Went To Mom's For The Weekend

I decided that I really needed to talk to mom in the same room 'cause texting sucks and we had much to discuss so after making sure she didn't already have plans, I hopped a train last Friday and went to mom's house.

Mom and lil sis are currently in a tiny little place so I knew I'd be sleeping on the futon... I didn't realize how tired that would make me for the next few days.

Anyway, we got a lot of the room-mate stuff settled. We discussed what appliances we would like to buy for the household and looked over different models together. We discussed what we all consider to be healthy for our bodies and our minds (turns out we're all introverts!)

Our electricity rates on London vary by time of day, so we discussed using electricity wisely and leaving un-needed devices off during peak hours, as well as pre-cooking on the weekend to avoid too much cooking in the electric oven during peak times.

The food thing took up a lot of talking and we settled on these ideas:

• Eating only those foods which are good to us, meaning no gluten and no pork.
• Eating beans, quinoa, chickpeas, peanuts, lentils, and other plant sources of protein more often and meats less often.
• Eating a variety of vegetables daily, including "weird" ones.
• Buying dry goods(rice, beans, toilet paper, etc) in bulk and store them carefully.
• Going to the farmers markets every Saturday (or every other Saturday depending on needs) getting deals where they can be found and storing what won't be eaten that week in the freezer or as canned foods.
• Spending Sundays together pre-cooking and doing general prep work for the week ahead. This may involve making a large batch of pasta sauce of which only one jar gets used that week and the rest put away for later, or even just cutting the veggies for snack packs.
• Doing this prep work with a glad heart knowing it will help us eat healthy foods in reasonable amounts.(avoiding traps like popcorn-for-dinner-cause-I-don't-want-to-cook, or wow-I-haven't-eaten-all-day-and-that-whole-12"-cheesecake-looks-snack-sized).

We're also going to have a house warming party the first weekend so we can have everyone over at once and then not have to deal with social calls the next week or two while unpacking. :) No that's not really the reason, but it is a nice side effect. We've found these past few years that we all think fairly similarly and we not only enjoy each other's company, but also enjoy quiet time with the others around (reading, surfing, playing a video game) so I'm certain that living together is an excellent choice for us.

~ ~ ~

We will encourage each other to stretch and grow stronger physically

We will allow each other to grow spiritually in our own ways

We will clean our home enough to be healthy

We will relax in our home enough to be sane

We will honour our commitments

We will cherish each other

We will have fun

~ ~ ~

Getting up to Date

So last you heard, it was March and I was setting up for a work from home job. It looked like my long stint of under-employment was finally coming to an end. Unfortunately it turned out that "work as many hours as you want" REALLY meant "grab whatever hours you can AFTER the top performers get first pick of their preferred shifts, then sit by the computer every minute of every day in case someone decides to drop and hour or two so you can grab it before the other new people". 

After a week of that I decided to continue the active job hunting. After a few weeks of doing neither very well I told them that I had to quit to focus on finding stable employment. Then there were months of unemployment, and it was summer before I found my current job through a friend of a friend. Happily, I've been content here ever since. :)

During these past few years I've been living with my long-term girlfriend Megan and our housemate John. This is the first house I've lived in for more than a year, in the past 10 years. I love the feeling of stability, but this house just isn't suited to what I want out of my life. I want a farm. I want land I can call my own. I want to stop paying other peoples mortgages in the form of rent. I want to live somewhere I can plant a peach tree and enjoy the fruits of that labour.(pun intended)

It's kind of hard to describe what I want and what I plan, so I'm going to do the next post as a Q&A to get it all sorted out.

The cats are happy and, other than Willow needing some dental work this past winter, both are in good health.

A New Year; A New Beginging

Soooo... It's been almost a year.

It's been so long in fact that I considered creating a new blog for this new chapter of my life. I've decided against that idea because I don't want the past efforts lost to time. I want to bring with me the memories and lessons of these past few years.

That being said, there is so much we have to catch up on before I can even start telling you about now, let alone the future. But there's time for that. I'm not leaving the city for at least two more years so we have all the time we need.

For now however, it's past 1 am and I should be asleep. Goodnight.

Fertile Beds

Urea now shovelled into the beds. It came in water-soluble pellet form and looks like little hailstones. Hopefully the spring 2013 testing will show awesome nitrogen levels and we won't have to do any more store bought additions. I have a friend who's willing to give us straw for mulch, and Fall 2013 will be the first time we can add some of our own compost to the beds so that will be cool. :)

West side

East side

closer view

Sharing and Caring

These lovely plants are ready to go to work with me tomorrow.
I had a few too many so I'm giving them to my boss for her garden.

Bell pepper, cucumber, and cherry tomato.

And now that I've finally found a supplier of slips... the last ditch effort that hadn't been thrown out yet,
started sprouting. I suppose we'll have to find a home for it now. :)

Two big ones here and a smaller one just started on the other side.

Speaking of homes, we still haven't found the owner of this new stray in the neighbourhood. If you are in London Ontario and missing a (mostly) black cat, please let me know.

I didn't actually make it out back today before the sun went down but John watered earlier today so it'll hold til tomorrow. Our water barrel is helping greatly but it only has 1/2 usable capacity right now due to being flat on the ground. John's planning on building a platform so we can use that other 25 gallons between rains.

Neighbourly

Our lovely neighbour Carmen not only gifted us with a sturdy trellis to use for the squash, but later this evening we had a knock at our door... It was Carmen returning with a few gifts from her garden.

Full sized chives with flower buds in a bread bag.

A grocery bag of rhubarb.

I love this neighbourhood.