on it. Here are three photos of it taken in the past 7 days. Shockingly fast growth.
The OG watermelon is doing well, getting bigger although not as quickly now. I think it's about halfway to full size, although there's no guarantee it'll reach 8 inches like it's supposed to.
My pollinator garden is in a sad state, but flowers can't be in bloom all the time. Last week after the rain the plants were vibrant, and now the blooms have died and the plants need to gather energy and regrow for the next round. A second of my three lavender plants is dying; I think they are just too tempermental for Florida's drastic weather shifts. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Maybe I'll replace them with dill or chives, I hear pollinators love those plus they're useful to me too. The milkweed has started making seed pods. One of them split open, so I plucked it off. I'll save the seeds for next summer.
While gardening I noticed several millipedes around, and managed to get some footage. In the second video you can see the way their feet undulate...it's really cool!
On my Wednesday off I did a lot of things around the house. I washed our bedsheets, made an appointment for a generic blood draw, did some minor work in the garden, hung a hummingbird feeder, made strawberry watermelon popsicles, and cooked us a nice dinner of crispy chicken tenders with sweet potato fries and slaw. It didn't really turn out the way I wanted, the chicken was not crispy enough and the fries were limp too. Maybe we need to look into an air fryer, this is not a new issue. Still, it was perfectly edible. I'll take it as a learning experience.
Jameson has recently gotten into Game of Thrones (late to the party!!) and I am enjoying his reactions to the Red Wedding and Joffrey's wedding. I forgot how shocking both of those events in the series were...it was pretty much the first indication that main characters are just as expendable as everyone else in that series. Good stuff.
On Thursday I got to have some really nice experiences in my little garden :)
First of all, there was a hummingbird at the feeder! I tried to get video but it turned out terrible because it was through a screen. Maybe next time! And then, I got to observe BOTH a pipevine swallowtail AND a spicebush swallowtail enjoying my milkweed, at the same time! I am glad I had the wherewithal to record in slo-mo. They were so fast! But in slow motion you can see how they fly, and interact, and their beautiful colors. I'm so grateful to enjoy little moments like this.
I spent the rest of Thursday unfortunately feeling kind of stressed. There wasn't a good reason for it really, I think because I spent the morning goofing off with butterfly videos I then felt like I had wasted my day. When in reality it's OK to have a day of nothing once in a while. But I need to make dinner, and prep for work, and clean things, and and and. It always feels like I "should" be doing something. Today it was hard to convince myself that it was OK to do none of the things I had planned.
I'd like to thank my upbringing for this -_-
Anyway, I edited the butterfly videos and made lasagna for dinner. We wanted to go for a walk but it rained. Jameson played games and I worked on some steno stuff, then later on we had movie night with some of his friends. Thank God for the little social time we all get, am I right??
This week I don't have a lot going on and nothing at all planned for the 4th.
Just glad I'll be working and getting double pay.
For whatever reason right now I keep thinking about what the holiday season is liable to be like.
I'd really like to visit my parents, but will that even be possible? An east coast drive is not a problem for me, but will I be able to get the time off that would require?
There's so much unknown all the freaking time. Gettin' tired of it yo.
At work, more and more cased of Covid are appearing.
It started indirectly, with people finding out their friends outside of work had it and going to get tested.
Now it's actual employees felling ill and then getting tested, getting positive results, and reporting them to HR.
So far no one from my shift or section of the building has tested positive, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
One of the supervisors I work with went home with flulike symptoms last week. I mean we often stood around the central desk area chatting in the days leading up to his illness. I won't be shocked if he gets a positive result. But if so, then what?
We have officially started going forward with a work from home program for the supervisors (captionists may already work from home). I really hope I get to take part, because it would get me a little more sleep, save me a little more time, and cost me a little less money. Maybe by the end of next week I will hear something about that.
On Tuesday Jameson had a few friends over (responsibly, distancing). They had some nice pool time, keeping 6ft apart and staying outdoors for most of the time. I was sorry I had to work, but was glad that Jameson got a little social interaction. It's the little things that sustain us.
My weekend was full of little sustaining things. I've started reading "So You Want to Talk About Race" with my sisters. I'm only on Chapter 1 but so far it's pretty excellent. A lot of just basic points and examples that, as a white person, I have been privileged to not have had to consider up until now. This is exactly what I was hoping for. I want to understand what I haven't been able to see. Even if I can never know what it is to be a POC, at the very least I want to know what really needs to change. And I can't do that without getting an education. Even if parts of it make me feel guilty or ashamed. It needs to be faced. And it needs to STOP.
I had a good steno class on Monday, getting into some pretty complicated concepts now. I can write some big paragraphs, but there's still such a long way to go.
