The Big News

The time has come to tell y'all.
(What better day for big news than on Leap Day?)

I've been mulling over a rather big decision for quite some time. And this big decision has effected my travel plans for this year.

You see, I just purchased my last online course, the ONE class I need to finish for my degree. I have twelve months to complete the course. And although at times I seriously have doubts about my capability to finish this class without SERIOUS help, the plan is to graduate next spring! Woot!

Don't you think that calls for a super special awesomely amazing trip?

Me too.

So my plan is to take a six month sabbatical from work next spring ('13)...  and move to Rome!!!!!

That's the deal, yo.

Now to get back to work on that class... And dream of the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps and Piazza Navona... It's going to be a fun year, 2012. And 2013 will be even better.

2012 Calendar Project: September

ISTANBUL (Not Constantinople)

"If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze on Istanbul."
- Alphonse de Lamartine

(PS: I think this calendar page may be my favorite so far. Istanbul is a photography dream come true. This one and Santorini.)

Tiny Beginnings

Well, I've done it. I've begun this year's attempt at farming a bit earlier than normal.
The early timing isn't because of the AMAZING 70-degree weather this week. It's because I decided to start my own seeds from last year's heirloom tomatoes.

This isn't something I want to do every year (maybe?), I just wanted to see basically if I could do it. I've heard that starting your own seeds is rather intensive and demanding of the right conditions. I don't have a lot of daily time/attention to give to this project, so I'm kind of just winging it.

Here's what I did:
-Lots of research. I research everything to death on the internet before I jump in.

-Really started this last year. I started off with last year's seeds, which I lovingly picked out of a couple of tomatoes, cleaned, dried and stored in ziplock bags (cracked open a smidge for airflow) stuck with magnets on the side of my fridge.

-The process:
I saved up a couple of egg cartons and bought some seed starter dirt. (You shouldn't use normal potting soil, it's not good for sprouting). I mixed up a bunch of the dirt in a big bowl with water until it was nice and evenly saturated, then plopped the dirt into the egg cartons (I cut off the tops of the cartons.) I poked a pencil eraser into each egg indentation and dropped in two tomato seeds, then covered up the hole with the displaced dirt.

 Next, I put six toothpicks (three on each side) in each egg carton bottom and then covered the whole thing with that glad sticky clingwrap stuff. This creates a kind of makeshift greenhouse. Keeps the warmth in for the seeds. I used a spray bottle to spray the dirt every day or two. (Just have to keep the dirt moist.)

-Now, I've read that the optimal temperature for seeds is between 70-75. I'm not about to pay the heating bill to keep my house between 70-75, so the temp for my seeds ranged between 55-75. The seeds didn't sprout though, until today (maybe yesterday?), when the weather turned crazy awesome warm. (75 today!)

 Here they are - my tomato sprouts! I planted two variations: A gorgeous pink/orange striped, meaty tomato called a Mr. Stripey, and a tiny little orange tomato that's kind of like eating candy. Can't remember the name. They're amazing though. My nephew would tell you as much if he actually spoke English (He's two. He has his own little person lingo going on.)

So, today was a success. I'm told that now I've got to remove the plastic and let these little guys get 12-16 hours of light (in my windowsill) per day for the next few weeks. When they develop real leaves I'll have to transplant them into larger containers and then eventually "hearten" them - expose them to the outside world during the day (shade only for the first 3-5 days) and bring them back inside at night. 5-9 days of heartening and then the plants should be ready to go into the ground or a large planter to properly grow and bear fruit.

That's not too complicated, right? Only about a million things could go wrong between now and the end of summer. (Including the evil racoons and deer that plague my neighborhood ravaging my plants again this year!)

Ugh. I don't know why I do this. It's the stubborn, Russian Swedish German farm girl in me.

*I really wasn't sure any of this would work until the sprouts actually popped up today. I was going to give this experiment another week or so before trashing it all and heading to the nursery to buy mature starter plants. 

**Make sure you do your own research and adjust for your climate if attempting to grow your own seedlings!

The Nearly Snowless Winter Retreat

A long weekend and a trip up the mountainside to Tahoe. Once again, good friends lent us the use of their cozy cabin and My sis, her hubby, my nephew and a couple of my friends piled into cars and headed North. We expected a big snowstorm on Saturday, but were terribly dissappointed. Luckily there was barely enough snow in a meadow about ten miles from the cabin to go snowshoeing. Around the lake, however, there was no snow.

Que Sera!

What did you do for President's Day weekend?

 Lake Tahoe

 While Snowshoeing

Appparently Cujo lives in Tahoe

All of the images in this post were taken with my new lens - a 50mm 1.4. I'm still getting the hang of it, but I pretty much love it so far.

Faraway Fantasy Friday: Granada

In the Spanish Sierra Nevada mountain range, northeast of Morocco, lies an ancient city. Granada. It's roots are both European and Moorish and today I'm dreaming about wandering through it's colonnaded courtyards, the clip-clap of my sandals on the tiled floors. Crisp mountain air filled with exotic spices, tapas and maybe even some flamenco dancing.

