My Pots

Taken Wednesday, June 6, 2007. Clockwise from top left: English Lavender (var. Lady), Sedum Matrona, Morning Glories, Strawberries.

More Springtime Photos

So, my posting has been slow, but here is a plant photo. Taken 5/5/2007, a beautiful spring day, a little cool and windy, but otherwise gorgeous.

The replacement lavender (top left) has already begun putting up flower stalks. Var. Lady Lavender, it is a dwarf variety. Some of the green is from last year--it never fully died back during the winter.

The Sedum Matrona (top right) has exploded in the past month, turning from cute, bright green florets popping through the dirt, and now beginning to fill out the container. I expect the flowers to start early next month, but there's always a chance it'll start earlier.

The strawberry plant is at lower left. It has started throwing out a few flowers, and will soon, hopefully, start delivering more delicious strawberries.

This is the big pot that used to hold the okra. In the back, against the wall, are the morning glory vines. In the front are zennia ('Zowie') seedlings, and the coneflower is in the middle (although I'm not sure any have sprouted.)

A Long Walk

It is springtime here in Philadelphia. Since the weather was warmer, my next assignment starts tomorrow, and someone suggested I should excercise more I decided to take a long walk.

I walked out the door at 1:20 or so, determined to walk a marathon (i.e. 26.2 miles.) To start, I headed from my front door to Market street. I went on Mapquest and verified the distance to calibrate my pedometer. The sky was overcast, but walking quickly I was soon warm even in my light jacket.

The pedometer was correct to within 6% (close enough for my purposes) and so I started walking around. After zipping into Chinatown I walked across the Delaware and back again. Then I checked out the very cool Northern Liberties neighborhood and had an iced coffee and baklava at Elixir Cafe.

Then I headed back towards home. Unfortunately I got nowhere near a marathon. Instead, I walked only 12 miles. Ah well, maybe next time.

Cleaning

Last week I ran out of work to do, and so I've been hanging out here at home. Taking advantage of the downtime, I've made it my mission to clean a little.

Or perhaps a lot.

You see, in general I have no difficulty ignoring junk. If a pile of paper sits around for month or so it becomes part of the background, and I really don't notice it anymore. But eventually it'll occur to me, hmm, I wonder if I ought to look through that.

But, as part of the new reduced clutter regime, I've decided to get organized. I'm applying a ruthless standard to magazines (read it and pitch it...unless it's lawyer related.) Folders and binders are now the framework for all important paperwork. In fact, for the first time since moving to Pittsburgh in Nov. 1997 all of my critical paperwork is now in one place and sorted in a useful way (back then I was only organized because I had far fewer important docs.)

So far the living room is farthest along, then the kitchen, the spare bedroom, then my bedroom and finally the bathroom (untouched, so far.) I think I need to buy some dusters.

In plant news I just planted Basil seeds I harvested last March in a clay pot. In the other pot I put in the last of last years nasturtium seeds. In a larger plastic pot I put some daffodil bulbs. Outdoors the dirt on top of the Sedum Matrona is starting to crack. I suspect that means a few early leaves are ready to pop through (even though it's still too cold--any shoot that did poke through will die off.)

Ice?

Tonight the meteorologists (and weather people) are concerned we may get freezing rain or sleet, rather than snow.

While I still lived in Huntsville, AL, in middle school, we got for more than a week because of a huge ice storm. We were fortunate in that our power stayed on for all but a part of a day, but many areas particularly in the northwest of the state went days without electricity. And I seem to recall that that time too the meteorologists had difficulty predicting ice.

Fortunately I don't have to worry about driving in this weather. If it is icy tomorrow morning I'll wear duck boots to work, but otherwise I should be fine.

Finally, I have no plans for Valentine's Day. But hopefully I'll manage to avoid wailing and lamentations.

Cold

It's so cold outside that I'm walking crazy fast to and from work every day. I haven't had to break down yet to take the bus but I have been walking very quickly to the closest point I can go underground and out of the wind all the rest of the way to work (You can walk all the way underground from 12th and Locust to Suburban Station.)

At work we've been limited to 40 hours, so I've been having my weekends free. Friday I checked out the galleries in Old City for First Friday. Saturday I got my taxes done, and on Sunday got to hang out with Tom to watch the football game.

And now, since I want to get into work early so I can head off to the IVC's First Wednesday tomorrow, I think I'm going to bed at the outragously early hour of 10 PM.

Finally Snow

Tonight we're getting snow. Not too much, but the meteorologists are predicting maybe an inch, with some ice before it switches over to rain in the morning.

My apartment building gets its snow removed, but I went ahead and threw out some salt I had sitting around. So my sidewalk is clear...no liability here, move along.

I also did some cleaning of my plants and pots. I noticed yesterday that someone had stolen two of the smaller pots, one that I'd put out as an experiment, the other had a small pomegranate tree in it. I have no idea why people steal my pots, but to protect the strawberry plant and my pot of oregano I put them in the alley behind the house.

In addition, I put new dirt on the sedum matrona from a fresh bag and the pot that formerly held my zinnia. The zinnia was wonderful last year, and I'm definitely going to buy some more seeds this year.

I also cut the stem of the main stalk for the okra plant. I haven't decided whether I'll grow it again this year, while it was really cool to have okra, I think I'm going to try for more flowers. One possibility is rudbeckia.

