That’s More Like It

Welcome back, Gentle Readers.  I hope all of you who are moms had a very nice Mother's Day.  Mine was OK, I guess.  Cody and Brennan stopped by on their way back from Memphis, where they had spent the weekend with Bren's family.  Her sister graduated from college Saturday, so they drove up Friday after Bren got off work.  They were going to stop by on the way up, but Cody said he didn't take Brennan's work schedule into account when he said that.  She didn't get off until 8:00 PM, so it would have likely been after 10:00 when they got here.  He said they'd stop by on the way back instead, which is what they did. 

They took me out for dinner, and I kind of wanted to go to Pizza Inn, but by the time they got here, it had started raining.  I told Cody, "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather just go through a drive through somewhere and not get out in this."  And that's just what we did.  We went to Wendy's and got Baconaters.  I'd kind of wanted to go picnic out at the lake, but the rain prevented that.  Since I didn't want to make a mess in their brand new car, we just came on home and ate here.  Wouldn't you know it, right as we got off the highway, the rain stopped and a beautiful double rainbow came out. 

"Dang it!" I said.  "I left my phone at home!"  So Brennan whipped hers out and took some photos for me.  If you look very closely, you can see then end of the rainbow -- especially the one in the front -- hitting the ground in front of the trees.  

I think that's the first time in my life I've ever seen something like that.  

After we'd finished eating, I dragged the kids out into the back yard and made them look at my little garden.  Brennan was totally captivated by my fairy garden.  "It's adorable!" she exclaimed. 

Cody replied, "You know we still have that planter Mom gave us for Christmas year before last.  We could set it up on our balcony and you can have a garden there."  And Brennan said, 

AI generated photo

She told me their balcony faces some woods, and she likes to sit out there in her egg chair and just enjoy nature.  They couldn't do that in their old house. 

Well, since I made them look at the garden, I'm going to make you look at the garden, too. Here is the tomato and basil bed. 

And look!  The littlest tomato is putting out true leaves!  

It might eventually catch up to the others before it's all over.  

By the way, I was watching a video by Epic Gardening, and he tried the three popular methods of planting tomatoes -- normal, deep, and trench.   The results at the end of the season showed there wasn't any one method that was better than the others.  The plants and yields were almost identical with all three methods.  I mean, the deep method and the trench method had the plants growing more roots, but not any more tomatoes.  Eh, I've linked it above if you want to watch for yourself.  

On a similar note, here is my leftover basil in the planter.  

The ones I up potted are so much bigger than the ones I didn't, and none of these are as big as the ones I put into the raised bed.  So, I guess it's better to up pot sooner rather than later.  Or it could be that there is much more root room in the bed than in this planter.  I didn't know what else to do with them, though.  Hmmm, I wonder if the smaller ones would do better in pots on the front porch where they'd get better light.  I may move them tomorrow afternoon and see.  

In other news, the new magnesium supplements arrived today.  Chewable gummies.  That's more like it. 

Even better, the doctor told me to take 300 mg, and these are exactly that each.  I know the label says 600 mg, but that's for a serving size of two.  I'm not sure why they do things like that.  Why not just put 600 mg in each gummy if that's what you're marketing?  Or label them as 300 mg?  

I have been sleeping and feeling much better since I started taking the magnesium.  I used to take magnesium supplements, but when I started my cholesterol meds, the doc said it could interfere with that, so I'd stopped.  But I did ask and he said this kind doesn't interfere with my other meds, so that's good.  

And finally, just so this post isn't a total waste of your time, here is some knitting. 

Yarn:  Life DK by Stylecraft

Colorway:  Teal

Pattern:  Trekking Is For Necking

Needles:  US 6 / 4 mm

Brennan has decided to make a Tetris blanket out of granny squares.  She showed me her design and it's going to be pretty cool.  She told me she underestimated how big it would be, and now it looks like it's going to be 10 feet long.  

I can't wait to see the finished product. 

