I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest, but...

I'm not sure I understand why Dr. Tiller is being so deified and honored in his death. Yes, it is horrible that he was murdered, and even more so that it was in church in front of his wife. That itself is terrible. But I keep reading these articles, blogs, and Tweets that he was a "shining star," a "crusader for women's rights", and on and on.
Wait a minute. He performed late-term abortions, correct? At that point in development, a fetus can't be passed off as an "inhuman blob of protoplasm" anymore. There's so much web traffic out there right now, but I also read on Bill O'Reilly's website that Dr. Tiller also performed abortions on 10-15 year old girls, cases of rape and incest, and did not notify the police. His reason for performing late-term abortions? The women were "depressed." NO SHIT. How is that worth honoring?
I'm pro-life, to an extent. I do believe that people, mothers and fathers alike, should be held responsible for their choice to have unprotected sex. Cases of rape or incest, whether in minors or adults, or severe illness that threatens the life of both mother and child, are the only instances where abortion should be condoned in my opinion. It's not a matter of "women's rights" to me. What about the child's rights? Because they have no voice, they don't count? The child has to give up its right to having a potentially wonderful life simply because "it's not the right time for me to have children" or whatever the reason is? If a woman is not fit to be a mother, there are countless other women out there who are, that maybe can't have children of their own, or that are willing and able to adopt by choice. Just because someone was irresponsible and had unprotected sex shouldn't make abortion the go-to answer.
But that's not the point here. I don't think murdering Dr. Tiller was right by any means. But I don't think it's right to call him a saint either.

The ER Sucks, or Tell Me Another One, Captain Obvious.

Figured I'd better write a full on note about this instead of just a 140-character tweet, just to avoid sending anyone into a panic. B and I spent a good 4 hours at the ER last night - he was working in the shop, cutting the handlebars down on his motorcycle, when the cutting disk on his rotary cutter shattered - one of the broken pieces flew up & caught him in the lip. The cut really wasn't that bad, only about a half-inch long, but it went clear through his lip to the inside of his mouth, so we drove over to the ER at UTMC (only about 2 miles away, convenient!) and sat there for freakin' EVER waiting to get three stitches. It was kind of busy there, but it was still pretty annoying to watch nurses wandering around kind of aimlessly while we sat there. It didn't bleed much thankfully, but it's swollen as hell. He'll probably have a small scar, but his teeth weren't damaged at all so that's good. So that was our Memorial Weekend adventure!

I'm an addict...

I freely admit - I'm an addict. To many things, really, but right now I get my fix from good ol' Helios. That's the sun, people. I was a DARE Role Model, what did you think I was referring to??

So ever since the sun finally showed its face here in NW OH (finally as in about 3 weeks ago, yet we had a frost warning this week), I've been trying my hardest to lower that god-awful statistic about how much time people spend indoors (Ninety percent. Ninety. 9-0. That's wrong on so many levels.). I eat lunch outside - we have a nice patio out the side of our building, although it's right outside one of the plant doors and the guys inside play their music at top volume, which depending on their mood can be a good or bad thing (today, Snoop Dogg following by Hank Williams Jr. Not bad.). When I get home, I change clothes and go out to water the gardens, and we try to eat dinner outside too. Taking advantage of the weather right now swings both ways though... soon it'll be too hot to be outside at all.

All this is just to say, sorry my posting has slacked off!  

The veggie garden is slow to take off so far, since we started from seeds rather than buying plants from the nursery. There are a couple of squash that have come up, and a few corn sprouts too. The beans and peas took right off, and the tomatoes and peppers we bought as plants. If we don't see some action from the rest of the garden soon, we'll hit the nursery after all.

I have Iris blooming in the front beds this year too! Last year they didn't bloom at all, but this year every one of them has multiple buds. The two plants on the south side are already in bloom, one is lavender and the other is two-toned dark and light purple. I'll add some photos soon.

I'll also post a couple of articles in the next week or so - it's time for the monthly 'green' newsletter at work so I can at least muster up the gumption to post those!

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine too!

Why I'm not cut out to be a writer

I've been gardening up a storm these past couple of weeks, with a surprise visit and a trip to Chicago thrown in for good measure.

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B got me good!  We usually suck at surprises ("Happy Not-a-Surprise Birthday sweetie, I got you that book you wanted" or something similar is how it usually goes) but he managed to pull one on me when my best friend & her fam showed up at our house on Saturday night a couple weeks ago... and they live in Colorado.  When she told me they were traveling for a couple of weeks, I didn't think she meant driving!  So we had a great time with them for a couple days.

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The Chicago trip was for two classes related to work.  They were both very worthwhile, which is kind of unusual, and also helped me get my mind off the presentation that I put together for our sales meeting but did not give.  Which apparently went well... or at least I haven't had anyone calling, confused or mad or anything.

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Along those same lines I sent an email to my bosses expressing my concern about being left out of the loop on so many things that have in turn come back to bite us in the butt.  I think I made my case quite well, and hopefully they see my position and make some changes.  All I want is to see this stuff before it gets printed with the wrong info on it... why this hasn't been happening up to this point is kind of beyond me.

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Moved some stuff around in the garden and planted a few new things... just in time for a frost last night.  Managed to get the potted herbs inside and the tomatoes covered, but I didn't have time to survey any damage before leaving this morning.  Hopefully everyone else is ok!

And that's really all the excitement I have to offer.

Slow down, you're movin too fast... got to make the moment last

Twenty points if you can name that artist/song!

(Points towards what, I don't know.)

Obviously I've fallen short of my goal of posting at least every other day.  My apologies!  Now that the sun is out, my evenings are spent weeding and watering and scouting for new sprouts in my garden, all while trying not to burn the chicken on the grill.  I love this weather!  

Happy little Vinca!

I'm glad it rained today though.  I hate having to use city water on my gardens.  When we're able to finally buy a house, wherever it may be, I want to install rain barrels.  I've found some great plans for making them on a couple of different sites - you can use 55-gallon drums, old wine casks, or even heavy-duty garbage cans.  HGTV has a good set of plans, and here's a great "Instructable:"

  
Rain Barrels - More DIY How To Projects

If you're not able to make your own, there are lots of great resources to buy them ready to go too - Terracycle has some awesome ones!  (Be sure to check out their worm poop fertilizers too!)  Just install them under your already existing drain pipes and fill your watering cans from the spigot at the bottom, or even hook up a hose or drip irrigation system.  Is it kind of sad that I'm really looking forward to being able to do this?

B has an idea for rain tubes too, disguised as drain pipes.