A Curious Statistical Anomaly

I’ve been feeling so crappy the last few days– can barely get out of my own way let alone think about anything coherently. It’s been a real challenge.

Tonight I think I figured it out. The oncologist said I could stop taking the medication I was on after I finished the last dose. That was three nights ago now. Guess my body is trying to adjust to not taking it anymore. I’ve been on it for nearly 5 years so I guess maybe the crappy-ness will go away once it gets flushed from my system.

This must be one of those darned if you do, darned if you don’t things. But, I’m thinking this theory of crappy-ness is probably the right one and in a week or so I’ll feel a lot better. Please, let me live with the fantasy for a while.

Today, we spent most of our day outside doing yard work. We’ll it seemed like all day but was only about 3 hours. We’d done housework first. But anyway we managed to do:

• finished weeding the strawberry patch
• planted 22 new strawberry plants
• pulled all the creeping jenny in the yard (before it goes to seed and explodes all over the place.
• pulled all the sprouting tees from the yard and garden area.
• planted a rhubarb plant in a container (we lost the last one to moles/voles so this should keep it alive.
• planted a tub of potato plants (one of those new cloth containers for potatoes from Gardener’s Supply
• Moved 2 wooden pallets, a wooden table top, and a glass door from next to the house to the shed area out of sight.
• Cleaned up all the bits of plastic plant identifiers from previous years, old bits of lawn decorations, and just plain crap and put it in the trash for pick up.
• Put up the Spring flag near the driveway entrance– Home is where the heart is.
• Hyperion here:  She forgot the most important part:  Paying attention to the cat.  Emnot was all over us the entire time, rubbing our ankles, flopping on her back and waving her paws in the air, and generally begging for pettings … which we liberally supplied.  She may be an attention hog, but she does make working in the garden more fun.

Yesterday we went to the Home & Garden Show in Upper Marlboro, MD at the Equestrian Center. We set up appointments to have people come and give us estimates on replacing our windows in the living room (all single pane uninsulated glass– talk about your money going out the windows … we lose heat in winter and the cool in summer), fixing the leak in the skylight in the bedroom, and finishing our basement (office area and guest room/mother-in-law area), and finishing the cleaning/staining on the rest of the outside of the house (we already did the front half that we could reach.).

So, this has been a good, productive weekend even though I’m behind in my reading. Hopefully I’ll catch up over the coming week. I’ve had three really pretty good days except for the migraine on Friday so I’ve been pushing things to get some of the physical stuff done. Now, it’s back to work on the rest of my To Do list.

Hope your weekend was productive and fun too.

Well, not really cabbages and kings, but close enough.  First a whine: today is day 2 of a migraine — I’m done now, but my head seems not to care.  Anyway, it has been awhile since I posted and I thought I should catch up a bit.  First, we’ve been pushing back on the leaf raking or rather…gaining ground.  Here’s a photo of the garden area now that the leaves have been off for a week or so.

You can see there’s more green on the ground. The Hostas are pushing up on the upper level nearer the house. The herbs are greening up in the circle. We’ve still got to pull up the old square foot gardens and replace with the new ones that are of plastic wood-look boards that won’t rot after a couple of years like the current one. We getting ready to put in the potatoes and strawberry plants. I’ve still got to start seeds or if not soon, we’ll need to buy vegetable plants.

I’ve complained about how far the house is from the mailboxes (about 1/4 mile) so here’s a photo of the house (you can see it through the trees. This is from about slightly less than 1/4 of the way back to the house.

Spring is definitely here in spite of the temperatures being between the low 40s and the high 80s at a day’s notice. Here’s two photos of our Peony Trees — one has pink flowers and the other white. Yesterday morning they had buds just starting to look like they were thinking about opening. Last evening they were partially open. Today this is what I saw.

Meanwhile, we have four azalea bushes. One has bloomed and is nearly all gone. One is in bud and about ready to open up. The other two are way behind and I hope will bloom later.

One of the joys of getting all the leaves raked up is the wild flowers that show up. This is a closeup of a violet looking flower that is now covering a lot of the lawn area of the yard. Makes for some smiles when you look down at the ground.

