Ladybug, Ladybug is 16,000+ words at the moment and going strong. So far, this is my favorite line:
Cleaning up blood is one thing, but I draw the line at poison-laced vomit.
I'll leave the context to your imaginations. :)
Saturday, the August/September electric/waste/water/trash bill came. This was 8/22-9/22, if I remember correctly (I don't have it here at my desk at the moment.) Electricity was back down to $65 and some change. Water/Waste $13 (each) and some change. I turned off the air conditioners for good on 9/1, so there were some cooling days on that bill. I just don't know how many.
Maybe next year we'll keep a list and mark down when the air conditioner is on and for how long, but this year I can't really complain. It wasn't a mild summer, especially towards the end, but my electric bill still only rose by $20+ for a couple of months.
So we've survived our first summer at House St. Clair. In truth, I was only uncomfortable sleeping about one week out of the whole summer. Maybe less, even. That's acceptable to me.
Fans are lifesavers. Really. The windows are closed now, and the fans are down for the first time in months. We're getting used to sleeping without background noise--and we'll get used to sleeping with background noise once summer rolls around again.
The animals survived with a minimum of suffering. The fact that Mabel really likes ice cubes helped quite a bit, and her fan and her block of melting ice in her crate on days she was alone helped as well. I never heard the cats complain, but Chloe and Misty will miss their cool sleeping spot on top of the freezer once it's in the basement.
My upstairs windows stayed open all but the handful of times that the humidity in the house got too high to bear. Once I closed them and ran the air conditioners together, it did help quite a bit. But we still opened up the windows and ran the fans at night.
And hanging out our clothes helped as well for keeping the heat down in the kitchen. I'm not sure what the perfect work-around would be for the kitchen situation to work better, but we'll see what I can work out for next year, since the third (small) air conditioner is no longer here, thank goodness.
Strangely enough, the dining room door, which previously did not close all the way, magically decided to start closing all the way over the summer. Now it's starting to stick again. One of these days, I have a feeling it will stick for good, and then we'll really be stuck. Thank goodness there are two doors into the dining room.
Garden-wise, out of 10 tomato plants, I ended up with about 3 gallons of tomato juice and enough tomatoes to eat for months. I still have loads of tomatoes on the vine, and hope that some of them will ripen since the weather's supposed to be in the 70s this week. I think my tomato plants outdid themselves. I really didn't expect to have as much of a crop with only 10 plants. I'm not complaining! (I think I have good dirt!)
I planted basil, and three of the plants look like basil trees with inch-thick trunks, and thyme, and rosemary. The bird's nest gourd went nuts all over everywhere, the zucchini is still bearing, although I don't think I'll get any more off of it, and I discovered that I love, love, love fresh picked cucumbers. (Of the English variety. I'm definitely planting them again next year.) My mint isn't going to make it across the sidewalk and into the grass, but it's trying really hard to do so. Next year, I'm going to have to plant and sell mint plants, I think.
My hardy hibiscus plants are doing well, but the ones I got from ebay haven't bloomed and probably won't bloom this year. Considering they grew about three feet the first year, I'll forgive them. Next year, I should have white with pink centres, red, and hot pink hibiscus in my garden.
Next year, I'm going to plant quite a bit. I'm already making a mental list, which will be a paper list as soon as I get my hands on a current seed catalog. (CRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Oh, yeah, and my lettuce bore quite well as well. I'll plant it again in that same spot next spring.
The one thing I do have to do is weed my garden before winter, and thin the irises that never bloomed. Not sure what I'll do with them, but I'll find a place to put them somewhere.
All in all, I'd have to say that the first summer (growing season, even) here at the House was a success. I'm happy with what I got out of my garden, and I'm planning for next year already.
Cleaning-wise, well, it's coming along. That's about all I can say. The only room that really need to be organized yet is still my office, despite the week in July and many attempts to organize it afterwards. But now that it's fall and time to work inside instead of outside (although there are still plants to be dug up and brought inside, etc.) I will be concentrating on my office.
I'm not going to do many new things for the craft show this year. I've found too many leftover things from past craft shows. I'm contemplating just pricing everything really cheap to get rid of it so I can start with a clean slate for next year. (Like $1.00 necklaces, for example.) I will be making some dolls and maybe a couple of bears, but that's it. (And after my b-day. I'm not starting on anything until after Ladybug, Ladybug is finished.)
