Once in a Blue Moon...

Of wells and iris beds
Saturday, September 01, 2007

*falls over and is dead*

Not a bad day, just tired. I'm actually in a pretty good mood.

Colin and another guy came over and worked on the roof. Man, they got SO much done…he’s so awesome. Now to pray it doesn’t rain, because it’s not tarped. >_<
It’s working out really well. He’s aware of my problems in *some* quarters, and he and I are good, thank God for that.

But, while I was out digging up my Iris bed to separate the rhizomes and replant, as well as plant some more (I have one called Night Owl…it’s black. Oooh. And Queen of Fire! And Rainbow Catcher. And some of them are re-blooming, which would mean Irises twice a year, if they take!) my mum came out and told me that we didn’t have any water. She’d been doing the first load of laundry, and the well pump just kept turning off. This is great, right? Because it’s not just the weekend, it’s Labor Day weekend. So we had a hard time finding anyone who would come out. The guy who put in the well did, though, despite the fact he’s retired, and analyzed the situation…and we need a new pump. So his replacement is coming Tuesday. No water till then, though if we fiddle with things, we’ll get enough to flush the toilets, using a bucket.

So, guess who’s sneaking down to the school gym to bathe? >_<

Anyway! I ran down to town with the laundry and re-washed it because the clothes, even though they’d reached the rinse cycle, where covered in some sort of grit. And I’m drinking a milkshake from the Dairy Queen (Blueberry…never had once before, it’s nice!) next door, so really, it wasn’t a bad trip. I bought some gallons of spring water, because the spring I was hoping to pinch some water from is all damaged and not flowing well, and I figure we’ll survive. I’m not thrilled with the expense of the pump, coming now when I’m paying people to fix the house, but such is life.

When I got back home, I replanted my Irises at last. The bed looks pretty nice, I think, and I’m really, really hoping that every single one will take. I want to see those glorious colors in real life! It’s amazing, I started with 7 plants. Four of them died right off, so I moved the rest, and now I have almost twenty. Before I planted these new ones I had a rust-red, a yellow and a blue (which didn’t bloom this year, so I moved it to the bed. It was next to the house.) so it’ll be fun to have some more colors.

Am I blathering? I think I am. I’ll go finish sewing my blouse, perhaps…the Ren-Faire is now going on, and I am trying to convince mum, whose getting to go (Yay! Is it pathetic my mum is one of my very best friends?) that she wants to wear one of my costumes.

Also: Go here and download free eBooks! They are sponsored by companies, so the authors get .50 cents a download. Inverloch, that fabulous comic I told you about, is there, as is a neat book on pirates, a interesting book on culinary words, and tons of classics. I see now it even has “Penny and Aggie”, which I loved, but got lost on…somehow I didn’t start reading in the right place, and got mixed up. If you are a college student, this might save you some change.

Labels: gardens, iris, wells

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books and posies
Thursday, May 31, 2007

You never know how much you rely on your printer until it stops working.

Ah, well.

More good news!

Finally, "A Necklace of Rubies" will see print as well as "Every Word I speak." The lady who is publishing them seems really excited about them...she called my writing almost hypnotic. :)

I am unbeleivably excited. It's wonderful to feel as if I'm moving forward, really moving forward. It looks as if they will be published under their own cover as an ebook, then, possibly, be published in an anthology with other stories, whether mine or other people's it's not yet determined.

With Blue Moon coming out in October, it's my year to prove that I am an actual author, not a secretary with a hobby.

By the way, tonight is a blue moon. Happy blue moon, everyone!

I've been reading the 6th Harry Potter book. After I'm done with it, I plan on getting out my copy of Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things, which i've had since December and not yet read. Neil Gaiman tends to put me in the short story writing mood, and I'd like to write some more. Read some fairy tales, get some inspiration.

So, I have time to talk about last night, where i stayed out quite late going to Gabriel Brothers (If you ever wondered where unwanted clothes went when the store gave up trying to sell them, the answer is Gabe's. It's a rather large store that gets in all the torn, miss-sewn, unwanted clothes from major manufacturers. A lot of it isn't damaged at all...the little black dress I'm wearing right now, for instance...but it's hard to wade through the huge amounts of damaged/way too small clothes without spending a lot of time. And one does get heart broken, when the huge rack of very lady like blue roses on white vitangy dresses are all 10's.) and to Lowe's and Wal Mart and Ollie's (another discount outlet where the unwanted things end up.)

I bought a lot of spearmint, peppermint, lavender and rosemary. Barely managed to keep myself from buying a rosebush called "Veteran's Honor", which sports these huge, deep red blossoms, barely managed from buying a peace rose...because i do not have rose luck. I love roses. Deeply. I stand there in the middle of the flats of roses, looking at the yellows and pinks and lavenders and get wistful. If i had my way i would have a huge garden of them.

The problem is that I like roses, but they don't like me. And I own more books on the subject than one would really consider possible to have found.

Ah, well. There are other things. The Iris are doing well and I intend to add more this fall. I bought more spearmint and peppermint to add to the peppermint I have, and lavender and rosemary. I have this small triangle of a space, where I am growing various herbs, mostly sage and mint, things that i think will come back. So far i've been useless at harvesting the crop...i tend not to, because it's so pretty on the plant. *rolls eyes* but I want to try this year. Also, the Dalia's and the gladiolas seem to be doing well right now.

I also found some awesome books. I found a copy of John Gallagher's Geisha: A Unique World of Tradition, Elegance and Art. It's a really wonderful book because it has these sections of layered plastic pages. You look, and you see the maiko, dressed in her garb, then you turn the page, and you see her standing there without the outer robe, then you turn the page and she's in her under dress, all the way until she's standing there with only her underwear and no makeup. It's really quite neat. Ollie's in amazing, because I find a lot of really nifty books there.

Nonfiction is it's own country, for me, because...as a woman who has gone to ton and tons of library book sales, used book stores, etc., I can tell you that the same nonfiction titles turn up a lot less often than the same fiction. So, it's easy to find a copy of the latest Stuart Woods, but not so easy to find good nonfiction books. For me, for nonfiction, I am a lot less willing to make a leap of faith for nonfiction, I really like to see the book first.

I do make that leap, of course...I love good nonfiction books, and I can get them online a lot easier.

Oh. Lunch is over. Alrighty, then. :)

Labels: blue moon, books, gardens, plants, short stories

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