We’ve recently been adopted by a cat. I’m highly allergic to cats so Emmy is going to be an outdoor cat though it is obvious that Emmy feels that indoors would be much better. We’ve build a “feral cat house” for her/him (we don’t know what gender Emmy is yet — but from now on I’ll default to her). She’s actually sleeping in the house so it is being used.

Emmy showed up during the last snow storm in Maryland back in March. She was one of several cats that got dumped out on the main road. At first there were two cats that came to beg food at our house — Emmy and another cat with similar marking but smaller. Emmy stuck around but the other one seems to have made other arrangements. Emmy is affectionate, quiet (she occasionally squeaks, not meows, but she can purr). We can’t help but give her the appropriate scritches and pats when she strops herself about our legs. She’s comes trotting out when I go out to rake and watches from under a bush or by laying nearby. Of course after I get a big pile she needs to attack it to see that it is animal free.

Last week she brought me a dead something — mouse or vole. I gave praises and such but she hasn’t brought another one to me yet. We’re hoping she’ll help with the mole/vole problem we have in our yard. The ground is all spongy from their burrows.

Anyway, she’s a lovely cat. Calm. Loving. Sweet tempered. How anyone could dump such a lovely thing is beyond me. I’d heard stories of people dumping their animals out in rural area but this is my first run in with that. It’s as if they think the animals they have as pets are just disposable items not worth thinking about. Get tired of them and dump them off to fend or themselves or die. If the animal is really lucky they might get taken in by someone but there are only so many animals that rural areas can take in. Dumping animals is wrong no matter how you look at it — but then I wouldn’t wish Emmy to have to live with the sort of people who would dump an animal out on a country road.

Of course, our next problem is that Emmy, for all her good characteristics, is very leary of getting too close to us and skitters away if we move too fast or startle her. At some point we need to trap and neuter — guess that’s when we’ll learn the actual gender of this lovely cat. Meanwhile, we try to socialize her to having people around.

The subject line has been our short cut for saying that the day was one where you just seem to work and never really get anything done that shows.  It’s a line from Real Genius, a film that’s funny in a geeky way before so many studios began to make movies for the geek crowd and really trying too hard.

Anyway, it’s been a madhouse here.  We’re still trying to get the gardening area cleared.  I’m trying to make a dent in the piles in my office (dining room but honest no one could eat in here anymore).  It seems like the books just pile up as we run up to the issues going live.  Then I have to pull the older books in order to get shelf space for the new ones as I  wait for the reviewers to send in requests.

Meanwhile, the potted plant we got for the deck is just beautiful.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll manage to remember to get a photo before it’s too dark.  It’s been beautiful the last few days — in the 90’s.  In our part of the world there’s also a bit of a breeze so going outside to rake and clear isn’t too bad.  I’ve been only doing about a 1/2 hour per day so that I don’t have a full-blown fibro flare.  So far, it’s working.

Today though I had to wash the kitchen floor.  Of course that was after sweeping the entire living room, dining room, kitchen, hall and bathroom.  I hate brooms and mops.  I’d really like to find a way to do these activities without having to spend an hour or two with ice packs on and off afterwards.

Had a bit more energy today until I did the floors.  Then I felt like a wrung out dishrag — limp and flat.  Couldn’t seem to get my head in gear the rest of the day so read some and cleared off old email and things that just don’t take rocket science to do.

Well tomorrow is another day and I’m hoping to be more “awake” and caffeinated then.  Hope springing eternal and all that.

Today was one of those days where you go as fast as you can all day but never get anywhere. I sent out the notices on the reviews on SFRevu and Gumshoe Review. Moved books forward for another month for the reviewers. Entered some news items. All while doing the wash, folding clothes, and other household tasks.

Of course some of the slow down is due to the fact that from Friday evening (the WSFA Meeting) through to Sunday night. I was out straight doing one thing or another. We ran all our errands on Saturday. Raked another big section of the yard. And on Easter Sunday went over to a friends for Lunch and a walk along the Potomac — followed by dessert and some good talk and camaraderie.

It was all great but the fibro kicked in today and I feel like I’m walking through molasses — not, you understand, that I’ve ever spilled enough molasses to walk through so that I could compare the experiences. Nevertheless, today it just seems that if there is a speed between dead stop and slow I’ve found it or maybe even the setting between that one and stop.

