yarn_rn: Fretting

WIDE awake at 2:30 a.m. Fretting about an extremely long to-do list. Have been reading the news and the comics for an hour, and it's honestly difficult to distinguish between the two sometimes. An LJ friend pointed me to a local news station, where most of the news writing seems to have been shopped out to a local grade school. It's horrible. Eeeenyhooo.... Adam and I went to a Farmer's Market in West Allis on Tuesday; it was lovely. Lots of vendors, lots of great autumn veggies, a well-behaved Nala accompanying us. We bought heaps of squash (acorn, butternut, spaghetti, etc), pumpkins, broccoli, beets, brussel sprouts (still on the stalk, which is my favorite), onions, tomatoes, basil starter plants. And we spent less than $30 on the whole shebang. The broccoli and brussel sprouts were outstanding steamed with garlic butter. The squash and pumpkins got roasted with olive oil, basil, rosemary, and thyme in a 400 degree oven for an hour per batch (for three huge batches), and Adam has been eating them non-stop. We have plans for curried beets, curried butternut squash with rice, fresh tomato sauce, soups (I made homemade chicken stock from the remnants of garlic-rosemary roasted chicken). My only regret is that I didn't buy the MONSTER zucchini there (seriously, a 20-lb zucchini??), because I could have processed that and frozen the portions and made zucchini bread all winter. I may have to check out the other markets this weekend and remedy this oversight. We've started a small compost heap in the back of the yard, and I'm busy devouring "Square-Foot Gardening" and plotting soil preparation before the snow hits. I'm also pondering the likelihood that Adam would be ok with installing a lamp in the front room to for starting seeds. (*smile*) Adam and I spend a decent portion of each day in our kitchen, but we eat exceptionally well for it. I have interviews beginning late next week for nursing positions in three area hospitals. Which means that I won't be employed until about two weeks from then, at the earliest. So I'm looking at a pretty open October. I realized today that this causes me not a small amount of anxiety, because without some kind of structure I feel a little lost. I have all this open time to get "stuff done," but I'm not great at self-discipline, which leaves me with lots of wasted time wondering which project I should tackle next. There has to be a way to address this. So I have long to-do lists, which I will spare you the agony of reading, and they are the kind of thing that wake me up at 2:30 a.m., stumbling to my computer with a bowl of organic granola and chronic busy-brain, honestly inherited from my father. I went Geocaching today. I found one geocache out of the four I looked for. Honestly, not nearly as much fun as Letterboxing. I may trade in my GPS handheld for something functional, like a sleeping bag. Yoga class starts Monday. I'm still very disoriented. I keep looking for an anchor, and it's eluded me so far. Adam and I take long walks with Nala, which has not only been good exercise, but good for the soul, as well. We have watched autumn arrive in baby steps, the trees change, the leaves begin to fall, the air begin to turn to the north. The dog continues to try to consume Adam's USS Key West baseball cap, but despite this, she's a tremendous blessing. I keep meaning to write about her. Maybe tomorrow morning. And to close --
Two pictures from my last travels in the desert -- Grand Canyon, North Rim
The fire tree
Hope to the South