Work is Busy, Life is Busy

Last night I looked in the hanging pots (where we planted the tomatoes upside down and the seeds for chives and dill on top) and we have sprouts!! I'll have pictures on Monday. But here's one to tide you over of him doings some planting.

I put off studying for and taking my home inspection test for so long, that I have 3 weeks to study and take the test. And if I don't pass that time, I have 10 days to try again. So my brain will be in home inspection land for the next few weeks.

I have been thinking of not doing it at all, because of the whole insurance for it will be more than the income I make off of it thing, but if I get my license and let it be inactive, then when I do need it, in case of a lay off or something, I can find the insurance and it's full speed ahead (except that whole pesky housing market is down crap.)

In the interest of full disclosure the reason I started looking into it to begin with was because I thought I wanted to work from home, I thought I wanted to have Landon with me and just take him to mother's day out or something when I did an inspection. And I'm not really sure that's true anymore.

Half the problem was my job. I honestly hated my job. More than anything else, more than leaving Landon at day care, I hated my job. Seriously, cried tears of joy when I walked out into the parking lot on my last day. And now I have a new job. And I'm not doing what I want to be doing here, right now, but I have hope and my manager knows this and my manager is a good person and is doing everything he can to make sure my next assignment matches my skills. And even in this situation where I don't like what I'm doing, I am at least at a company that doesn't make me want to vomit when I walk in the doors.

The other problem was that I didn't think I wanted Landon in day care. But, now? Landon is thriving in day care. He is learning so much, and not just academic stuff, but he's learning about having friends. And talking to people. Things he wasn't going to be able to learn at home with me and things he didn't learn by going to a baby-sitter with only two other kids. And I just don't see how I could possibly pull him out of that.

Finally, I now make what I thought I might make per hour doing the inspections. And I don't have the responsibility of finding the work. I have a guaranteed 40 hour week, I park my car and walk in and the work is here. I don't have to hunt for it. If I could work a 20 hour week and make what I made now, hunting for the work wouldn't be a problem, but if I have to still work a 40 hour week AND hunt for the jobs, it would mean more like a 60 hour week. And that's not at all what I thought I was going for when I started this adventure. All of this of course also is based on budget we have now, which includes the debt we have, and if I can eliminate most of our debt, I can take a pay cut and we'd be fine. So this isn't an end all be all reason, it's revisitable.

Anyway, all this to say that I've come to a place where I decided, it's a good back-up plan. It's something I've already spent a lot of time and money on and just giving up at this point isn't in my best interest, but that if I fail, I will know I tried and I can move on with my life. And if I pass, I'm still not sure I want to follow through on it, but at least I'll have it in my back pocket if I need it.

Anyway, fair warning, light posting here for the next few weeks. Probably a lot of pictures, which I'm sure the grandmothers won't mind a bit.

Carrot results

I tried to pull up just one, but a bunch came with it. Here's my biggest carrot:

For some size perspective, these are pictures with a teaspoon:

I still have a few left, the package said 60 days to harvest and it's been 60 days, but I thought I'd give them a few more weeks. Also tiny carrots? Not that tasty.

This year carrots, next year cucumbers

Children eat more vegetables if they are homegrown according to this article. Soooooo…I planted some carrots. They’re growing!!! See these? Carrots! This is exciting, I can’t remember the last time something I planted as a seed actually grew and came up green. I’m jumping up and down and doing cartwheels, the very least you can do is clap a happy clap for me.





As much as I would love to believe that I could maintain a garden, I don’t have the time. If I don’t walk by my plants on a daily basis they have a 99.9% chance of dying in the first month. If I do walk by them they only have a 50% chance of dying, so they have better odds in pots on the back patio. So any vegetable growing at our house will have to be contained in pots. This year I’m going for carrots. Next year I may add cucumbers or tomatoes. I’m leaning more towards cucumbers, I don’t often need fresh tomatoes, but I may in the future.