Garden

Here are our tomatoes, peppers and basil started from seed. Four Better Boy tomatoes, 5 bell peppers and two basil plants. I just planted banana peppers but they aren't up yet. It sure is hard to find banana pepper seeds.

We have other seeds that we will plant directly in the ground---radish, cucumber, zucchini and cantaloupe. We also have dill and chives. I bought rosemary and thyme plants because they are perennials. And I bought bachelor's buttons and cosmos.

Bachelor's Buttons and Cosmos, Bright Lights Mix

I chose the orange and yellow Cosmos because I thought the more familiar Cosmos colors would blend too much with the colors of the Bachelor's Buttons. Also, I was looking for sunflower-type colors without actually planting sunflowers. I love them, but so do the squirrels.

My mom always planted bachelor's buttons because I always loved them and asked her to plant them. Ahhh----bells of Ireland, I don't have seeds but that's another I always asked my mom to plant. I loved the green flowers and they always attracted green inch-worms (caterpillars), which I enjoyed playing with (when I was little!!)

Green inch worm and Bells of Ireland

Now go to my other blog, Violet Obsession, to see what came in the mail today :-)

Rain

We've been getting lots of spring rain this weekend. Thankfully no severe weather like they had down south. Dinner was roast chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, veggies and cranberry sauce. Yummy.

We have tomato and pepper plants started from seed. Nothing beats home-grown tomatoes!

Last night we watched the remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still". We didn't much care for it. It seemed to turn into an environmental statement, and it was plagued by inconsistencies and scenes that, well---were just dumb.

That's about all the news for today

More Stuff

I haven't felt much like writing because I don't have anything to write about, other than we aren't moving this year. So I am basically busy with work and my violets and all the other things I do every day. We are having a decent spring this year, more warm weather than expected. The snow ball bush will be blooming soon and the crabapple tree is coming into bloom now.

I bought myself some comfortable shoes, didn't even need to break them in, on sale at Cabela's. I don't normally shop there, there are kind of expensive. I am having a hard time finding some decent tops. I just want some casual tops to wear around the house. It seems like clothing is made with skinny arms and fat middles. Once I get it to fit my arms, the waist part is flapping in the breeze. Relaxed fit they call it. I do like some of the clothes at K-Mart.

Stuff

It was explained to me that the uproar is because the country can't afford it and something about it's against the law to force everyone to buy insurance. The thing is, in order for the insurance companies to afford to pay out on the sick people is to have all the well people sign up and pay into it too. How are you going to get them to do that without incentive? Apparently Indiana has decided to join with the states that are trying to sue the government.

I bought seeds today. Tomato, peppers, cucumber, dill, radish, basil. Life is what happens when you're busy making plans. I don't think we'll be moving this year.

We watched Public Enemies the other night. It was pretty good. It was neat seeing Crown Point in the movie. Dad put the ductwork in there when it was being renovated years ago. I will have to ask him for more details. It's too bad the beautiful First National Bank in East Chicago (that Dillinger robbed) was demolished. I thought the movie started out a little slow, but it picked up momentum.

YES WE CAN!!!

Have universal health care! It was voted on tonight, still needs to go through the Senate, though. Some people are screaming that it takes away their rights. Huh?

Ok, it takes away my right to be denied insurance because I have pre-conditions. It takes away my right to be terrified that I might have a serious illness while uninsured, in which case I would need to empty my savings account to get care, and when the money is gone, go on Medicaid, which is a spend down program, so forget about those savings.

Woo.

Tell me why I should be against this?

I want to add---if we had this maybe my dad would have gotten care sooner, and been able to live longer, same for my mother-in-law. Two dear people lost too soon because they delayed to get care because they didn't have insurance.

Star Trek

We watched the new Star Trek movie. For an old Star Trek fan like me it was a real adventure, although I couldn't quite wrap my head around the baby-faced young Spock. Well, Nimoy as Spock was always my favorite, so I guess I'm being a little extra critical. But it was good, and packed with action. And Nimoy does make an appearance!

Someone posted a picture of the old and new cast here:
http://www.rollanet.org/~vbeydler/van/3dreview/star-trek-old-new.jpg

Stardust

Tonight I learned that gold is star dust! I love the History channel program "How the Earth Was Made". So much new stuff to learn. Anyway, I always assumed that gold was just an element of the earth. But it turns out it was created by an exploding star, a huge supernova that rained gold particles through the universe. When the earth formed, some of the particles were captured. Gold always stays gold. It doesn't change, like iron turns into rust or uranium decays into lead. So the gold on your finger came from a faraway star, billions of years ago. That's even more enduring than diamonds made from coal. Who said diamonds are forever? Awesome.