Houseplant Season and a Few Fried Slugs

Oxalis triangularis. 

It's houseplant season and recently I've been busy. I hope to clean up a few neglected plants on Sunday.

Working over 40 hours a week with two part-time jobs is challenging physically but it's rewarding otherwise. 

I'm happy right now and it feels different. I'm adjusting. I'm changing. 

I wish I could say more about my caretaking job with the elderly—and the amazing people I continue to meet—but I'm sworn to secrecy due to privacy. 

It is safe to say that I've met a few green thumbs during the last few weeks. Many are physically too delicate to garden now so I tell them about gardens instead and they tell me about the gardens they've known. It is a wonderful way to interact with people whom you don't know well. One woman used to be involved in an ikebana group. We were fast friends. 

We tend to talk about the weather a lot and animals. I've heard many great stories. It will be good for me to continue the work—at least for now. 

There are two elderly cats here at home. It is not their favorite season. Luckily I'm earning more money now so I can purchase special items for them. Hopefully they'll be watching me sow some seeds soon.

I keep talking about it. I keep threatening to do it. Working is more important for now. Learning two new jobs is challenging. I at least am very confident about how to germinate seeds. That's reassuring and it feels good to be confident about something. 

Last weekend we went to my parents' house again out by the coast. It felt like a work weekend because we were both writing NaNoWriMo novels. 

This week I stopped writing mine temporarily due to swelling and hand pain. My story is writing itself and I've stepped back to better control the time I put into it. Something snapped and clicked inside of me while I was at the beach last weekend. Suddenly I saw how I write. I've never enjoyed writing fiction much but it's clicked with me. 

My book has a lot of plants and gardening in it. So I'm kind of writing about plants right now. It's just not so obvious to anyone here visiting the blog. 

John and I really like visiting my parents' house near Astoria. He enjoys cooking and the stillness while I tend to wander in the woods. This last trip I was working too hard though. I'm looking forward to having more fun next time. 

For a break we drove over to Astoria and went out to lunch and then walked the streets of our other favorite town in Oregon. 

I should have taken pictures of our meal but we ate it all too quickly. Looks like I have a good reason to go back now, don't you agree? 

John has a relative with a boat moored in the Astoria so we walked over to look at it. There were old Victorians for sale as well and a few of those caught our eye. 

But it is houseplant season and I'm back in Portland now. It's been a long week and in addition to caregiving I've been writing a lot of content for a cooking blog. I'm still in awe of the fact that I'm being paid to write quality content for someone else as a ghost blogger. I really like the woman I'm working for and cooking is so fulfilling for me. 

I'm still struggling with food photography and am setting up a home studio here for it but I will write more on that later. What's great is that I can also let some of that food spill over onto this blog too. 

Tomorrow I'm off to the Portland Farmers Market to get a wide selection of wild mushrooms. Expect some recipes soon...

In the meantime, enjoy this really interesting blog post from a few years back. The next time I hear someone proselytizing on local foods and how they have a lower impact on the environment I'll through this mushy little monkey wrench at them: Feral Food: How to Eat Slugs.

I'm such a little stinker sometimes.

Wordless Wednesday: Part Three: A Tour of Bella Madrona aka The Garden of Sampson & Beasley

Wordless Wednesday: Part Two: A Tour of Bella Madrona aka The Garden of Sampson & Beasley

An Autumn Field Report

My life feels like it's on fire right now—but my house looks like it thanks to the annual display put on by the Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). 

While my life takes off, I'm too busy to even sit and consider what'll happen to me now if I swell up. It took me a long time, and it took a lot of searching and self-acceptance, but finally, I seem to have a professional life and a work schedule I not only can manage, but I've set myself up to succeed and it feels so much better. 

The garden is no longer neglected. In my mind, it's on hold. It's slowly starting up again (really coming to life for the first time) and I'm introducing John to it little by little.

His first unique seed experience was this 'Cruel' vine seed head (Araujia sericifera). It's the only one produced by this non-hardy vine that has survived a few too many winters here in Oregon. I grew if from seed. To see it set seed after several years is very exciting to me.

The vine is in front of the house and isn't really that special. It chokes out all that gets in its way and I was getting tired of its unneighborly behavior. Then it bloomed rows of small, pretty white fragrant flowers and my dislike (aka hatred) for the plant relented.

I am a proud mama now. I can't kill my baby. I've got to collect its seeds!

The small autumn-blooming Camellia 'Silver Dollar' is currently bursting with blooms. I appreciate and admire its restraint and grace. So many of the other garden plants are dressed up like painted ladies this time of year. I love the little touch of class this plant offers my eyes.

