Things I've done since getting home (less than 72 hours ago)

-Hiked Stewart Falls, which I'm sort of inordinately proud of; my body is not particularly up for it.  It took a good four hours, which included many long breaks--one laying down in the trail--but was absolutely glorious.  I've rarely been on a more gorgeous hike; Provo canyon in the spring is where it's at.  Excellent company and food also helped.

-Checked out an overflowing basket of library books, finished reading two and started two others

-Listened to Bach's Magnificat, watched the musical episode of Buffy with a friend, and played chess over skype with another friend

-Purchased thrifty, mostly healthy groceries from locally owned stores

-Unpacked and cleaned, made budgets and to-do lists, tracked all of my spending, and got up to date with all necessary banking, sorted through accumulated mail, and reconciled with my house manager and labor-bartering housemate

-Checked Barnes&Nobles for a book I may buy but wanted to have a look at first

-Briefly visited my wonderful Provo-living sister and nieflings, arranged to go out for gelato with them tomorrow

-Took Baby Girl (the beloved '92 metro who served me well since I was 19) to a mechanic, decided it's time for her to go

-Got in touch with the roofing contractor (AGAIN), arranged a date and time to go over the contract, arranged a date for work to start: rain gutters, rain barrels, an attic fan, and flashing and leak repairs are now on their way.  :)

-Decided what to get my friend Dan for a wedding present

-Purchased a high quality secondhand bike for 250$ less than I had budgeted, after having it customized: road bike frame, cruiser set up, one speed.  If there's a bike that will get me around the flat parts of town and be easy for me to fix and maintain for myself, this is definitely it.  Also found a volunteer bike mechanic whose interested in helping out the Provo Bicycle Committee.

-WD-40ed a rusted masterlock back into functionality so I can use it as a bike lock

-Went for a long walk at sunset

-Researched paint disposal/recycling, what to do about the damaged lead paint in my stairwell, and purchased paint.

-Purchased a couple of tools {this is what happens when you always loan out your painting stuff. :( } and set a minion to work giving my basement a fresh coat--finally sealing in the lead paint!

-Discovered another possible foundation repair needed  :(

-Wrote the first two pages of the first draft of the book


-Started my garden for this year.  I bought (solely based on what looked good and was cheap at my local nursery) and carried home on foot:

one sweet pepper
one hot pepper
one Juliet tomato
six striped german tomatoes
six I don't remember which variety tomatoes--maybe brandywine?
one eggplant
one butternut squash
one yellow summer squash
one zuchini
two parsley plants
one thyme plant
one large canister of organic fertilizer

I also planted all the squashes, peppers, and herbs (leaving only the nightshades, for which I may need to build a new planter), weeded sections of the garden, picked up the trash that accumulates from people walking by from the strip mall, got a minion to mow the lawn, and pruned the plum tree I planted last year.  The branches for three of its five varieties seem to be thriving. :)  Also, Rupert--the rhubarb my sister got me as a housewarming present, which I thought dead--appears to be just barely hanging on, so I weeded, watered, fertilized, cleared away dead tissue, and am hoping for the best.


I feel productive. :)

Hunger Games

I've posted {the closest thing to a review of Hunger Games that I'm likely to write} as a comment on this pretty interesting Hunger Games review:

http://znovels.blogspot.com/2012/05/hunger-games-trilogy.html