The Ramblings of a Mental Meanderthal

So I've started a compost pile. I've read conflicting reports; I could be able to use it in a year or as soon a few weeks. Depends on how long it takes for everything to decompose. I've thrown some shredded bills and credit card offers in a one-gallon container with a lid along with some crushed eggshells, water, soil, a few stray Cheerios, and a banana peel. It's a rubbish way to start (pun intended), but it's all I've got at the moment because I did a thorough fridge cleaning last week. I'll need a larger container eventually -- something that can hold enough compost for my patio but is still small enough for me to lug around -- but that can wait for a few weeks at least. I do need to do some research before then so I know what kind of a bin to get (and what I can afford), but that's what Google is for: Image found here . I also planted Italian parsley seeds in four toilet paper rolls and set them outside. They're getting plenty of sun, and i...

Terraforming. The term seems a bit pretentious, but I'm using the term for my tag anyway because I like it. So step one in my patio project is clearing out the rubbish that's been sitting there for over a year. (I used to think I was a pack rat, and that might be true, but really, I'm just really lazy and can't be bothered to pick up after myself.) Step two is putting things that need to go in the garage where they belong, and step three is clearing all the pots and the plot of earth of old weeds and dead plants. Step four is planting new stuff, which I have started even though I'm getting ahead of myself, and now that I've done that, I've set a deadline for steps one through three: when the seedlings are ready to be transplanted into the soil, I need to have everything else ready to go. (Step five will be making a couple of raised beds for the garden so I don't have to strain my back to maintain the garden, but I'm holding off on that until I s...

The friend I visit teach said something Tuesday night that made me say DUH in a big way: "If it's ugly and you can't do anything about it, then work on top of it so it looks like you did the ugly stuff on purpose." Why didn't I think of that years ago?! I've griped to everyone at one point or another about my kitchen. I live in a one-bedroom flat in SoCA, and I've been there for almost thirteen years. The kitchen is spacious and has lots of cabinet and drawer space, but the color combination is not one I would have chosen. The cabinets are ancient (the silverware drawer is falling apart) and varnished a dark-but-bright orangey-brown color. The counter tile, on the other hand, is a bright baby pink. It's like putting a bright pink sweater on a Weasley; you just cringe. The landlord, lovely man that he is, did a ton of plumbing, carpeting, and painting improvements to the flat a year ago, so I don't want to antagonize him by asking for new cabi...

The Library subscribes to a number of magazines that aren't circulated among the rabble patrons: Bottom Line , The Harvard Health Letter (I read a brilliant report about hiccups in there once), Library Journal , and Wired among them. The June 2010 issue of Wired had me at Hello because Woody and Buzz from Toy Story 3 are on the cover, but the article I go back to the most is "Don't Call It Gardening: the Wired Guide to Domestic Terraforming." Guys, you'd agree it's just gardening if you saw my patio. Whenever I see a bandwagon I ought to jump on, it isn't until I see it's well traveled before I actually get with the program. I visit teach a friend from church who plants spinach, squash, corn, tomatoes, and other vegetables in every free inch of soil around her apartment. "I ought to do that," I said, but I didn't do squat. (Or squash.) Then I saw the article in Wired and got a little more interested, especially since it suggest...