A new printer and my New Years Resolutions

So I got back from Georgia, and now I'm trying to address bills and paperwork from last year, and start getting ready for Tax Season.

But for me to work with paper means I need a working printer, and my cheap printer from a couple of years ago finally died. So now I have an HP D5160 I picked up for about $80 at Staples on my way in to work today.

Now as to my resolution. I bought a pedometer, and I'm going to try to use it to make sure I'm getting a good level of physical activity. For example, getting to 10000 steps a day seems pretty doable, and works out to about 5+ miles a day. And finally, I'm trying to cut down on french fries.

December Update Goodness

Well, the first third of December is now over, and first up I need to note (for my future reference) that on Friday, Dec. 8, 2006 we had flurries that finally killed off some of my flowers. Prior to that, we'd never actually spent enough time below freezing to kill anything.

Of course, the high today was in the lower 50s.

I am still working as a contract attorney, doing document review.

For now, I'm fairly happy doing that, particularly so long as they can continue to provide solid 40 hour weeks (or better.)

And, I'm looking forward to going home to see my family in two weeks! I'll fly out on the Saturday before Christmas, and then return on January 3rd, very early in the morning.

Election Day Yay!

I get to vote! Woo-hoo!

Costume

I'm curious about the attire you are choosing for this event. Are you dressing like a vampire?
-Terri

As it turns out no, but vampire was definitely where I was headed when I walked into the Halloween Store down on Delaware Ave. But once inside, I realized I could go in a different direction: gangster.

I just got home from the store, and I'm wearing my gangster outfit. I bought the $5 fedora seperately. But most importantly, I bought spats!

Oh, and I also bought white paint for my face so I can be a zombie gangster, or ghost gangster, or something. Anyway, that's the plan!

Party Plans for Halloween

I just bought my tickets for Dracula's Ball on Halloween.

Good News Concerning My Bar Results

At about noon today the bar results were released, and I believe the first words from my mouth were "Thank You Lord." I did indeed pass the Pennsylvania Bar. I am not yet a lawyer, but I will be one very soon.

You can look me up here.

So a great worry is now lifted from me.

Let me again thank all of the people who have wished me well. I appreciated all your kind words and thoughts.

And now I'm to bed in a few minutes so put in another day of work tomorrow.

So it's tomorrow, eh?

The PA Bar Results are coming out tomorrow, October 11, 2006. Not Friday, as had been orginally scheduled. Which means that everyone else at work who'd also taken the bar were paranoid that the release could happen even earlier...like today. So far, that hasn't happened.

If I don't pass I'll be annoyed about the expense and hassle of taking it again in February, disappointed certainly, but it's not a big deal: if I don't pass, I'll take it again and probably will pass.

Still, I reckon I may be a bit distracted at work tomorrow waiting for the results. Hopefully I'll manage.

For now I'm just nervous.

Replacement Lavender

Today I finally received my box of lavender plants from burpee. These plants are to replace the plant stolen earlier in the summer. But this time, I've filled a large green pot, the identical twin to the pot now holding the okra, with six lavender plants.

Lavender is a perennial, and so the idea is to let the plant affix its roots now, in the waning days of the growing season, so that come spring it will be able to take full advantage of the summer.

While I was outside I also watered everything, and noted that, while they are not blooming, the nasturtiums do look like they may put out some blooms before the month is done.

Tomorrow...Back to Work

I left from Clarksville at 6 or so (local time) this morning with my brother, Mom, and Dad. We shared breakfast at the Capitol Hill Grille, where I managed to get a last country-ham biscuit in before flying back to Philly.

This was a happy trip. All of my immediate family in one place at one time. And on Saturday the Pruter family reunion, where I got to see a great number of my relatives and enjoy their company beside Couchville Lake.

Weekends!

I just finished a weekend trip to NYC. It was wonderful, if a bit tightly scheduled. And next weekend I'll be taking a flight to Nashville for a family reunion and to visit with my nephew and niece! It will be a blast.

In the meantime, I don't have any pictures, but I wanted to note that my second planting of Nasturtiums has proven very attractive to some green caterpillars, and that in my okra plant there hides a two-inch plus grasshopper who eyes me warily.

At this point of the year, though, I have no interest in killing any bugs. All the plants have done their primary jobs, and so if insects are interested in muching down on some leaves more power to them.

Hour 41

Overtime begins with the first minute after billing 40 hours in one work-week. (For this employer, that is a Monday through Sunday billing week.)

Tonight, when I left I had worked 41 hours so far this week. Every hour tomorrow and this weekend will be counted at time-and-a-half.

Sometimes, if you pray for work, you get it in spades.

Container Grown Okra

Here is a picture of my Okra plant (Baby Bubba Hybrid). Thursday I moved it to the larger green pot. I had been a little worried about repotting a plant that was actively producing seedpods, but my plant took to it like a champ. In fact just today I boiled up one of the pods to eat. With the temperatures here in the mid-eighties, the okra pods grow fantastically quickly: flower one day, mini-okra the next, four inches the next, and finally six to seven inches after three days.

You'll see some scarring: it was caused by the hot weather while I was away taking the bar. The okra resisted production for a few weeks after that, but now seems to have recovered.

Big Bright Happy Flowers