Oh, I forgot to mention that on Tuesday one of Jameson's friends found a wolf spider in a corner of the pool deck. He left it there until I got home to show it to me. It might be the biggest spider I've ever seen in person besides a tarantula...it was almost two inches long if you count the legs. At the time I didn't know it was a wolf spider, and iNaturalist was useless for identifying it possibly because it was confused by other aspects of my photo. To make matters worse, when I tried to get the spider to move it crammed itself into the corner so that I couldn't figure any way of getting it out without hurting it. In the end I decided to kill it. I felt I couldn't risk one of us getting bitten, or it trying to get in the house because it couldn't get off the deck. It was really unpleasant and I hope I don't have to resort to that again. I'd much rather relocate lost arachnids.
Our orb weaver spider is still here, and seems content to remain next to my planter. The warm soil seems to attract flies, which she is able to catch and enjoy. I was delighted to see her holding this fly one evening. What a good spider!
All of my plants are doing pretty well, although I think it will soon finally be time to throw the tomato away. It's nearly completely dead. The cuttings I took from it are alive, and I will try to keep them through the summer.
I've cut the Italian basil down to nothing, and it has regrown itself. In addition, it has dropped two little seedlings. I'm considering cutting the Thai basil but will wait a little longer until it seems ready (don't ask me what I mean by "ready", I guess I'll know when it happens).
The vanilla orchid has grown insanely quickly. I don't know if you remember just a few months ago when I found some new growth that was about two inches tall, barely poking above the rim of the pot. Well now that's the tallest part of the plant, and it's almost at my eye level (I'm 5'5"). Crazy!
The watermelons are doing great. Yes, watermelons plural. A second one has sprung up so I'll be keeping an eye on it. Here are three photos of it taken in the past 7 days. Shockingly fast growth.
The OG watermelon is doing well, getting bigger although not as quickly now. I think it's about halfway to full size, although there's no guarantee it'll reach 8 inches like it's supposed to.
My pollinator garden is in a sad state, but flowers can't be in bloom all the time. Last week after the rain the plants were vibrant, and now the blooms have died and the plants need to gather energy and regrow for the next round. A second of my three lavender plants is dying; I think they are just too tempermental for Florida's drastic weather shifts. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Maybe I'll replace them with dill or chives, I hear pollinators love those plus they're useful to me too. The milkweed has started making seed pods. One of them split open, so I plucked it off. I'll save the seeds for next summer.
While gardening I noticed several millipedes around, and managed to get some footage. In the second video you can see the way their feet undulate...it's really cool!
https://instagram.com/p/CCGnm75gZ3VMy passion vine seedlings are really taking off now. I'm going to start training them on a trellis. I was able to give away two of the five plants, one to a random person in one of my facebook gardening groups, another to a coworker. I'm hoping to get rid of at least one more, possibly two, if you'd like one :) I'll be keeping the largest one for myself, and probably placing it somewhere else along the property fence. I'll be curious to see if it ever bears fruit, growing from seed can be kind of a Russian roulette thing I guess. Regardless, I'm very happy that I managed to grown passion vines from seed, even if I didn't technically do anything to make it happen!
On my Wednesday off I did a lot of things around the house. I washed our bedsheets, made an appointment for a generic blood draw, did some minor work in the garden, hung a hummingbird feeder, made strawberry watermelon popsicles, and cooked us a nice dinner of crispy chicken tenders with sweet potato fries and slaw. It didn't really turn out the way I wanted, the chicken was not crispy enough and the fries were limp too. Maybe we need to look into an air fryer, this is not a new issue. Still, it was perfectly edible. I'll take it as a learning experience.
Jameson has recently gotten into Game of Thrones (late to the party!!) and I am enjoying his reactions to the Red Wedding and Joffrey's wedding. I forgot how shocking both of those events in the series were...it was pretty much the first indication that main characters are just as expendable as everyone else in that series. Good stuff.
On Thursday I got to have some really nice experiences in my little garden :)
First of all, there was a hummingbird at the feeder! I tried to get video but it turned out terrible because it was through a screen. Maybe next time! And then, I got to observe BOTH a pipevine swallowtail AND a spicebush swallowtail enjoying my milkweed, at the same time! I am glad I had the wherewithal to record in slo-mo. They were so fast! But in slow motion you can see how they fly, and interact, and their beautiful colors. I'm so grateful to enjoy little moments like this.
https://instagram.com/p/CCJSSbXAakt
https://instagram.com/p/CCJStR3A1P2Here is the full video if you've got the patience for it. I find it relaxing.
I spent the rest of Thursday unfortunately feeling kind of stressed. There wasn't a good reason for it really, I think because I spent the morning goofing off with butterfly videos I then felt like I had wasted my day. When in reality it's OK to have a day of nothing once in a while. But I need to make dinner, and prep for work, and clean things, and and and. It always feels like I "should" be doing something. Today it was hard to convince myself that it was OK to do none of the things I had planned.
I'd like to thank my upbringing for this -_-
Anyway, I edited the butterfly videos and made lasagna for dinner. We wanted to go for a walk but it rained. Jameson played games and I worked on some steno stuff, then later on we had movie night with some of his friends. Thank God for the little social time we all get, am I right??
This week I don't have a lot going on and nothing at all planned for the 4th.
Just glad I'll be working and getting double pay.
