Not dead yet!

Well, the nursery is closed and the law office is open. People get this glazed look when I tell them that I've gone from working for my parents in the family nursery to working for my parents in the family law firm. It seems to cause a certain amount of brain freeze. I enjoy causing brain freeze. It also amuses me when people don't recognize me when I'm not dressed in a dirty t-shirt and jeans. I seem to be easily amused. :-) And just as easily irritated, so watch out!. :-|

Luckily for San Luis Obispo County (which apparently has the highest per capita number of lawyers in the state), my parents are specializing in estate planning law. This means wills and trusts and advance health care directives and power of attorney for health care. All of which are necessary things for everybody to have, especially if you own a house in California. Well, anywhere, really, but housing prices are so insane in the Golden State that it doesn't bear thinking about most of the time. And, if you have all of those things, you should have them looked over at about every 5 years or so because the laws change, lawmakers being what they are. Especially when it comes to things dealing with money.

My three, no, four favorite things about working in an office:

1. Wearing grown up clothes (including high heels, make-up and jewelry)
2. Preparing papers (for signing, for filing, for mailing, I just like organizing things)
3. The telephone (answering and making calls)
4. My computer (it's a fancy new Mac...shiny and pretty)

So, I'm odd. I've been working in a retail nursery for the past ten years, I like not being on my feet for eight hours and ending the day filthy and exhausted. Also, while people might be anxious and nervous when thinking about death, at least they aren't taking it out on me. Mostly they are glad that we are here to help. Several of our clients are customers from the nursery and they are glad that they can go to someone they already know and trust for such important work.

Moving on to the garden... I accidentally became a dahlia collector as we closed the nursery. We kept finding struggling pots of dahlias hidden among the weeds, and I couldn't bear to throw them out or put them in the free pile, so I took them home. I have at least a dozen pots of dahlias (most of which won't bloom this year, but should be happy and blooming come next summer) in addition to all of the little dahlias that my former housemate planted in the garden around the house. I'm planning to leave the dahlias in pots in the pots because I don't have that much plantable ground and tons of plants that need to be in the ground to survive. The plan is to plant mainly those plants that I will be able to take pieces of with me when I leave (since I don't plan to live in this place for the rest of my life. Actually buying a home may be a dream, but I insist on my dreams). I haven't gotten much more planted recently, but now that I have recovered from the last couple months, I can get back to gardening on the weekends (at least, and sometimes in the evenings).

My vegetable garden is going great guns. My Sweet Million cherry tomato and my Dark Green zucchini are fighing to take over the world, neither one is winning, so the other plants in the garden have a chance. The Ronde de Italia squash are having a little trouble with their timing. The male and female flowers are blooming just enough out of step that most of the squashes aren't setting. It's sad because the few that I have gotten have been delicious. We've actually had a warm enough summer that the peppers are peppering, in fact my Marconi Red has a ripe pepper on it that I plan to pick and eat this evening. Or maybe I'll wait until tomorrow evening when the boy is back in town so I can share it with him. The Black Prince tomato has set a bunch of fruit, now we are just waiting for them to ripen.

Luckily for the deer population, the avocado survived their depredations, and the deer repellant seems to have kept them off. Knock wood.

I haven't been knitting or crocheting much lately, but I'm starting back up. I have another friend who is going to be having a baby soon, so I'll be starting on that project, once I figure out what I want to do. Then I'll have two projects again, which is always good because I lose momentum if I only have one project going at a time. And the projects need to be significantly different for the distraction technique to work. If it's two scarves, I won't work on either, but if it s a scarf and a hat, why, I'm all over both things. Having one project be knitting and the other crochet is good too.

I should work now.

Talk on ya later,

Harley