Apologies for yet another extended period of silence. We are still waiting on Google Fiber to install and set up Internet in our area, so I'm without it at home. It's making me a little (okay, a lot) crazy. Since most of the work I do happens over the web, and I just learned it will be another month until we're all set up, I'm about to break down and get a hotspot to hold us over. It may not be the most frugal thing in the world, but I'm going to start losing money soon if I can't get online when I need to, and driving to the studio at midnight to send quick edits for a copywriting project is perhaps a little more frugal than I'm willing to be. Plus, that wastes gas money. (So there?)
Moving and going back to freelance is a lot to do at one time, and I've been neglecting more than this blog. I hate to admit it, but I also sort of abandoned our community garden. It wasn't purposeful, I've just been so behind on everything I hadn't really made it back to the old neighborhood to tend to it. Yesterday, I finally stopped by. It was overgrown in a pretty sad way, and we lost most of our beans, some kale and some Japanese eggplant. I wouldn't feel so terrible about all of that, had I not recently thrown out some of my CSA veggies because we didn't cook them in time. I have excuses — it took about two weeks to get the kitchen fully unpacked, and the move was exhausting — but I hate wasting food.
On the bright side, I was able to get some herbs to transplant to our extra lot, and I made a very happy discovery: we have carrots. Real, full-grown carrots.
I also made a not-so-happy discovery earlier in the week: Brown recluse spiders. In our basement. Where our new bedroom is. I am FREAKING OUT.
For the two or so weeks we've been in the new house, we'd been sleeping an old queen-size bed in what will be the guest room on the main floor. Our king-size bed was delivered this week, so we finally moved into our new "master suite" which was built, but never finished, in the basement. It's a very cool space, with an old fireplace, a bathroom vanity made of reclaimed wood, and a Kyle-size shower that makes me feel like I'm at a spa. But it needs light covers, trim, and caulk in a bad way.
While cleaning the room in preparation for the bed delivery Tuesday, I discovered that we have a brown recluse spider issue. The issue being: we have them. I never saw them upstairs, but they're in the basement. It doesn't seem to be a crazy infestation or anything, but one is one too many. And I've definitely seen more than one. I've put together a natural repellent that I think is working, and I'm finally a little less frazzled than I've been for the last few days, so I'm not going to work myself into a frenzy right before the weekend. So, more on the spideymonsters later. Probably much more.
For now, here are some images of life lately. Well, at least the non-creepy parts.
Work has been pretty great and I've been able to do a lot of food styling. (Don't worry, these pictures aren't the final product, just process. I'm the stylist, not the photographer... and do you really think I'd leave an ice cube on the table like that?)
My partner Jeff takes the real photos.
At home, we finally unpacked the last of the kitchen stuff and got back to cooking. I was able to prepare two weeks' worth of colorful CSA potatoes for dinner on Wednesday (with enough for leftovers last night), and Kyle grilled beer can chickens. (Yes, that's Bud Light you see up their butts; it's surplus from our wedding.)
Jack is not at all bothered by sleeping the basement, but he chases bunnies into the bushes in the dark and eats his own poop, so I'm not that surprised. I just hope he doesn't get a brown recluse bite down there on the floor.
That's all for now. Hopefully I'll get a hotspot this weekend and get back to regular posting next week. Unless, of course, I end up in the hospital from a brown recluse spider bite — which would be really terrible considering I'm currently uninsured.
Jack looks mighty content.
ReplyDelete