Monthly Archives: July 2008

Square Foot Garden 2

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We have three square foot gardens this year. The ornamental Kale is the beautiful ruffly plant on the first row. I adore how it looks. I think it is so beautiful. Unfortunately, I feel a bit guilty about it as well. The reason: I know that the leaves are good for decorating a plate, but people always ask me how you eat them. Do you eat ornamental kale? Does anyone have a good recipe?

I planted different vining (indeterminate) tomatoes at the back. They should get very tall. There are several basil plants, which are an essential for me. I love to make pasta, and basil is an essential ingredient in almost every dish. Hopefully, my heavy use of basil compensates in part for my cosmetic only use of the kale.

I haven’t grown oregano before. We’ll see how it goes.

Kale, Tomatoes, Basil, Oregano, Parsley

Kale, Tomatoes, Basil, Oregano, Parsley

School Choice

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I spoke with Amelia’s principal today. He told me that Amelia will be in the class of the teacher who we had requested. That is a huge relief. I actually had a nightmare this week about which school Amelia would be going to. The situation is that I have heard such negative things about one of the other possible teachers that I actually considered putting her at another school for a year in order to avoid that classroom.

I feel a bit guilty about being successful in my class placement request. I would prefer not to make a request at all. It seems inegalitarian. What about the kids whose parents are tuned out? On the other hand it doesn’t seem like the fact that some parents are tuned out is a good reason for me to tune out–not to actively seek what I believe to be best for my daughter. Continue reading →

Dying

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I don’t think I will ever master the early to bed/early to rise thing.  There just aren’t enough hours in the day and there are far too many things that I want to read.  Anyway, since I used all of my blogging time for reading I will have to keep this short. 

Read this fascinating article in the New York Times: http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/08/how-many-of-you-expect-to-die/?em&ex=1215835200&en=f672050fc5c32451&ei=5087%0A

You expect to die, right?  Because we all will.  But how would you like to die?  Of cancer?  No way!  Of heart or lung failure?  Doesn’t sound that great . . .?  Okay, so you want to settle for frailty and dementia?    40% of Americans die this way.  The fact is, the end of life is often not that great.  Interestingly, the comments on the Times article were strongly biased in favor of suicide and assisted suicide.  I would not have imagined so many would consider that an option.  Of course, I am not sure that the NYTimes is a balanced sample. 

 

Both my parents and my husband’s parents are alive and beginning to get older.  It is very sobering to realize that we and our siblings will have to start making tough choices with them/for them in the years ahead.  It is odd to think about this now, before the storm hits.  I see the storm on the radar, but I can’t predict when it will get here, nor whether it is a hurricane or a snowstorm.

Am I learning?

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It is sobering to return to my blog after so many months and to see that the last time I posted it was in gratitude for making progress and getting better.  I offered a specific example of one way in which I thought I had made good progress: I was not yelling nearly as much as when Amelia was younger. 

Well, today I was a yeller.  Ouch.  I am the Mommy.  I need to have more control. 

It is also sobering that more than six months ago I was trying to get into an early to bed early to rise sort of habit.  I have not been doing well at that.  In fact, there might be a connection there to the yelling.  I need to get more sleep and I need to do it by going to bed earlier and getting up earlier.  Since it is 11:14 already, I guess this means my new blogging career will have to wait until tomorrow