The Verdict is in

My civic has been deemed by my insurance company to be "a complete loss". Time to look for a new car. Any suggestions?

My little car gets no respect

I have said this many, many times. And it's unfortunately true. I have been bumped into numerous time, most incidents occuring since I've lived in Massachusetts. I've had people ding my doors, and side swipe my bumper leaving nothing but a trace of red paint. A month or so ago a rock fell from an overpass on I90 and put a divot in my windshield.

AND then there was Sunday Sept 7th, 2008 when the ultimate insult was dealt to my poor little car. I was following Pete to his place to drop off his car, which was running poorly.... and as I came to a stop light, the driver behind me slammed into the back of my car and pushed me into a thankfully, NOT busy intersection. My head slammed into the head rest and bounced right off. I've never felt so out of control in my life.

What could become a very lengthy story here, I am just going to sum up with this:
Thank you God that I am ok, I am alive, a little sore and have whiplash, but I am in one piece and fully functioning, though kinda slow. :-) The photo tells the rest.

I am awaiting the insurance companies decisions on the fate of my sweet little car. I'm saddened by the thought that she may be done for. She was a great little car, very reliable. We had some great times together.

Please drive safely out there, give yourself enough distance to stop suddenly. Remember you are precious cargo. Cars are replaceable, lives are not.

Hello again....

Yes, I know it's been a while. I apologize. I'm finally moved into my new apartment and amidst going to physical therapy to rehab my wandering knee cap, and enjoying the bounty of cucumbers, beans and squash from my garden, my computer has decided to go on the fritz. So until someone decides they can either soder the DC connection for me, or send me $140 to get it fixed (kidding) my posting may be limited. Sorry.

My knee is doing better, well was. I took spill on a slippery Wal-mart entrance this weekend and landed on my left side. While it was not a very hard fall, I attribute that to my derby training. I do feel I may have stressed the muscles a little and have been in a bit of pain again this week. Ugh, 1 step forward, 2 steps back. I should have complained and had Wal-mart pay for the past 3 weeks of PT that had got me to the almost pain free point I was at until Saturday afternoon. Not very happy about being in pain again.

While I was rejoicing at the almost regular rain showers we were having earlier in the summer, it is now proving to be too much of a good thing. My garden is suffering, and my tomato plants are starting to rot. I have a lot of green tomatoes, but instead of turning a rosy shade of orange and red, they are just becoming speckled and lined. My yellow squash has produced maybe 5 small buds and then rotted before coming to fruition. My cucumbers which are trying to take over the garden, have not succumbed. They are taking note from my tough peas, which also happen to still be blooming! And I have enjoyed several crisp tastey cucumbers and several handfuls of fuzzy green and wax beans.

I'm not giving up. I hope to get out and take a few more photos this week, but it really isn't much to see, just a sea of cucumber vines. Good thing I really love cucumbers, but only second to tomatoes. I'm holding out and I guess if all else fails, the farmers market is on Saturday. (but tell my garden I cheated)

Happy August, boy does time fly.

A quick peek

Derby career on hold.

As you can see my garden has been an attention hog and taking up all my blogging lately, which doesn't say much considering the scarcity of my posts lately...I digress.

So here is some more news about roller derby. I haven't been skating for the past few weeks? Month? due to experiencing pain in my left knee. This happens to be the knee that I injured when I was 13, doing of all things, roller skating. June 23rd I went to see an orthopedist and then had an MRI on the 26th. My biggest fear was the MRI would show something was torn and I would have to have surgery, thus putting skating on hold indefinitely.

Today I got to see the MRI results, which by the way are really cool. If you've never seen one, it looks kind like they turned your leg into a loaf of bread and you can look at different slices.... Good news is, nothing is torn! However, I find the diagnosis oddly comical: Chondromalacia patella.
Or in layman's terms: Runners knee. Ha, do they know who they are talking to? I don't run. I wish I could. I see people running all the time, saw a lot of MIT and Harvard students running along the Charles yesterday as I drove my car. I wish I could run, but I just get bored and out of breath. I realize this term is really due to this being a common injury for runners, but with the reimmergence of roller derby, they may want to consider changing the term to, "skaters knee".

If you are feeling sympathetic and would like to see what symptoms and conditions constitute this diagnosis, I found this page is pretty much spot on: http://www.revolutionhealth.com/conditions/bones-joints-muscles/knee-pain/symptoms/chondromalacia-patella?

If you actually took the time to look at that page you'll already know what needs to be done to cure myself of this ailment. Rest, anti-inflamatory drugs, and some good old PT. Hopefully my knee will be good as new soon and I can get back to skating in a few weeks.

In other derby news, the New Hampshire Roller Derby is really coming together and we are participating in a couple of scrimmages! Even though I won't be skating in any of the upcoming events, I hope everyone will spread the word and come out and support these wonderful women. Look here for details: New Hampshire Roller Derby




Psssst, exciting garden news to come! :-)

Now with a few less weeds

With the help of Philip, I managed to tame some of the weeds in the garden last weekend. I stopped by to take these photos and was pleased to see how my peas are just a mess of purpley-pink blossoms, and I discover my first wax bean! I also found a few more suprises growing in my garden. My day lilies have broken through and a small patch of mushrooms crept up by the fence.

My lettuce is bolting and its now time to find some summer lettuce varieties and re-seed. My yellow "Jerry" tomato has a few blossoms and one of the zucchinis has tiny buds developing too. The nice warm weather and frequent, to almost regular rain showers are boding well for the little garden. I hope to spend some more time during my 3 day Independence Day weekend tidying up a bit and hopefully planting some lettuce, carrots and bunching onions.

Updates....

Ok I've been hesitant to post these photos because I don't want to be judged by the amount of weeds. However, I plan on getting up early tomorrow morning and heading out to my little garden that could, and putting in some serious work. So I can post these photos now as the "before" photos and post tomorrows photos as the "after". :-)

After perusing a book on high yield gardening my mom so kindly loaned me all the way from Ohio (Thanks Mom!), I've decided I can make better use of my space. I bought some more plants and am going to try growing a few more things, even though I worry it may be a little late to start things like sweet corn, but maybe I'll get lucky. I bought another tomato, some marigolds, and a thyme plant at the Belmont Farmers Market yesterday, and some more squash, cucumber, a honeydew, and one yellow bell pepper plant today.

The best news of my update.....My peas have made a come back and are starting to bloom! I knew they were fighters. I planted two more rows of snap bean and wax beans. I need to create a trestle for them tomorrow. I've picked a good bit of lettuce now and am going to try starting some more in the shade of my other plants. My yellow tomato had a few small blooms (see photos) and one of my bean plants that I had transplanted from indoor seeding, had a few small blooms coming on. The gardens all around me are bursting with life. What better way to spend the first official day of summer, then working in my little garden?

Here is a link to a slide show that my garden neighbor, Kathy, put together of her photos of some of the better tended plots at the community garden. http://www.flickr.com/photos/skippysbackyard/sets/72157605711911683/show/

She has a very nice blog about her gardening too at http://carletongarden.blogspot.com/ I learn a lot just from reading her blog.