I Don't Think

I don't think I'm going to be able to move tomorrow.  Seriously.  

I'd thought I'd get up and go walking some trails, either at the lake or at the nature preserve, but changed my mind because I had to go to Walmart and do the shopping I'd skipped yesterday.  I figured that would be enough walking for the day. 

Then what did I do?  I came home and mowed.  Between Walmart and mowing, I got nearly five miles done.  That ought to help the ol' blood sugar come down a bit.  

I'd said I was only going to do the front yard, but ended up doing the back as well.  That was a bit of a pain mowing around all of my clover patches, but I got 'er done.  I did not do behind the fence.  Maybe I'll get that done sometime tomorrow morning. I don't know.  It's not my property, but I do knock it down a few times per year, just so it doesn't get out of hand. 

While I was doing all of that mowing, my package from Amazon arrived, and look what I bought.  

This year's new Christmas ornament.  I know, I know, it's a long way until Christmas, but I had originally thought I'd hang it from my car's rear view mirror.  Now that I have it and see that it's plastic and not glass, I don't think I will.  I'm thinking it might fade in the sun, so it's put away until November when the tree goes up.  

Also in the order was the final piece of this year's fairy garden -- a picnic table.  

Now, my little fairies can get together and have a little fairy picnic, all under the watchful eye of Oberon the fairy king, of course. 

The final two things in the order were spare chains for my mini chainsaw, and my magnesium glycinate.  "Easy to swallow caplets" the description said.  Yeah, right.   For a horse, maybe.  Obsolete coin of the realm included for scale.   

I immediately cancelled that subscription and found some gummies instead.  They'll be here Monday.  

Next up on the agenda was the weedeating, which went pretty much without a hitch, and the whole yard looks so much better. And now that the necessary chores were done, I could get to the fun stuff!  Putting in my tomato cages!  

And yes, I do realize how pathetic that sounds.  Don't envy me my exciting life.  Those cages were a bit of a pain to put together, but in the end, I got 'er done.  After I took the photo, I went back and straightened up some of those wonky bits, and it looks pretty OK.  Most importantly, they'll support my tomatoes. 

While I was doing that, I put in my drip irrigation system -- which is a 1 liter water bottle with holes punched in the bottom.  

Some of the channels I've watches say to cut the bottom of the bottle off and punch the holes into the lid.  Then you put the bottom in upside down to keep dirt and debris out of the water.  I guess that's OK if you want to go that route, but to me, it made more sense to put the lid back on to keep things out of your water.   

I was kind of worried that I'd buried them too deep, but I think as the tomatoes grow, it'll be OK.  Speaking of growing, do you see what I see?  

Yes!  True leaves!  Go littlest tomato!  Go!  

Speaking of growing, the cayennes are really taking off, so much so, I went ahead and tied up the three biggest ones, along with one of the banana pepper plants. 

It may not be strictly necessary, but it won't hurt.  I'm trying to remember if I had to stake my last cayenne plant, but I can't.  I know I had to stake my last banana pepper, but then, it didn't have nearly as much root room in that raised planter as it will in this bed. 

Look, it's starting to look almost like a proper garden!

Oh, and before I forget, even though we had some rain a couple of days ago, we only got .3", so I was able to try out my new watering wand this morning.  It was right handy to have.  I was able to get the water right down to the bottom of the plants without having to bend over, and the little lever thing controlled the water flow so I wasn't blasting them into oblivion.  

On the other hand, it was strong enough to clean the bird bath, getting all of the algae off the sides and bottom, then gentle enough to fill it without splashing.  It's probably the best investment I've made this month...

The last thing I did before coming inside and taking a shower was to make a frog pond out of an old food bowl.  

I've seen a lot of toads in that part of the yard.  Hopefully, they'll stick around, and maybe I can even attract more to come.  Toads are one of the best slug controls you can have. 

Now that I'm all nice and clean after a hot shower, it's time to settle in with some knitting and Lark Rise To Candleford.  

Laters...

Whelp...

