Feline Friday

The look on Bruce Lee's face sums up this week. It was a rough week here at home. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday people were here replacing all the floors. The cats were NOT happy, especially Jet Li, who now we know should have been named scared e cat. He has been Traumatised!! Bruce Lee pretty much rolled with it all and is fine. Jet Li...still after two days of no one else being in here and plenty of pampering is not fine. Tuesday was the worst. Jet got himself so worked up he was panting and planted himself in the one bathtub for HOURS even after everyone had left. We still have to have the bathroom floors done, but I said that had to wait a couple of weeks so that he could calm down.

It's a learning process...

I'm still learning about the climate and growing seasons here in the Midwest. SW Florida was the complete opposite growing season so it has been a little confusing. I have decided to start out VERY small and learn a little more each year so that by the time we get the land we want, I will be ready. The container gardening that I decided to try here this year is starting to yield some results.

The first of the 25 cayenne peppers that are on this one little plant has finally turned red and the green pepper plant has already yielded two large delicious peppers. Obviously pepper plants do very well in containers.

The rosemary, choc. mint, oregano, thyme and basil are all doing well and will be able to move inside to our bay window when winter gets close. I have been able to keep them going there since we moved here. I've been growing herbs in pots inside and out for years...that is a staple I just can't do without.

I did do one tomato plant in a container and it has not done very well and I will not try that again. It had a lot of tomatoes but so far the three that turned red had bottom rot from drying out too much in between watering's. I have three huge plants in the ground and this is a pic of the first RED one. I counted about 35 green ones of various sizes on the ground planted ones and they are all doing well.

All herbs, peppers and tomato's were grown in organic soil with no extra fertilizer or insecticides.

I am getting ready to try a large pot of various salad greens.

As you see, I'm just learning so mean while...we rely on the farmers market that is here with local produce June - October for my canning and freezing.

FELINE FRIDAY!

Meet Jet Li. His interests are long naps in the closet, tuna, golf balls, herbs and tormenting his brother and the humans that he lets live with him. Jet does have a softer side too though and enjoys snuggling and being brushed.

Find your JOY!

Moving was a much bigger adjustment than I thought it was going to be. We moved four years ago from a rather large city in South Florida to a rather small community in Southern Illinois...it was somewhat of a culture shock. Not so much better or worse, just very very different. I went from working 186 days a year to a full time job, the food, the weather, the people, EVERYTHING was different.

The first year here I was SO happy. It was my idea to move after all. I was experiencing the four seasons, snow, a quieter, slower pace of life, more time with our families, exploring new places I had never been...it was wonderful. Then almost a year to the day I remember thinking Ok, that was fun, now I'm ready to go home. I really wasn't wanting to leave, but it was just so much change at once that I realized I wasn't really sure exactly who I was anymore.

So I took some down time and just kind of played it day by day for the next two years to kind of figure out what was next. I wasn't unhappy, I wasn't depressed, as a matter of fact I was still glad we had made the move, but I think I just needed to just BE for awhile. I spent a lot of my free time reading, watching movies, just hanging out. Then like before it just hit me one day OK, let's get on with this next chapter. I realized that working so much more than I was used to was the biggest problem for me. I wasn't able to do so many of the things that I used to do because of a lack of time and that's why I felt like I didn't know myself anymore because I wasn't doing all the things I normally had done. I hadn't really changed, but being at work so much more had changed the circumstances.

I found a blog today http://www.homemakerswhowork.wordpress.com/ and it is one of my new favorite places to visit. It is filled with real women, with real lives just trying to figure out the course of their own personal journeys like I am. I plan to visit often to maybe get some more ideas on how to better balance life so that I'm not sacrificing because of too little time.