My Prolific Garden

I'm not much of a blogger lately, but my gardening skills seem to be improving! Last time I wrote about my garden it was about the trials & tribulations I've been dealing with. Now, I'm writing to update about my bountiful vegetable plants! The tomatoes have been picked, and are now growing batch #2. The peppers are unbelievable. There's 5 waiting to be picked, and more flowers are appearing daily!

The Progression...

Let me demonstrate the progression of a night on the town in Toronto with two cousins...

My Little Garden of Hell!

I've been meaning to do an entry about my garden, but I kept putting it off since I forget to take pictures of my beautiful foliage and it's continuing progress. Now I'm regretting procrastinating so much...

But first let me give you a little background on why I have a "garden." I've never liked plants that much and I have a tendency to kill them, but my mother likes to give me plants. So, I have had two small houseplants (Anthurium and something labeled as "assorted foliage"), a Christmas tree, and big indoor plant (Peace Lily) from her. They've all survived for sometime now. The Christmas tree has had several brushes with death, but with much pruning, a recent transplantation, and much love, it's been able to survive them all.

My little Christmas tree...just like Charlie Brown's

A few months ago I decided to start an herb garden. In spite of killing my original mint plant I decided to add more plants to my brood, the first of which is an ever struggling tomato plant. Originally I also wanted flower boxes for my deck, but then my mother gave me a few "birthday presents" (that's what she calls plants that I have to pot and take care of). My presents included a pineapple plant, another tomato plant, and a pepper plant. Then, to round it all out, Peter decided he wanted a corner of my deck to grow zucchini.

Up until about a week and a half ago this was all under control. Everything was still living, which is how I gauge success. Then the plagues began....

First, the locusts! No, actually they were closer to fruit flies, nonetheless they were taking over my herb garden. So, my herb garden was put into the great outdoors. It was for the best really. They're quite happy out there. Once the herbs were out the door, the flies were gone! Problem solved!

Next, I realized that my one indoor plant had some sort of parasite. EWWWWW! Out to the deck for that one too.



Then, It was around this time that I started to come to terms with the fact that my pineapple plant is most likely dead. It's hard to tell, but Peter thinks it is and I'm now inclined to believe him.



Then, (and this is the nastiest part) Peter came over Friday. He checked on his zucchini, as well as the rest of the plants. When he came in and checked out my big indoor plant he notified me that he thought there was some sort of parasite on the leaves! Son of bitch! But wait, there's more. He then told me that he saw CENTIPEDES in the soil! AHHHHHHHHH! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! I yelled! EWWWWWWW! I started itching immediately, and am even itching as I'm writing this! YUCK! (btw, thanks mom for the insect infested plants you bestowed upon me!)

Muffin with the "centipede plant"...no wonder the cat's loved it so much!

Finally, the last plague took effect that Friday night! With all of my plants (and their cohabitants) out on the deck a thunderstorm began. It was pretty windy and rainy, but I was hoping it would just blow those parasites right outta Rochester. Well, wind and rain is just fine, but then the hail began. HAIL! I just watched as my plants were being pelted. I moved some out of the direct hail, but I wasn't about to bring those things back into my bug free apartment. So, the storm lasted much longer than one would've anticipated. Thus, I'm pretty sure there are some casualties. I gave them some fertilizer in one last attempt to revive those clinging onto life, so we'll see how that goes.

Yes, that's the same plant as the one above! I hope those centipedes were killed in the storm!

A closer look at the damage

My poor baby peppers that want so badly to reproduce

Yearly Dilemma

I've just realized that I have the same dilemma each year. Since I was 17 years old I've had to decide where to live & where to work each year. That's kinda ridiculous that my life is so unstable that I have to make big decisions like that on a yearly basis. However, I also like that I have a sort of mobility still and can up and change my location pretty easily.

I've made no decision about where to live or where to work, but I just wanted to mention that epiphany (favorite word) I had.

And just to be more random, here's some pictures from my birthday 2 weeks ago:

Settling Down

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog where I mentioned that a 23-year old intern had told me that the best years of her life were over. I thought this was ridiculous.

I mentioned the conversation to a co-worker/friend and she replied, "She's right!" I was stunned by her response, and was like, "Are you serious?!" She went on to explain that she felt that the days of hangin' out with friends regularly & spontaneously had ended. Now everyone has moved away, gotten married and/or started having kids. Now we're supposed to "settle down" into monotony. Things are now so different and it was sad.

