Who Do I Want To Be?

My doctor's appointment is later today.  Yesterday was pain free.  Up and down the stairs to the office and everything.  As usual.  I make a doctor's appointment and then my symptoms take off.  There is still swelling (not as much) so we'll discuss that.  Because I don't think it's a "good thing".

G sprayed the back yard last night, so we have a week of mosquito free living outdoors.  I am always very, very sad when the "good weather" arrives and I have to stay in the house and only look at it.  Mosquito bites, on me, swell, turn very red and itch like crazy.  Make me miserable.  And I don't think being covered in large pink blotches of calamine is all that attractive.

I have a few things I want to accomplish this month.  So I need to make a list and check it every day to see if I can stay on track.  One item----- making ART!!! is something that will be number one on the list.  Getting all the "summer" veg into the garden will be #2.  The summer squashes, peppers and tomatoes.  Hard to believe it's time for that when the spring peas, lava beans and kale are still infants.

Tales From The Compost Pile.  Story #1.  Many years ago I purchased a box of bok choy and planted it in the garden.  I was busy and didn't notice, until too late, that the BC had started bolting (going to seed).  And since this was a "new" vegetable for me, I didn't know (then) that the little flowering stems are very delicious (indeed) lightly sautéed or even raw in a salad, so they were pulled and tossed into the compost.  I was tempted, this year, to buy another box.  I had been clipping and eating the little flower stalks off the boxes at work.  Lo and behold------ there in the compost pile (after all those years) is a little crop of bok choy.  Free.  And it's a wonder.  As there were three or four years of compostables tossed onto top of the pile.  On top of the little BC plants.  Some of the "volunteer" plants are already sending up little flower stalks.  This must be a variety that bolts very quickly.  Anyway, I am planning to add them to my salads for the next few days or even a week or two.

Tales From The Compost Pile. Story #2.  When I pulled the big overwintered kale plants out of the garden to make room from the new plants and seeds, I forgot that the old kale plants make great flower heads also.  A real "treat".  So I pulled them out of that same compost bin and replanted the roots.  The replanted kale is sending out new leaves and delicious little flower heads.  More stuff to add to the daily salad I take with me to work.

My lunches are either Greek yogurt, Bran Buds and Fruit (this week red grapefruit from Texas).  The fruit is whatever is on sale at the grocery or what I pull out of the freezer as I still have berries from last summer.  My other lunch is a large tub of salad greens, carrot sticks, edamame beans, feta, Greek olives, spinach, bok choy flowers, cabbage, raw beets and even HB eggs.  The dressing is usually good olive oil, S/P and Balsamic vinegar.  Occasionally I sub in Ranch dressing (usually with the Feta).  I like red onion in my salads, but not at work.  I am looking forward to adding beet greens and radishes from the garden to my salads this month.  The arugula didn't come back (too much soil turning) and I miss the "bite" of that green in the mix.

Today I am digging up the lamb's ears and putting it somewhere else.  I think I might sprinkle seeds for arugula there when I get it all out.  Lamb's ears are a real pain.  They start out cute and well behaved and then take over.   Sort of like children.