But, I did make a dent in the small chores that have to be done before gearing up for the next issue. But now I think I’ll call it an early night and see if more sleep makes any difference.

Had to rip out nearly an entire sock yesterday. I’ve managed to finish the toe so far but have a bit of a way to go until I get to the leg area where I dropped a stitch and didn’t notice until it was way to late.

Is there anything other than knitting that teaches a person humility and the advantages of do-overs?

Worked on the garden again today. I’m doing things in 1/2 hour units. So far one per day (unless it rains). Between me raking and Hyperion hauling the leaves away we’ve got half of the side yard raked, 3/4 of the herb garden cleared, and the central area in front of the house.

Next up is to finish the side yard. Dismantle the existing square foot gardens. Replace those existing and rotting wooden sides with the new fake wood sided ones. This will allow us to have a garden area that won’t need to be replaced every three years as the moisture, weather, rain, whatever takes its toll on the wood.

We’ve cleared the strawberry area and now I need to weed it out and then plant the new everbearing plants we bought. I hoped to get this done during the past week but the temps plummeted down into the 30’s over night. So, meanwhile more yard work gets done.

Cut back all the raspberry plants so now their ready to go for this summer.

I’m hating being so limited by the fibro. I get a few good days and even when I really, really, try hard not to over do on my good days — I end up with a down-swing that lasts a few days. If it’s not the pain it’s the stultifying brain fog. — No wonder I keep having trouble with time management. It seems to slip away in the fog of fibromyalgia.

Got Gumshoe Review just about ready to go on April 1st. Lots left to do on SFRevu. One of the other associate editors managed to get an interview for SFRevu for April. Unfortunately, I’ve left Gumshoe’s interview until quite late — I never have figured out how to ask interview question until after I read the book. I’ll pull some questions together tomorrow and hope that once again a kindly author can manage to have time to answer a few quick questions.

Another month goes by without an artist interview on SFRevu. I feel really bad about that because there are so many that deserve to be spotlighted but it’s that time management issue combined with the lack of other personnel who feel comfortable talking/asking about art with someone who does such excellent work.

Got to find a way to get more spinning into my life. I’ve got my spinning wheel sitting in the living room and a basket of lovely green roving waiting to be turned into yarn. I’ve even got a pattern I want to knit from this stuff. It’s another time management issue.

Meanwhile, we’ve had so many days of grey skies combined with scattered showers that I’m pining for the color blue.

The one joy, or should I say one of the joys of life lately, is looking out my office window that faces the side of the house and the forsythia bushes which are cheerfully waving their bright yellow blooms — declaring that Spring is here and it’s time to dance in joy.

It makes me smile. It doesn’t matter what is going on in my life — those bright yellow flowers on their delicate stems bobbing up and down — dancing in the breezes — make me smile.

Life should be filled with things that make us smile. Sometimes it is the little things of life that are really the ones that count.

I was thrilled when Velvet of vvb32 reads told me she was naming A Curious Statistical Anomaly as One Lovely Blog. While I put a lot of thought and effort into this blog, I don’t often get a lot of feedback and it was nice to know someone (other than family) thought is was worth viewing and reading. Thanks Velvet.

The rules for accepting the award are:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link
2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
3) Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

As readers of my blog know, I’m pretty eclectic in my taste. Personally I have a lot of interests and often get taken in by the shiny things of life: science, philosophy, computer science, astronomy, reading, writing, reviewing, crafts (knitting, spinning), literature, publishing, and just about anything that catches my fancy and teaches me something or gives me a peak at new ideas, thoughts or way of looking at life and the world around me.