Whelp, that didn't go as planned.  OK, so I took my new magnesium glycinate Wednesday night, hoping for a good night's sleep.  Then I turned on Ryan Hall's livestream and stayed up anyway, so fat lot of good that did.   

Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep and didn't really feel like blogging yesterday.  I don't much feel like blogging today, either, especially since nothing noteworthy has happened.  I didn't even go do my weekly shopping.  They handed out Mother's Day nachos at work, so I just came straight home and ate mine. 

At least it wasn't a bunch of sugar, like they usually do.  In fact, I almost didn't go into the break room because I was so convinced it would be cupcakes or candy or something, but I'm glad I did.  Those nachos made a nice bit of supper  -- mostly because I didn't have to cook them.  

Other than that, all I did was to catch up on some of my DVRed shows and knit a bit.  And three loads of laundry -- one of which is piled up on my bed.  This is my life.  All day at work, I tell myself I'm going to get so much accomplished when I get home, but then I don't do anything.  

I also say I'm going to write deep, thought provoking posts, but then I don't do that either.  It's like, the older I get, the less I want to talk about it.  Whatever it may be.  I just keep it to myself.  Of course, the topic of the day today would be all of the tornadoes that hit down south, you know, the ones that kept me up half the night.  If I felt like talking about it, I mean.  But I don't.  Not even the kittens they rescued -- one of which made national news.  Because you need a bit of good news when there is that much devastation. 

I'm sure having to get up at 2:30 AM has a lot to do with that.  Not wanting to talk about stuff, I mean.  Not rescuing kittens.  

What I do want to talk about is my baby tomato.   Look, it's trying very hard to develop true leaves!  

Keep on trying, little guy!  I'm rooting for you. 

And my next project is, weed tea!  

 I've seen several gardening channels talk about doing this.  Basically, you pull a bunch of weeds from your yard and ferment them in water for a couple of weeks.  As they break down, they release a lot nutrients into the water.  In fact, it's so potent that you have to seriously dilute it or you'll burn your plants.  Most of them say 1 part weed tea to three parts water. 

Best of all, it's completely free!  Your only cost is the time and energy it takes to pull the weeds.  And a bucket to put the into, of course.   Not only that, it's perpetual.  As you use it, all you have to do is add more weeds and water.  I think I might even sacrifice some of my clover to this.  Eh, I'm not worried.  It'll grow back.  

Whelp, I don't have to work tomorrow, so I can sleep in, but I still got up at 2:30 this morning, so I'm going to go fold those clothes that are piled on my bed and get into it. 

Goodnight, all.  

P.S.  Seriously considering doing a garden vlog tomorrow.  If I get around to it. 

Annual Physical

Yep, it was that time of year again.  Time for my annual physical.  That's one of those things that you need to do, but nobody really wants to.  I'll admit I had to giggle a little when I saw that someone had glued googly eyes to this turkey painting in my doctor's office.  

Overall, everything looks pretty good, but my blood sugar was a bit high, which I already knew. 

Ever since I got that flu/COVID/whatever it was back in February, my sugar has been high.  It spiked right when I got sick, and I still haven't gotten it consistently low since then.   I've had a few good days, but for the most part, it's been above 100 each morning.  He said being sick could trigger that, and we discussed some options to get it back down -- one of which was to just walk right after each meal.  It didn't take much, only 10-15 minutes.  I can't do that at work, of course, but I can after supper.    

When I said that my fasting glucose this morning was 114, he said stress could also trigger high sugar.  It's part of the fight or flight response, because your body says, "Hey, we need energy to fight or flee from this perceived threat," so it dumps a bunch of glucose into your blood.  That was probably it, because between when I took it, and when he did two hours later, it had actually gone up, and I hadn't had anything to eat.  

