Thursday, August 20, 2015

Couldn’t help it

I have been following the secret diet faithfully for eight days and, although I was planning to wait three weeks before doing this again, I wrapped the tape measure around my waist just now. The measurement is down more than 2 inches! Good gravy*!

That’s probably especially dramatic because of the 10 days in Maui that preceded the taking of the first measurement. But still.

* No actual gravy was consumed on the secret diet.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Tomato madness

Today’s distraction from the book I’m editing…

Tomatoes! (And blogging about tomatoes!)

When we got home from our trip, my fancy ananas noir was surrounded by weeds and totally falling over—the cage was sideways. There were bunches of green tomatoes, but they were mostly sitting in the dirt. (The whole thing had been knocked over in a windstorm earlier in the summer and, because I never check on it, I didn’t realize the degree to which everything was growing horizontally.)

As I weeded, though, I got a brainstorm:


I could use bungee cords to hold the cage up and provide vine support! It’s goofy, but at least now it looks like we are growing tomatoes intentionally instead of accidentally.

Also, there was one ripe tomato, which I was really excited to try. I set it down in the grass and then, no surprise whatsoever, in my bungee frenzy, stepped on it.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Tidying madness

I have a whole update on our Maui trip theoretically coming, but at the moment nothing is interesting me as much as…

Tidying!

I had put a library hold on “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” as I mentioned, and when we got back from our trip, it was available. I knew, million-page editing job or no million-page editing job, that I was going to be reading it immediately, so I didn’t even try to delude myself and just started taking little book breaks. After a day, I noticed that there was a second bookmark just behind mine, which meant—yay!—M.H. was also on board for tidypalooza.

Anyway, the book was utterly delightful—if you are the type of person to be amused by the writings of woman who has devoted her entire life to a mad obsession with tidying—and I believe what she says because there’s no way anyone else on earth could speak with such authority on the topic. Of course, I don’t really have time to start any major projects, but I couldn’t resist applying her method to my sock drawer.

Happy socks, arranged light to dark, and rolled, NOT BALLED.
I culled my sock inventory by about half, and there was so much extra room in the drawer that I decided to put my slippers in there to keep them company. I cheated, though, because only about six pairs of those socks really meet the “sparks joy” threshold. (They’re socks, after all.) Maybe the joy comes when you haven’t done laundry in a week and still have socks to wear.

M.H., on the other hand, is all in on tidying, and is starting right now. I’m going to be so jealous of his closet in about an hour.