I shared my opinion on how there's still so much that is going to happen in our lives, and if you think the best is over, then what the fuck are you gonna do for the next 60 years of your life?! Why live at all?

In the end we decided that we each had a valid point, and while our lives are definitely not over, they are very much different, and sometimes that is a depressing thought.

I have the occasional moment when I feel 21 again, like the days I play flip cup all night or stay out 'til the bars close. Those days are becoming few and far between though. Mostly my life has become centered around work.

Typical day for Jaime:
I wake up at 6 am.
I leave for work at 6:50 am.
I arrive at work at 7:55 am.
I work from 8-4 pm entering orders and monitoring patients.
I leave work at 4:05 am.
I arrive home from work at 5:10 am.
I eat a snack and go running or work out and finish around 6:15 pm.
I take a shower and fix myself up and finish that around 7:15 pm.
I now have free time until around 10 pm.
I go to sleep at 10 pm ('cause getting 8 hours of sleep is a necessity for me most days).

It's a never ending (dull & boring) cycle.

I'm not saying that my life sucks, 'cause it definitely does not. I'm just saying that it's very different from my old life. I'm trying to get used to it. Thankfully, I think the fear of getting stuck in a rut and having no social life will keep me from becoming a complete and total boring loser!

I Quit!

I'm a quitter.

It's true. I always have been a quitter. I suppose I'm not as bad as I was in my youth. I no longer quit games if I'm losing, so that's progress. I just have a tendency to give up if things aren't going my way. For example, when Peter was teaching me to drive a standard I quit. He was having me back up out of a parking space and I just FREAKED OUT, got out of the car and walked over to the passenger side instead. I accepted defeat. I just couldn't do it.

In reality I know in my heart and brain that I am capable of doing most things if I set my mind to it. Sure, I may fail, but with perseverance, I'm sure I could accomplish most things that I set my mind to. The problem is that I hate failing at things in the meantime. Practice may make perfect, but I just want to be perfect right away and not deal with those immediate, inevitable failures that precede "perfection."

I'm not as much of a quitter as I used to be. This is mostly because I don't give myself an option to give up. The thing that I just can't seem to quit now is my job. Despite thinking that I'd be leaving it in the relatively near future, I find ways to put it off. Currently I'm working on incorporating 4 day work weeks into the schedule. Surely 3 days off during the week would make a job more tolerable, right? So, this is my new challenge. I'm in charge of developing the schedule. I love the power of devising a plan, but I'm hating the actual work and compromise involved. Maybe I'll quit just to get out of this predicament.

I don't have much else to say right now about all this. I'm just finding myself more and more frustrated each day and thought that if I said something about it I would perhaps feel better.
I don't.

Age

Yesterday, at work an intern was talking about how upset she is about turning 23. She then said that she feels like the best years of her life are over. WOW! I told her that was sad.

So, I got to thinking...

Despite the fact that I am going through a self-proclaimed "quarter life crisis," I do not think that my life is over. I'm just a little upset that my 20's are so close to being over and that there's so much that I still want to do, see, & experience. I also do not believe that the best years of my life are over. Imagine if they were?! What would I have to live for? I must say that the past (almost) 29 years of my life have been great, fun, adventurous, exciting, loving, interesting, sad, nerve wrecking, fabulous, etc, etc...... That being said, I know there's so much more to experience and I'm ready to do so.

I think when you're young your perception of age and what it means is skewed. A few years ago I found a journal thingy from when I was young. I wrote it when I was in 2nd grade. I wrote predictions that I would be married by the time I was 20 and have kids when I was 21. WOW! I didn't even finish pharmacy school 'til I was almost 26, and trust me if I had kids when I was 21 that would not be a good thing for any of us! Then, the other day, my mother mentioned that I always said I wanted to be married by the time I was 30. I told her that things don't always work out as we plan them....and that's not always a bad thing. I'm perfectly fine with not being married and not having children now. I'm sure if my 2nd grade self knew my almost 29 year-old self and had the same understanding, she would be okay with it too. My younger self never expected me to go on to college for 8 years, become a doctor, and begin a lucrative career either. (Ha, ha! Take that 9 year-old self!)

So, I guess the conclusion I should reach from all of this is that I shouldn't be concerned with age, and that age is only a number. In actuality I don't really believe that either. I personally think age is a good gauge of things. I'm far too logical of a person not to think that. I just think that people place too much importance on the age number.

In conclusion, despite turning 29 in 10 days, I wouldn't want to go back in time to any other place in my life if it was even possible. I'm sure 29 will be wonderful...30 on the other hand....well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.