Sorry For the Absence

Sorry about having been away for a bit from the blog . . . I simply haven't really been in the mood to post due to being preoccupied by certain matters, especially job hunting, which continues to be as frustrating as ever. It's so annoying to get email and phone calls telling me that they "saw my resume, and want to talk to me, so give me a call". And when I call via relay service, yep, I get the answering machine. And I can't just say okay, well, I called, so give me a call since I don't have a tty (I use internet relay) and a majority of people don't know how to use the relay service, or don't want to bother going through the trouble of using it. And I'd like not to tip it off that I have a disability and thus give them a subtle excuse not to seriously consider me (even though this is of course against the law); I just want them to look at the work that I've done for the 10 years that I was with the company, okay? (That, in and of itself, should state quite clearly that I was able to work just fine with my co-workers despite not being able to hear, and I'm a stable worker.) Please, when you get in touch with me, could I have "we want to talk to you . . . come in for an interview"? That'd make my day. Okay . . . thus endeth the Rant of the Day.

A while ago I ordered an emergency sock kit from Too Much Wool and it arrived last week. I love the fabric! Just what I wanted; now I need to trick it out with needles and other functional tchotchkes. Now I'm looking forward to how she figures out the circular needle kit (hint, hint). I've joined the Summer of Socks that Zarzuela is hosting. I need to make more socks so that I have a nice variety to choose from during the cold season, and these are easy and quick to knit up anywhere. Plus, I have plenty of sock yarn, enough for maybe fifty socks. No, I don't think I'll make that much - I'm not SuperWoman! I just need to lick the Second Sock Syndrome.

Now that it's summer, it's back to gardening. Here's me mucking around in the garden. I'm getting ambitious this year - I'll be growing a lot of vegetables of different varieties, such as tomatoes (I was able to find a very nice Fourth of July at a local nursery), cucumbers, and so forth. I'm even growing from seeds and these are doing quite well. I'll give the first batch of seeds a few more days to grow, and then transplant these.

I'm making a few changes to the garden in terms of perennials. I've had a hard time deciding what to get based on the amount of light. Finally, I've decided that in the corner that gets shade much of the day once the morning sun moves around, I'm going to have hostas and other plants that love the shade. I do have a flower that I got planted there, but I've forgotten the name just now and need to go back outside to look at the label. I moved the rosemary bush I was trying to grow over to a new spot by the clematis last fall and I think it's going to be much happy there. I got a hardy passionflower and planted it between the rose bush and the clematis. And, I have a non-invasive honeysuckle waiting to be transplanted as soon as the ground gets tilled in the front right corner. Oh, and the anemic pine trees are going to be buh-bye as soon as we get in touch with the city hall. These trees are in the common area, but simply have never grown well despite the 10 years that these have been in that spot. I'll have to take a picture when I get a chance, you'll see what I mean.

Here's a really nice picture of the rosebush and clematis. Yes, I didn't do anything special with the rosebush. I come from the "survival of the fittest" school and just let it duke out. We're going to need to do a bit of pruning so that I can get the rosebush to actually climb on the fence. It's those darn thorns that are getting in the way.