The Amsonia I grew from seed a few years ago is looking beautiful next to this Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides)—speaking of painted ladies!

Life in the house and garden is changing though. Our family has changed and I'm working more and more outside of the house now.

Maurice the Cat is ever the trooper and despite his age, arthritic pain, and weight problem, he's soldiering on and has enjoyed every last bit of sunshine he can grasp in his polydactyl paws.

Cats do not like change and only now are they trusting that their lives are not being tossed hither and thither.

The leaves are changing and falling. The air is crisp and tonight we may have some frosty temps in the Portland metro area.

It's a beautiful time of the year and I'm preparing again to participate in NaNoWriMo.

I'm writing a novel again in November—but unlike last year—this story is fully cooked and ready to go. I am also preparing to write many other things. Actually, I'm already doing so. It's time. I am well enough now.

There is still some physical recovery to do. A decade of illness is not easy to repair. I need to lose more weight. My blood pressure and heart need a break. I've lost a lot of weight and have continued to regain and build muscle but my body needs to be leaner and meaner. I am caring for me now and it feels good too.

I will do all of these things that I've set out to do now. That's what I do. That's what I've always done. It's good to be me again.

I'm working as a caregiver now, and I work all kinds of odd shifts with the elderly and those in hospice.

Illness has prepared me for this and I'm comfortable and confident with what I'm doing.

It's not a forever job, but for now, I'm enjoying the pleasure of working hard and the opportunity of getting to know new and interesting people.

They've lived different lives than mine and we honor and respect one another as we work through basic daily tasks that have become increasingly more difficult for the clients. The adjustment has not been easy for me, but it's improving. I know what I'm doing and I know that I can help them.

It feels good.

There's also a new dog in the family. My mother-in-law picked up this little cutie recently and although I'm not a dog person, I like her a lot. She has made my mother-in-law very happy and I've enjoyed seeing that, but the whole adoption process led to John and I craving a kitten.

Between the two of us we have 5 cats. We do not need a kitten. (His two cats live with his mom and her new pup.) We just want one. Ugh.

This autumn we've talked a lot about eventually buying a place in the country near the ocean. I've thought about the garden it would have and what palate of plants I would pick. This is another project I'm working on right now.

I've never really designed a  project like this, but oddly, I'm ready and willing to accept the challenge.

This has led to me thinking a lot about my own design aesthetic. I never knew I had one but it runs through almost everything I do. It ties into the novel writing, so I'm a happily contained little mind now. Inside I am germinating.

There have been many meals and many recipes recently. John has been cooking new things, learning new techniques in the kitchen, and he's been shopping at farmer's markets. As for me, I'm in love with my Cauliflower (Brassica) 'Minaret'. Yes, I've been cooking too, but I've been enjoying all of John's food more. I'm proud of him. He's a great cook.

For me, food has become another job. This is a good thing—literally, a job! I'm still kind of in shock this even happened, but it did.

So, it's exciting to announce this publicly. Here goes: I've been hired to work as a ghost blogger for a food blogger. That is all I can say, since I am obviously a ghost blogger, but to say that the experience is thrilling is an understatement. I want to be a paid writer. I crave it. I need it. I would like to continue working as an editor too. With this opportunity, I will be able to do both of these things.

And from here it will only get better...

Lastly, I've returned to arranging flowers and that's been good for me during the times when I still feel chronic pain from either swelling or injuries I sustained years ago. I'm arranging plant material weekly in an effort to relieve stress and to be creative. It gets my juices flowing and it gives me a problem to solve. I relish that kind of thing.

The whole process brings a kind of value to my life that's irreplaceable.

It's still cleanup time in the garden—my garden: I'm still blogging, there are seeds to sow, I see a future garden to begin designing, and there are many words in the air. My mind has been swept and it is still a bit shady in there, but I see leaks of light and the words are in lines now that float and I can grasp their syntax.

Someday I will describe the mind of chronic pain to show how dull and slow it can become and how one can lose so many words. The feelings and thoughts were all inside of me but I couldn't get them out. I struggled. I was inarticulate for so many years.

It is difficult when the words come to me quickly now. I still feel as though I'm sitting behind the wheel of a fast car as the words pour out. I know that I am not yet as suave as I once was though, I'm rough, I repeat a lot. I could use better words—and I will.

But I will use them for my novel and it will have a garden and it will have plants and there will be so many other wonderful things. My many layers are peeling away now and as winter comes low over the horizon from the cold north I will let the chilling winds lay bare that which I want so badly to articulate but have yet been unable to do so.