I was thinking that I may have overscheduled myself, because when you have a day off, you tend to want to get as much done as you can.  So, after I left the doctor's office, I went to the post office and finally mailed those hats off to the Seaman's Church Institute, then went to Walmart and got my oil changed in the car. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself...One more thing he said could cause high blood sugar is not sleeping well.  I mentioned that I never sleep well.  When he asked if I was taking anything for it, I replied, "Melatonin, but I'm fixing to stop because it doesn't seem to help."  He agreed, saying, "If it's not working stop taking it."  Then he suggested something called Magnesium Glycinate -- which won't interfere with my Crestor.  

I also mentioned some of my finger joints are getting stiff, and asked if it could be arthritis.  He said it could, but when he checked the joint, he said I could have trigger finger.  Either way, he told me to keep working it -- bend it and stretch it to keep it from stiffening up.  He suggested turmeric for its anti-inflammatory properties, so while I was getting my oil changed, I picked up a bottle of that, along with the magnesium stuff he recommended. 

I want to try to come up with a turmeric - cinnamon blend I can put into my coffee or make tea out of it.  I'll have to do a bit of research on that.  Oh, and he said to take 300 mg of the magnesium, but Walmart only had 100 mg gummies, so when I got home, I got onto Amazon and found some.  I ordered some, and put it on Subscribe and Save, so hopefully it'll help me sleep. 

Last night, I hardly slept at all.  I fell asleep watching a Fat Electrician video, but then woke up and didn't get back to sleep until probably midnight.  Thank goodness I had today off, because Group Leader Shark told us to start coming in at 4:00 again.  

I'm dreading going in tomorrow and seeing what kind of mess second shift left of my stand.  Yesterday, oooh, it was awful.  It looked like a tornado hit it.  There were pieces of rod everywhere, scrap headers, and jigs left on the stand.  The weirdest thing was, I'd left an order all set up and ready to be brazed.  Whoever was on that stand on second shift moved the headers off the stand, but left the adapter tubes.  We looked all over for those headers, and finally I had the dispatcher to put in a rework order for them.  

Some two hours later, someone found them.  The second shift person had taken the entire bin off my stand, put them onto a different stand, then put some other bins on top of them.  No wonder we couldn't find them.  And I'm like, why????

But that's second shift for you.  They do what they want, and we have to come in every morning and clean up their mess...

Oh, and while I was at Walmart, I ran into an old coworker -- "old" as in from a long time ago, not necessarily age-- whom I hadn't seen in ages.  We had a little chat, but most of the people that were out there when she was aren't there any more.  Except for one of the tap fitting brazers.  I told her that I don't think he'd ever retire.  

On a similar note, when I got to the doctor's office, the receptionist greeted by name and asked after Cody.  The only problem with that is, I had no idea who she was.  I asked my doctor, and as soon as the told me her name, I remembered her.  I had gone to church with her for years, and her son is only a year younger than Cody.  I didn't recognize her at all.  Then, of course, the lady who works at the atomotive counter at Walmart remembers me from when she worked out at the plant, only I don't remember her.  It's kind of a shame.  I mean, I know her more from WM than work, but she said she wasn't out there very long.  I guess that's why.  They remember me, but to me it's like a constant stream of people coming in and leaving...It's a right regular revolving door out there.  

Speaking of messes, I'd thought I might call the clean up man and get him to help me straighten up the shed this afternoon, but as it's been drizzly and rainy all day, I put that off for a sunnier day.  It's supposed to storm tonight, but the worst of it should pass to the South of us.  I've already checked the Weatherwise app, and most of the storm chasers are down between Jackson and McComb -- with a couple of them over into Alabama.  

I was a bit disappointed, because I wanted to try out my new watering want I bought. 

It extends to 42" and I figure it'll be much easier on my back than bending over to get the water down around the roots of the plants.   

Instead, I sat inside and knit, while watching The Great British Sewing Bee, Time Team, and The Repair Shop.  

 Not a bad way to spend a day off, eh?  

My Next Trick

Apparently, it was scarf weekend this past weekend here in the Fine Martial household, as both of these scarves finally got a bit of desperately needed attention. 

