Gardening

I love to garden. I love playing in the dirt, planting seeds, watching them grow. I even like weeding. What I don't like is bugs!
Bugs give me the hebie-geebies. While I am oft fascinated with hem I don't like them. They creep and crawl and skitter away! Spiders and millipedes are the worst! Especially spiders with egg sacks. Eek! Earwigs are icky too.
Tonight I was gardening, well weeding more like, and I disturbed a bunch of creatures; a couple earwigs, some ants, unidentified little red bugs (like mini fireflies), there are a hoard of Japanese beetles munching away in my giant zinnias, getting ready to jump to my hydrangea I'm sure. It was the spiders that really creeped me out.
There was the long bodied brown girl, egg sack attached to her abdomen, that scurried across the ground trying her best to stay away from my be-gloved weeding hands. Then there was that creepy triangle butt that sent me to the other side of the flower bed, till I felt it was gone. Some little red spiders were sprinkled about, but I kept close watch on Mom...brrrch. I eventually shooed her to the side where I had finished so she could find a safe place to hatch the next generation of creepies...
Once I finished the weeding, I went to look up the control of the Japanese beetles...Jerry Baker recommends a tonic of equal parts baby shampoo, antiseptic mouthwash and tobacco tea...(yes, you steep chewing tobacco in water till dark brown). Guess I have to find the chewing tobacco. I'll just add that to the growing list of things to do. (Wash & wax Aggie, fix the screen door, find and steep chewing tobacco...)
I've used JB's tonics before and they work wonderful! They are organic, made from ingredients found around the house; shampoos, ammonia, tea granules, beer. I add my own secret ingredient: frog sauce.(For those who don't know, I own an African Clawed frog, and he creates 15 gallons of 'frog sauce' a month.) My plants love it, but so it seems do the bugs...Did I mention, I really dislike bugs?!
So I guess it's off to the Walmart tomorrow to find the cheapest, probably nastiest, chewing tobacco I can find to make some anti-creepy crawlie tonic so I don't have to hand pick those bugs off my plants. Did I mention I really don't like bugs...
D~

Memory Lane

Blogging is an interesting thing to do. It's difficult to know what to write; I usually sound like I'm whining about something or another. I go on to friends' blogs, who are way much better then I, and feel very insecure about putting 'anything down on paper', then I end up not posting anything.


I reconnected with some 'girls' from my high school days on Facebook. What a joyful thing FB is! I'm so glad I've reconnected with the people I have, but I digress. EH wrote a lovely piece about her first friend at  boarding school, and as I'm reading it, I'm thinking, 'wow, that sounds so familiar.' Turns out it was about me! DOH! Apart from the fact I didn't recognize myself in the story, it was wonderful to know I was a 'lifesaver' to this soul at a time in her life when she really needed a friend and a laugh. I felt bad that I didn't remember it.

(To provide the short version of they story; EH was dropped off by her folks, and she wandered down to the smoking lounge, where a bunch of us were chatting, and I invited her to sit with us. Seems a great joke was told, and I tossed my head back in laughter and when I 'returned' to normal I inadvertantly stuffed the lit cigarette up my nose. This painfully (for me) shared experience helped her find a new friend and it slipped my mind. I remember another time having a cigarette shoved up my nose, but that's for another blog...maybe. lol!)

The best perspective I have for this would be the flip side: I reconnected with another MMI friend, and when she responded to the 'friend request' she said, 'I honestly don't remember you.' We spent a year together and even swapped local treasures (I gave her a Saudi man's head scarf, and I was given a silver plated mug), and she didn't remember me...

I don't feel too bad now, I remember EH, just not the incident. Well now it's EH's turn to be the 'life saver'. Her blog is mostly about her dating in the modern world, with a few heartfelt side bars, and how she's doing. One of her recent entries was the advice, all girls should read, "He's just not that into you", so okay, I've ordered it and am patiently waiting for it to arrive.

A couple months back I read, "Eat, Pray, Love", and found 3 things that rang true with me, underlined the passages and I was going to blog about them. I've since passed the book on to someone else, and don't remember what it was that rang true with me. Something about prayer being a conversation with God; it's okay to make up your own 'Religion' (which I've been saying for years! If you follow the 'Big 10" and Golden Rule, you'll be alright!); and for the life of me I can't remember the third. Must have been really memorable for me.

Hmmm, guess my memory just isn't what it used to be, or is it? Just call me an Air-bubble, I'm too smart to be an Air-head, but I have my moments!

Happy weekend!
D~