Orange Seedlings, 2 months. Plus, a little happy avocado.

My orange seedlings are now 2.5 months old!

Given my track record with seedlings, I find I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop... trying not to hope too much, or get too excited about anything... Honestly, though, these are a TON easier than the apple seedlings I was always trying to grow. Apples are so susceptible to root rot. Overwater them even a little, and they're done.

Citrus is different, somehow. Either that, or I've learned not to fawn all over the things. There's an art to knowing how much water to give to a plant.

I got all excited because they unfurled their first true leaves. Then they settled in for awhile, and didn't do anything. Which is something that always makes me nervous, because when the apple seedlings stopped growing, it meant they were dying. I think, though, that in healthy plants, they alternate growing upwardly and downwardly.

Within the last week or so, they started putting out a second set of leaves. I think I need to give them some compost tea soon.





And here we have a little avocado pit. I had no intention of sprouting an avocado pit, but Shane said, "try it," so... I did.

I have two of them going, but only one put out a root. It's pretty easy to start them, just put them pointy side up in some water. They need to be suspended because the root needs some space to descend. I peeled off some of the skin to speed things up. Most of the instructions I saw called for folks to actually stick toothpicks in the pit to keep it suspended, but I didn't think it was good practice to put holes in a seed, so I'm using an old onion mesh bag. I'm probably going to cut it a little bigger around where the root is so that it doesn't get strangled.

Eco-friendly Christmas: Wrappin'

Guess what these li'l guys are wrapped in?

Pages from last year's Eddie Bauer Christmas catalog.

Merry Christmaaaas!

Easy good acorn squash recipe

Holidays means potlucks. And you sometimes get folks that are vegan or vegetarian or lactose intolerant or glucose intolerant or I don't know what.

So I found this recipe. I like acorn squash because they are one of our native vegetables. And they're TASTY!

I thought this recipe covered all my bases but I guess not. Apparently even if you substitute margarine for butter, it depends on the kind of margarine whether it's fully vegan or glucose-free. Anyway, it was still pretty tasty and easy and not cost-intensive, and it was well-received amongst my peers, so I thought I'd share it.

(from http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Acorn-Squash-Slices)

Ingredients

2 medium acorn squash (about 1-1/2 pounds each)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup chopped pecans, optional

Directions

Cut squash in half lengthwise; remove and discard seeds and membrane. Cut each half widthwise into 1/2-in. slices; discard ends.
Place slices in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Sprinkle with salt. Combine syrup and butter; pour over squash. Sprinkle with pecans if desired.
Cover and bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes or until tender. Yield: 6 servings.

Christmas makes you spend time differently.

Realizing that the Christmastime season isn't a good time to do my time audit, but I have a super-cool spreadsheet to put things in now. (I designed it myself because I'm nerdy like that.) Plus, it's good to do a little dry run so that I can figure out how it's going to work. For example, some of the time I spent doing errands yesterday was technically spent driving, but I didn't count it that way, so I need to figure out how and why I want to do that bit.

The chart automatically adjusts when I put numbers in ^^

If anything, this exercise is just helping me to be more aware of things like, when I'm on the computer and not working on the mile-long list of Stuff I Gotta Get Done Today.

I would like to add that I don't ordinarily ever sleep this good. Data is definitely being skewed by something or other.

TIme audit

I began an experiment today.

I'm auditing my time. I'm tracking how much time I spend doing what during the day.

Time is valuable. You track finances. Time is easily equally important. I realize if I feel crunched for time, the best thing to do is to try to get an honest look at where it's going.

Today's revelation:

WORK: 6.25 hours (41%)
HANGOUT/JAM: 4 hours (26%)
SOCIAL MEDIA: 2 hours (12 %)
DRIVING: 1 hour (6%)
PREPARING FOR THINGS: 1 hour (6%)
MEETINGS: 1 hour (6%)
LESSON: 1/2 hour (3%)

Oddly, my two income sources are sandwiched, there. The one I spend the least amount of time on earns me my best hourly wage.

Hmmmmmm.

I can DEFINITELY cut back on social media. (What was I really doing on facebook for two hours that was *SO* important???)

Stream of Consciousness/BUSY

A few things I'm dealing with going into the Christmas season.

I'm a victim, again, of being BUSY. BUSY is an acronym. BUSY means "Bound Under Satan's Yoke." A friend and mentor shared that with me, and frankly, I love it.

God's plan was not for me to be so burdened with obligations. That was the plan of my squirrelly little mind. We can get caught so easily in the trap of thinking that our minds are superior to all other aspects of our selves. Someone kindly reminded me today that this isn't so. Mind is subject to the spirit. You know things in spirit that the mind doesn't understand. I know it's important to be kind to other people, and my mind can generate several good and logical reasons to be kind to people. But the mind does not understand love as simply and purely as the spirit does.

In my mind, I often think to myself how grand it is to keep on keepin' on. Get things done. Do good things. Make people happy. Then, feelings of responsibility seep in. Then, you can tie your own failure to the notion of letting people down. Then, you get caught up in a sneaky spiral of self-hatred.

Because it's good to do good things, but ultimately, God's got things under control. There's no need to stretch myself so thin that I snap. There never was.

I tie this into the environmental cause because so much destruction is caused by basic behavior patterns. We are trained to be so busy that we need fast food just to get through the day, and then we sit around in a stupor watching TV at the end of the day. When we slow down, let God be in control, and only take on obligations prayerfully and carefully. God will sometimes tell me to do a thing I wouldn't ordinarily think about, or tell me NOT to do a thing I was really excited about. There has usually never been a negative repercussion for disobeying; I just don't get really blessed, or I don't feel God's presence about whatever it is I'm doing. Which is so key to my existence.

Being so busy has caused me to falter in basic things like praying and reading my Bible. (And other things, like laundry and having food available for consumption). In my mind, these things are time-consuming and getting in the way of MY achieving. Darnit. In passing these things aside, my spirit starves, I don't hear from God as frequently, I don't feel His presence, I'm not calm, I'm not assured in myself. The word "frenetic" comes to mind. Frenetic is fun for about five seconds. Then it feels like an eternal caffeine overdose.

So, I'm trying to lay aside the notion that I'm responsible for things, put them in God's hands, and ask Him to come and cut out some of the craziness I've gotten myself into. It's always so easy to take things on and harder to wriggle out of them... but if my relationship with God comes first, and it does, I'll ask Him to help with it, and He will.