Thus, here are blogs that are rather new, according to my dysfunctional time-sense, in being added to my reading lists — in no particular order as I pull them out of my bookmarks — I think they are all exceptional.):

1.) Elspeth Thompson’s Weblog
2.) Joy’s Road Blog Ahead
3.) Jeff VanderMeer’s Ecstatic Days
4.) Dovegreyreader scribbles
5.) DP Lyle’s The Writer’s Forensics Blog
6.) Jane Brocket’s Yarn Storm
7.) Sheepish Annie
8.) Carol’s Go Knit in Your Hat
9) Internet Writing Workshops Blog
10.) Anne’s KnitSpot
11.) Lene’s Dances With Wool
12.) Lucy’s Attic24
13.) The Dodo Blog
14.) Franklin’s The Panopticon
15.) Pepperknit

I was going to say why I chose each of these blogs but I’ll leave it up to you to decide for yourself as you check out the links. Each of the blogs touches my heart/mind in someway: beautiful images, wonderful writing, witty observations on life/books/crafts/politics/society/whatever, and an openness and sharing of themselves with their readers.

I’m only sorry I had to leave so many of my recently found and favorites off the list. I hope you find at least some of these blogs worth adding to your own bookmarks.

And Velvet, thanks again for thinking of my blog as One Lovely Blog.

“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” – Mark Twain.

I love that quote and it really speaks to the way I feel when spring kicks off.  One of the first signs of spring is our Forsythia blooming.

Our poor little Forsythia isn’t as flamboyantly flaunting its bright yellow flowers as a neighbor who is out at the turn into the driveway. But then the neighbor’s bush is in full sun and ours is in partial shade. Still it does brighten up the yard a bit.

Our Hydrangeas by the front steps are starting to sprout leaves. I’ll need to give them some food soon and hope they’ll last another year in those pots.

The weather turned warm over the weekend so since I was feeling a bit better we went out and did a half-hour of work on Saturday and an hour on Sunday. That may not seem like a lot to those of you without fibromyalgia but for me that weekend work meant a lot of asprin, hot showers, and lots and lots of liniment, and some tender care of serious muscle aches — dare I admit that there was an inordinate amount of whimpering and whining too as Hyperion can attest.

But the corner of our yard that I remembered to take a picture of for before and after went from this leaf covered mess:

To this after shot which I admit looks like a dirt yard with some leaf cover where we didn’t get to yet. The upper hill near the house has a lot of hostas planted there and they’ll be up in a few weeks/days (hope springing eternal). We seeded grass over the rest of the lower yard last year and there are some tuffs of grass flattened by the leaves. We plan to sow more grass seed (for shady lawns) this coming weekend after we get the rest of the leaves up and dragged into the woodsy mulch pile (sometimes having five wooded acres is very nice).

We started clearing the leaves out of the herb garden too. The rosemary (lower left) and lavendar (upper left) made it through the winter. The upper right area is where the strawberry plants are we’ve got about a dozen in there and bought another dozen everybearing type to put in this weekend.

Checking out the garden area, it looks like the lemon balm, sage, and a few others managed to survive the winter cold. As well as this one in an above ground pot — until I find the label I’m not sure what it is though. I’m just a beginning gardener and I’ve so much to learn.

The blue buckets you see in the herb garden top-most right side are where we planted the tomatoes and other vegetables last year. The year before we bought plants from local garden centers (Lowes and Home Depot) and got them all in and the next day found neat holes in the ground and no plants. We bought more plants and planted them in the buckets (because the only plants left were the two in buckets) and those are were we got vegetables from last year. For some unknown but, I’m sure, arcane reason the critters that enjoyed our first round of plants wouldn’t/didn’t touch the plants in the buckets.

It started raining Sunday night and all day Monday. Today things are still damp and the temperature is dropping over the next several days. I’m hoping to get some seeds started this week sometime. If I can get seedlings started myself it should drop the cost of the garden somewhat. Considering that we’re on wooded arcres and have very little space that gets sunshine and that we’re in a constant battle with the critters that share this area (racoons, squirrels, deer, moles, voles, and so on)…it’s a wonder we got anything last year. The bucket trick worked so I’ll do it again this year and hope for more produce by trying to keep a better eye on things to get them before the animals do.

But still my spirit is soaring with the hope that spring always bring that this year I’ll feel strong enough and pain-free enough to actually get some goodly amount of work done in the yard. If we don’t get to some of the wooded area to clear out the Kudzu we’ll be fighting a loosing battle with that vine from now on.

The previous owners planted a line of irises and tulips and other bulbs in the woods by the orchard. Here’s what I see from our back yard and from my kitchen window. Yes, it is spring.