 Photo from: http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20120214-granada-beyond-the-alhambra

 photo by ZEUS74 on Google Maps.

Where do you want to be today?

Lar Reiu Revisited

A while ago, while exploring my city, I happened apon a park called Lar Reiu. It was a large old homestead with a windmill and potting shed, chicken coop, etc on several acres.

I loved the place at once. Though I was surprised that in a city park the outer houses were accessible. There was broken glass in them and basically thy spelled a recipe for homeless squatters and a haven for black widow spiders. But the place was just so cool. With a little tlc it could have been spruced up and preserved. I hadnt been back to lar reiu in quite a while, maybe six months, when I decided to pop over one afternoon. I was shocked to find that this had happened to all of the outlying structures surrounding the house:





TRAGEDY!

Happily, the house still stands. But all of the windows have now been covered up with garrish plywood. How obnoxious!

Suffice it to say that, sadly, Lar Reiu has seen better days.

Thoughts on Roommates

I've lived "on my own" (out of my parent's house) pretty much since the age of 18. Since then, I've had a lot of roommates. Housemates. Flatmates. Whatever you want to call them. I've always been assertive and have wanted things in my home and my space to be "just so." You probably understand this, because you've got your own way of doing things. And that's the point. Good roommates are hard to find. And of course, the definitive "good" is subjective because every single person has different requirements for cleanliness, respect, personal space, etc...

Why do I bring this subject up? Because I've had a phenomenal roommate for the past 2.5 years, but she's recently decided to move out and try other things in life. I say good for her!

But now I've got to find a new roommate.

It's a chore! I've got to risk inviting semi and complete strangers into my home for a few minutes, tour them around and sit down and chat and decide whether or not I'd like to invite them into my personal living space and adapt to theirs.

Yuck.

As a single woman who would like to be a happily married woman, I'd like to say this to all of the world:

Single women do NOT want to live with other single women. Not really. We do it out of necessity. We do it to pay the bills and to be social. But seriously, what grown woman wants to share her kitchen or bathroom with another grown (equally set in her ways and picky) woman? Deep down. None.

It's not optimal. It's like in the movie Elizabethtown when the heroine calls herself a "Substitute Person." We are the substitute people. The stand-ins.

Just thought you all should know.


Now back to the roommate search...

Like An Elevator...

On Tuesday I was chagrinned to find that the licence plate mount on the back of my Wrangler had given up the ghost. Well, more like flopped over like a dead fish. The entire thing was being held, flailingly, onto my car by the electric cables that supply the light over the plate with power. Flop, clunk. Flop, cluuuuunk clunk cluk thud! That's the type of noise I heard while driving yesterday.

Last night I was pulled over by a police officer for the first time in a VERRRY long time. I heard her say from the back of my car - You know you don't have a lic--- Oh, there it is. Your license plate is hanging off your car."

"Yes," I told her "Thank you ma'm. I have an appointment to have it fixed on Thursday morning."

"Okay, have a good evening." Said she.

Phew! Why are run-ins with police so stressful? Even when one knows the reason for the run-in and that it is pretty much a null issue. Not that I have run-ins with police. But geesh. The idea of maybe getting a fix-it ticket is stressful!

SO this morning I took my fish-flopping license plate (still attached to said jeep) to the mechanic, who told me I could pick it up (fixed) after 4pm. Done.

Walking to the BART commuter train after dropping off my ailing auto I saw a chipper gentleman sweeping the sidewalks and tending the landscape for a local establishment. I smiled at him and he responded "Good morning, how are you today, miss?"

"I'm well, thank you. How are you?" I returned.

He grinned and said "Oh, you know, I'm like an elevator."

"Up and down?" I laughed.

"Up and down, my sister, up and down!"

Aren't we all?

Lately in Oakland

It's been quiet in Downtown Oakland ever since the standoff with the police that resulted in over two hundred arrests the weekend before last. Well it had been quiet until yesterday.

There I was, just-a-mindin' my own business, working away at my computer when I heard the shouts outside my window and saw this:

Yup. More protests.

I'm not a so-called "1%-er". Not even close. I'm a 88.9%-er, in my estimation. Not part of the elite. Not part of the ten percent out of work due to circumstances beyond their control.  I'm part of the 88.9 percent of the rest of the nation that go to work forty-plus hours a week to make a living for myself. I'm definitely NOT part of the .01 percent (actually probably much, much less than that) who are yelling, screaming, destroying city property, vandalizing private businesses, costing the working man and woman work days, and costing the cities/taxpayers hundreds upon thousands of dollars that we simply do not have to spare.

These people are the minority of the minority. They have discredited themselves and are now simply a group of terrorists on our streets causing mayhem, anger and confusion.

2012 Calendar Project: April

April in Cairo. Yes please!