On the left:

Yarn:  Life DK by Stylecraft

Colorway:  Teal

Pattern:  Trekking Is For Necking

Needles:  US 6 / 4mm

On the right:

Yarn:  Red Heart Supersaver

Colorway:  Hunter Green

Pattern:  Seaman's Scarf from the Seaman's Church Institute

Needles:  US 7 / 4.5mm

They each got about an inch longer, but hey, it's better than nothing.  

And now for my next trick, I decided to make an earthworm tower.  Now, all the videos I've seen said to use a piece of 4" PVC pipe, but I didn't have any.   My first inclination was to go into one of the local groups and ask if anyone had a scrap piece they'd give me, but before I could do that, I found this old cotton candy container that I'd been saving for ages now. 

I'd kept it with the intention of making a yarn barn out of it, but never got around to it, so it's been getting moved around the junk room for probably a decade now.  As of yesterday afternoon, it has a new lease on life. 

I drilled a bunch of holes into it, then buried it in my tomato bed. 

Next, I filled it with vegetation -- mostly weeds from my yard -- and as it decays, it'll attract earthworms, which will then leave their castings in the bed.  That's the best fertilizer in the world, or so I'm told.  And I was able to get it almost smack dab in the middle of the bed.  

I have no doubt the worms will find it.  After all, they found their way into my raised planter.  How they got up there -- , since the thing is 3' off the ground -- I have no idea, but they're there. 

Later that evening, I went back outside and planted the three biggest tomatoes into their forever home.  

I felt like I had to.  They were running out of room under their protective cloches, and I wasn't quite ready to throw them to the wolves just yet -- so to speak. When they get to the top next time, I'll take the cloches off and put the tomato cages around them.  I've also been saving my 1 liter water bottles to make a drip irrigation system for them.   There will be posts...

This little baby is still struggling, but hanging in there.  

I think that cold spell may have set it back a bit, because when I got home from work this afternoon, it seemed a bit perked up.  Except for watering it, I'm going to leave it alone, which is probably the best thing for it.  I hope it lives, but if it doesn't, I'm going to just buy one.  If I try to plant from seed a fourth time, that plant will be so far behind the others, there would really be no point.  

Before we leave the garden, look at this!  

I'm going to have some cayenne peppers soon!  Woo Hoo!  

And finally, I can neither confirm nor deny that I may or may not do something that might possibly resemble...this...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some messages to ignore...

Laters. 

Busy Saturday

I think the nicest thing about Saturday is that I can spend pretty much the entire day doing exactly what I want to do.  Except that I can't because I get overwhelmed by thinking about all the stuff I need to be doing, but don't want to. 

I saw on social media that the inability to get started doing anything is a symptom of burnout.  Maybe that's been my problem here lately.  I'm just burned out.  I wish I knew how to not be burned out, but I don't.  

I'll give you an example.  I've needed new glasses for a while now, only my eye doctor has retired.  I have to find a new eye doctor and I don't do new well.   The eye doctor by Walmart doesn't accept our insurance, and I had a bad experience at 20/20 a while back.  That leaves a relatively new place, A Look Ahead.  

I went to their website to get their phone number, and much to my surprise, they had a form online to request an appointment.  I filled it out and submitted it, and got a message saying one of their friendly staff would be in touch with me.  

A day passed, no word.  Two days, three...after a week, I decided to try to call them.  I went back to the website on my phone, and lo and behold there was a button that said "Call Us".  I clicked it, and nothing happened.  I clicked it again.  Nothing happened again. I clicked it a few more times with the same result, so I backed completely out of the website and punched the number in manually on my phone's keypad.  

It said my call could not be completed.  I did it a second time and got the same message, so I went back and filled out the form on the website again.  It's been three days, and I haven't heard back from them.  At this point, I'm wondering if it's just me.  Am I doing something wrong?  

What is wrong with me that I can't even make a simple eye appointment without screwing it up?  I guess I'm going to have to go back to 20/20 if I want new glasses.  I'd never intended to buy glasses from there anyway, though.  I'll just go to the eye doctor and get my glasses from the optical center in Walmart.  

