Gardening - Better late than never

I finally got some seeds started today: Sunflowers, sweet pepper mix, ornamental peppers, shamrocks (trifolium, not oxalis), 4-o-clocks, and catnip. Plus, my purple oxalis shamrocks are in real pots now.

And in my sort-of-garden outside are a six-pack of marigolds, plus a pack of marigold seed, the rest of the 4-o-clock pack, and most of a pack of portulaca from 2005. We'll see what - if anything - comes up. The portulaca all ended up in the same spot, so I raked it to stir things up. Not sure anything got planted at the right depth, but oh well.

Yard sale loot

I managed to go to two big yard sales last weekend, both fundraisers - one Habitat for Humanity, one for a local school. I like it - one stop shopping, lots of parking.

For a whopping $25.85 total, I got:

• one yellow Japanese Iris start
• large plastic flowerpot
• gallon Ziploc with 4 spools of crochet thread
• 2 Nestle Tollhouse tins, one round, one square, for 75c. Saw 2 similar ones at a thrift store today, priced at $10 each.
• dinosaur tray-puzzle
• large 1000-piece puzzle, not sure if it's all there
• red, white, and blue Beanie horse
• a 10,000 Maniacs CD for DH that he doesn't have already ($1.00)
• 2 Johnny Carson DVDs, $3 each (I think their prices are a bit high)
• a like-new hardcover copy of Tolkien's Sigurd and Gudrun, although it's a book-club edition, for $1
• assorted other paperbacks, including an Asimov that I didn't have already
• Sesame Street English/Spanish memory card game, with all the cards
• Disney Scene It game, mostly complete
• Pooh memory card game
• stuffed penguin puppet (sort of - the hole goes from the feet up through the back, not sure what it really was, but now it's a puppet)
• 6 Viewmaster reels
• 9 books
• 3 coloring books
• 1 pair of DisneyStore Incredibles pajamas
• a few magazines
• one country music VHS

and I think that's it. Not as good as finding the Puzz3D Titanic for $2, but still pretty good finds.

Allergies

Allergies suck. 'Nuf said.

I'm taking generic Zyrtec, plus Target's form of Nephcon-A or some such, just to keep from scratching my eyes out. We turned the AC on tonight - 80 degrees inside, lovely temps outside but I can't bring myself to open the doors and let some more pollen or whatever it is come in the house.

I really hope this blows over (literally) in another week or so. Everything's blooming outside, and I can't go out to enjoy it.

Strange associations

I'm way way behind on Lost, but no matter how often I saw Keamy being wicked on the Island, I always said"Hey, it's Zippy!!" every time Kevin Durand's face popped up on-screen.

Yes, I'm a bit of a Stargate geek. Zippy was Jack's nickname for the Goa'uld Lord Zipacna, named for a Mayan god.

The house-hunting marathon

We started house-hunting over the weekend. Packed El Burrito off for a day with Grandma & Grandpa, and met the Realtor for a 10-house 8-hour marathon. And this wasn't the usual day with five houses on one street or anything. These were rural places - we probably put at least 100 miles of driving in.

We saw some nice houses with lousy location, nice locations with lousy houses, and nothing that said "Buy me NOW" (unfortunately). A few "What were they thinking??" moments out there. Who puts the second-floor stairway exiting into the garage? Who really thinks that an acre of wooded pasture is sufficient ground to keep a horse? Why spend a load of money upgrading a recently-upgraded kitchen, in a house you're selling (because you're having money problems)? And who puts a beer tap in their kitchen?

Apparently the latest fads are jetted tubs and those quotations/phrases painted or decal-ed onto the walls.

House Hunting 2010

We're going with a Realtor (Blogger's spell-check insists on the capitalized R) this week to look at houses. Haven't done this in 5+ years. We've got ten on the list of possibles for the first trip, but they're spread out quite a bit (all out of town) so I'm not sure we'll make all ten.

And now I need to start thinking about packing, decluttering, and making a list of what we'll need to buy ASAP after we move. Like some furniture (ours is minimal, old, and decrepit) and a kitchen/dining table. And a hammock. And a freezer.

I'm rare

If this survey/poll in American Baby is close to accurate, I'm one of the 10% of people who didn't know if the baby was a boy or a girl before it was born.

This proves it, I'm special. :)