A Happy Mango Move

Puppy has a new spot.  She's moved from my balcony to my office.  She has responded by putting out new leaves and growing.  She's a beauty, I gotta tell ya.  We're both happy in our new space.  For one thing, I have actual WINDOWS in my office, a vast improvement over the cubicle farm at the last space.  I have vastly underrated the delight of natural light in the office.  I valued it, don't get me wrong, but feel so much more relaxed and in touch with the natural world, even though my windows look out over a parking lot, there are lovely green bushes outside and trees fill my line of sight.  Blue skies, clouds over head...I think this is helping my circadian rhythm get back in sync. 

It makes me happy to see Puppy thriving in her new environment, and my office mates are delighted to see her again and amazed at her growth.

It's so exciting, I may do this again...and again...and again.  I love growing things from seed, or taking the root end of celery or leeks and planting and watching them grow again.  Leeks, however, should not be grown inside as they will stink up the place, just so ya know.

Just an aside, did you know dogs LOVE verbena?  It's like catnip to cats!  You can't keep them away from it, so you better keep the verbena from them!

Hey, out there in bloggerland, anybody got a good (safe, natural) way to rid the house of little flying pests?  They are about the size of fruit flies or a bit bigger.  We live in hot, muggy Northern Virginia, and this time of year they always seem to show up.  I don't like to kill things, but these things creep me out!

Tax day.

It's that time again. Each year, after many hours of fussing, cussing, calculating, stomping and storming, turbo tax tells us how much of the money we earn is actually ours. Some politicians would claim we are wealthy, but their standards of what makes a person wealthy change as they try to see how much blood this turnip can actually produce. It's vile and disgusting. These two"wealthy" people rarely take vacations, have to budget to be able to fix my 8 year old vehicle, and sometimes the Ollie grocery budget gets stretched pretty thin. Then uncle Sam tells us that we aren't donating enough to the cause. Tea anyone?