OK, on to more pleasant things.  I finished another sailor hat this afternoon.  

Yarn:  Red Heart Bitty Stripes

Colorway: Rainbow

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5mm

Before I did that, I got up and did a thing.  A thing that required me to leave the house.  If you know me at all, you know I'm totally not a thing doer, and I'm totally not a house leaver.  But I did it and need to tell you about it. 

I went down to the Spring Market on the square.  It wasn't much, though.  It's a new something they're trying to get going, but so far it's not going well.  There were only a few booths, and the so-called entertainment was just a guy with giant speakers playing a playlist.  So, I left there pretty quickly and went to the Spring Wings event at the Lee Tartt Nature Preserve.  

Only I got there too early and they were still setting up.  I did talk to one very nice young man who is doing his Master's Thesis on the Chackchiuma people who lived here before.  He had a table showing some arrowheads, pottery shards, and other artifacts from their archaeology site.  

There was another man selling native plants, but he didn't have anything that I wanted for my native pollinator garden.  So, I just walked the trails and came on home. 

I was pleased to see that they'd removed the tree that had fallen across the Old Man Of The Swamp, but he still needs a little sprucing up in the form of fresh pine needles rewoven into the wire frame. 

I also walked the river loop trail, but didn't do a Pokémon Go route.  I just walked it.  Even though I knew we are in extreme drought, I was still a bit shocked at how low the river is.   

I even walked across the street and walked the Bottomland Trail part way.  By this time, I was getting tired.  My legs were getting heavy, and my bladder was getting full, but I kept walking.  I didn't want to leave the woods. 

I walked to my second favorite sitting bench -- which used to be my favorite until they built the one overlooking the swamp-- and sat there for a while.  

So, I somewhat reluctantly walked out of the woods and came on home where I had a whole list of chores waiting to be done. 

One of those chores was cleaning out the two remaining snake tanks, which I did pretty quickly.  Those had paper pulp bedding in them, but I figured it's still biodegradable, so I used it as mulch in my tomato bed. 

I saved a little back for when I get those tomatoes planted, which at the rate they're growing won't be much longer.  Heh, I'm sure the gardening experts on YouTube would have something to say about me using old snake bedding as mulch, but hey, I've been putting it into the compost for years.  It would have gotten there in the end anyway. 

On a similar note, I finally got around to making paths in my fairy garden.  

I took the leftover stones and made sort of a central patio area where the fairies can gather. 

Maybe I'll buy some fairy chairs and put them out there, too.  And look what I found while I was doing that!  

It's a bud!  I'm going to have zinnia blooms pretty soon.  

And finally, remember this guy?  Just a few weeks ago, I thought it was dead and was going to put it into the compost.  Just look at him now, all perked up and happy. 

I just wish I knew why it was struggling so much, so I don't make the same mistake next winter. 

Eye Candy Friday

There I was, laying in bed snoozing away when I heard the tell tale ding of my phone...

Cody and Brennan have finally moved out of that horrible house they'd been renting for the last three years.  And I'm telling you, it was awful.  Chilly and damp, and the floors were rotten so bad in spots, I thought I was going to fall through a couple of times.  They've moved into an apartment, and Cody messaged me a couple of days ago asking if they could bring me a rocking chair.  

They didn't have room for it, and Brennan didn't want to get rid of it, so I'm getting a new to me rocking chair, at least until they find a bigger place.  And the ding I heard on my phone last night was my beloved son in whom I am not so well pleased at the moment texting me at 10:38 PM letting me know they were going to bring the chair next weekend. 

I said I was going to text him back at 3:30 when I got up for work, but I forgot to.  Lucky him.  

So, anyway, after that I couldn't get back to sleep, so naturally, I picked up my phone and scrolled through Facebook until I got to the end.  Seriously.  I got to the end of Facebook. 