Anyway, I've been here long enough, writing away. It's time for me to write again, but somewhere else. :)
Cleaning up blood is one thing, but I draw the line at poison-laced vomit.
I'll leave the context to your imaginations. :)
Saturday, the August/September electric/waste/water/trash bill came. This was 8/22-9/22, if I remember correctly (I don't have it here at my desk at the moment.) Electricity was back down to $65 and some change. Water/Waste $13 (each) and some change. I turned off the air conditioners for good on 9/1, so there were some cooling days on that bill. I just don't know how many.
Maybe next year we'll keep a list and mark down when the air conditioner is on and for how long, but this year I can't really complain. It wasn't a mild summer, especially towards the end, but my electric bill still only rose by $20+ for a couple of months.
So we've survived our first summer at House St. Clair. In truth, I was only uncomfortable sleeping about one week out of the whole summer. Maybe less, even. That's acceptable to me.
Fans are lifesavers. Really. The windows are closed now, and the fans are down for the first time in months. We're getting used to sleeping without background noise--and we'll get used to sleeping with background noise once summer rolls around again.
The animals survived with a minimum of suffering. The fact that Mabel really likes ice cubes helped quite a bit, and her fan and her block of melting ice in her crate on days she was alone helped as well. I never heard the cats complain, but Chloe and Misty will miss their cool sleeping spot on top of the freezer once it's in the basement.
My upstairs windows stayed open all but the handful of times that the humidity in the house got too high to bear. Once I closed them and ran the air conditioners together, it did help quite a bit. But we still opened up the windows and ran the fans at night.
And hanging out our clothes helped as well for keeping the heat down in the kitchen. I'm not sure what the perfect work-around would be for the kitchen situation to work better, but we'll see what I can work out for next year, since the third (small) air conditioner is no longer here, thank goodness.
Strangely enough, the dining room door, which previously did not close all the way, magically decided to start closing all the way over the summer. Now it's starting to stick again. One of these days, I have a feeling it will stick for good, and then we'll really be stuck. Thank goodness there are two doors into the dining room.
Garden-wise, out of 10 tomato plants, I ended up with about 3 gallons of tomato juice and enough tomatoes to eat for months. I still have loads of tomatoes on the vine, and hope that some of them will ripen since the weather's supposed to be in the 70s this week. I think my tomato plants outdid themselves. I really didn't expect to have as much of a crop with only 10 plants. I'm not complaining! (I think I have good dirt!)
I planted basil, and three of the plants look like basil trees with inch-thick trunks, and thyme, and rosemary. The bird's nest gourd went nuts all over everywhere, the zucchini is still bearing, although I don't think I'll get any more off of it, and I discovered that I love, love, love fresh picked cucumbers. (Of the English variety. I'm definitely planting them again next year.) My mint isn't going to make it across the sidewalk and into the grass, but it's trying really hard to do so. Next year, I'm going to have to plant and sell mint plants, I think.
My hardy hibiscus plants are doing well, but the ones I got from ebay haven't bloomed and probably won't bloom this year. Considering they grew about three feet the first year, I'll forgive them. Next year, I should have white with pink centres, red, and hot pink hibiscus in my garden.
Next year, I'm going to plant quite a bit. I'm already making a mental list, which will be a paper list as soon as I get my hands on a current seed catalog. (CRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Oh, yeah, and my lettuce bore quite well as well. I'll plant it again in that same spot next spring.
The one thing I do have to do is weed my garden before winter, and thin the irises that never bloomed. Not sure what I'll do with them, but I'll find a place to put them somewhere.
All in all, I'd have to say that the first summer (growing season, even) here at the House was a success. I'm happy with what I got out of my garden, and I'm planning for next year already.
Cleaning-wise, well, it's coming along. That's about all I can say. The only room that really need to be organized yet is still my office, despite the week in July and many attempts to organize it afterwards. But now that it's fall and time to work inside instead of outside (although there are still plants to be dug up and brought inside, etc.) I will be concentrating on my office.
I'm not going to do many new things for the craft show this year. I've found too many leftover things from past craft shows. I'm contemplating just pricing everything really cheap to get rid of it so I can start with a clean slate for next year. (Like $1.00 necklaces, for example.) I will be making some dolls and maybe a couple of bears, but that's it. (And after my b-day. I'm not starting on anything until after Ladybug, Ladybug is finished.)
Anyway, I've been here long enough, writing away. It's time for me to write again, but somewhere else. :)
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