Random Thoughts of ABWF

Yes  I am still alive and, although I haven’t totally abandoned it, I have been neglecting the blog something horrible.  Thanks to my two regular readers for the comments and emails asking what’s up.

There is no single reason why I haven’t been writing- my computer didn’t die, I didn’t lose my hands to flesh eating bacteria and no sentinel event caused me to stop.  I just got wrapped up in “real life”.  I’ve drawn some pretty firm lines for myself about what I will and will not post about with work being pretty high up on the Do Not Post List.  Settling into the new job, the crayziness/absurdities I have encountered with my new employer and my own frustration about things that aren’t the way they should be but that I have absolutely no power to change have all kept me occupied but just can’t be discussed here.  Things are OK at work, I’m just still learning the system and how to work things so that the changes that need to happen start happening at least on an individual level since I really don’t have the power/standing to bring about change system wide.  I’ve been able to impact a few things on the individual level, but the fact that I even had to intervene has royally ticked me off because they were situations that didn’t need to happen.

Anyway, enough about work (Do Not Post List and all).  I’ve made one quick trip home during my impromptu posting hiatus.  It was for a wedding shower for my sister and I pretty much went to that and spent time with Mom.  I did see one childhood friend- we arranged to meet up at her gym on the Sunday morning and I got a workout in.   She’s coming near where I live next month with her family for vacation and we are going to meet up again.  I’m really looking forward to it.

Other than the quick trip, I’ve mostly been working and going to the gym.   I also started working in the yard/garden.  I’m living in a rental and it looks like the backyard was neglected for a while.    However, at some point in time someone had cleared out the grass for about 2 1/2 feet along the fenceline surrounding the yard.  There were a few sad looking bushlets and the remnants of some pine bark mulch.  I’ve been working on cleaning up these “beds” so that I can plant some flowers and veggies.  The vegetables are going to be a huge experiment as I’ve never tried to grow anything more than tomatos.  I do have some good tomato plants this year too.  There is a guy at work who is very into growing tomatos- he saves seeds each year and starts the seedlings the next season.  He gave me a few seedlings to plant and some instructions for what works around here.  I also bought one from the nursery section of a local store.  The picture on the label was too cool to resist.  It is a red zebra tomato.  The outside of the tomato is striped in red and yellow whenit is ripe.  I found this blog entry via a google image search if any of you want to see one actually growing.  I’m also trying to grow some simple vegetables that are supposedly idiot-proof to grow.  The seedlings have started and will be planted soon.  I have had some misadventures already (minor ones) but I’ll save that story for another day.