It wouldn't let me scroll any more, and it wouldn't let me refresh, either.  I'm like, Dude, just show me stuff from six weeks ago, like you normally do.  I eventually fell back to sleep, but all of that made it a mighty short night. 

Then, we had a little excitement out at the plant.  I walked over to the computer to confirm an order and one of the parts stagers asked me who had gotten into a fight.  

"Fight?  This is the first I've heard about a fight."  She said that another employee had heard about it on her radio, so I tracked that employee down and asked her.  She told me two forklift drivers had gotten into a fight in the parking lot.  Wow.

One of the other sub brazer's husband drives a fork lift so I told her to ask him if he knew what was going on.  A bit later, she came over to my stand and told me that it was two new guys who were supposed to be going to second shift next week.  So new, her husband didn't even know their names. 

Then one of the brazing trainers came in and said that when the security guards called the police, one of the guys took off walking down the road and made it about 1/2 mile before the cops showed up.  That's all I know, except that the whole time, I had this image in my mind of them fighting with their forklifts like they were on bumper cars or something...

And finally, I remembered your Eye Candy Friday today!  

 Yay for me and for clover.  

What A Week

How did April go by so fast?  Seems like just yesterday, it was April Fool's Day,  and I still feel like it's March.   Yet, in a few hours it will be May.  But I'm not going to post that meme.  IYKYK

I meant to post yesterday, but I got home from work, turned on the TV to watch the latest episode of NCIS....and about halfway into the episode, the internet dropped.  Then it came back.  Then it dropped again.   It was out so long that time, I gave up and put in a DVD of Keeping Up Appearances.  

I watched one episode of that, and the internet came back up, so I turned NCIS back on...aaaand the electricity went out.  Only for a minute, but by that time, I was so fed up, I just went to bed.  

I needed that sleep, too, because Tuesday night, we had some pretty loud thunderstorms come through.  Those weren't so bad, but then the phone started ringing off the hook.  A while back, I'd signed up with the county EMA office to get weather alerts, and that was what I was getting....just not for MY county.  I was getting them for Hinds county, for Holmes county, for Attala county, Yalobusha county, Lafayette county, Humphreys county, Panola county, Oktibbeha county, Coahoma county, Tunica county, Calhoun county, Pontotoc county -- every county BUT Grenada county.  

I finally blocked that number just so it would stop ringing and I could get some sleep.  I think I'm going to sign up for local meterologist Matt Laubhan's Weather Call thingy.  It's only $15 per year.  I can spring for that, and delete a lot of the other weather alert apps I have. 

Well, turn them off at least.  I won't delete a weather app.  

Since it appears we're done with rain for a few days -- by the way, we got 1.4" over the last three days, but it's still not enough to alleviate the drought conditions -- I stepped out before work this morning and took the Walmart sacks off of my baby tomatoes so they can get full sun.  

They are all doing very well, even the tiniest baby tomato.  

This is the biggest one, and probably tomorrow, I'll snip off those bottom leaves, then give it a few days to heal and add more dirt to the cup. 

That's another one of those things I learned from YouTube -- to let the wound heal before putting it into dirt.  Maybe it's not necessary, but it doesn't seem like it would hurt, so I'm going to do it.

Good news!  I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but my baby rosemary is putting out new growth!  Maybe it's going to survive after all!

In other news, I went to the store today instead of tomorrow and decided to treat myself to some fancy soup. 

I had intended to make two meals out of this, but it was so good, I ate the whole thing.  

Look what else I found:  

Reduced sodium beans and rice!  I'd made some a few weeks ago, but it was just so salty I could hardly eat it.  I don't like salt.  Weird, I know, but that's just who I am.  It's supposed to get cold again this weekend, so this will be a perfect meal for a chilly day.  Oh, and I bought smoked sausage to put into it.  

After I'd eaten my soup, I finally got my new flag hung up. 

And I totally stole this AI generated image from social media, because it's awesome. 

 Finally, in memory of David Allen Coe: