One Step Forward

No pics yet, watering was more important. Freakin Texas summer heat.

I was wrong on the mums -- go figure. Remembered the colours wrong, it's the tips that are white, and the centers that are the deep purple/red colour. So I think it's "Fiction." Cool.

Pulled up the four cuke plants that were in pots and tossed them, after getting the last two cukes off. They weren't really doing much, Cukezilla is producing a lot more, and that gave me two less pots to water. Also ripped out the flea beetle damaged bush beans. They were starting to produce again, but not enough to make a difference with the pole beans going crazy. Right, outta there. Had to pull up one of the sunflowers. Thing 1 was a little careless with a garbage bag and damaged the stalk too bad for it to survive. Sigh. At least it wasn't the rust one, and the other sunflowers are doing fine.

Didn't get the Sweet 100 I wanted to pull out, though. I'm not sure that I CAN. Cukezilla has totally taken over the tomato cage, I'm not sure I can even get into the pot to pull it out, so I guess it stays.

We were out of full sized tomatoes, and DG had a dinner thing up at work last night, so we bought two. YUCK! Store bought tomatoes. Nasty. I sliced up two huge cukes from Cukezilla, and put a bunch of cherry tomatoes on the tray with the store sliced ones. Store maters got ignored. The cherry tomatoes from my garden VANISHED, he said people were standing over the tray just tossing them down, and he brought home very few cuke slices (only for Thing 1 to munch on). If that's not enough proof that you just need to grow your own, I don't know what is.

The new bronze foliage canna looks fantastic in the big pot with the bright green spearmint. Score!

Um. I probably underestimated the number of strawberry plants. Found another 5 runners on a different side that were rooting in the grass. Gack.

Peppers! (You knew you couldn't get out of this post without an update, right?) LOTS of cayennes to pick tomorrow. The alcaldes are still blooming and making more peppers. Chocolate bell is getting much bigger, closer to the point that it will start changing colour. Other bells are happily growing away. Got to remind myself to start stringing the chiles and cayennes tonight for them to dry.

Then again, it'll be hard to keep em in the house when my Dad gets here. I have a feeling some will be going home with him.

DG got the blade on the lawnmower switched out, so tomorrow the great backyard jungle will get mowed. Hopefully that will help with the mosquito problem. I got MAULED last night, even wearing OFF. Damn things.

The weeds and bermuda grass are just out of control. It's a helpless feeling. It's SO damn hot out there, and the weatherman said to expect it to just get hotter. Weeding in 100* and no shade ... This goes beyond Pooka wilt. Had a little help getting everything done today. The sprinkler was on, so I just worked through it. Came in drenched, but didn't have the heat problem. Of course, it also washed off all the bug pseudo-repellent too. Can't win for losing.

And I feel ... awful. On top of everything else, I feel hammered. I hurt, and I'm tired. Not sleeping real well, lots of tossing and turning and waking up exhausted. Leaves me dreadfully brain dead.

Having computer trouble, too. DG's video card croaked this weekend, complete death. My CGI proggies keep crashing when I try to use them on mine, and I'm getting the wonky STOP error messages again like I did when a RAM chip went bad on me before. Bad news if it is. Can't afford to replace the chip, not with having to spend the money to repair DG's computer.

So, unless I can transfer all my stuff to his computer, which is a pain and a HUGE multi-gig undertaking, I'm near worthless for artwork right now, with two jobs I desperately, DESPERATELY need to finish.

And of course my mother has made another of her Annoucements, and she'll be here this weekend to help ruin yet another birthday. Now, before you think the visit is a sweet effort on her part, she's not coming up here for ME. She's coming to take one of the girls, then a week later, trade out for the other one. She's coming for the summer visit, not because of any parental obligation to her offspring. These are the only grandkids she has, and at the rate my sister is going, the only ones she'll ever have, so she feels the need to at least do something about it.

Now, like with most families, there's a Mama's kid and a Daddy's kid. Guess which one she is taking away from me ON MY BIRTHDAY? Right. My girl. Don't even pretend to think that isn't completely deliberate on her part. She KNOWS.

The funny thing is, I can't even burst into tears in frustration over it. It's always something, and if it WASN'T always something, I wouldn't be handling it as well as I am.