Freedom in the Hills of New Hampshire

There are times when I hate living in New England and times I love living in New England. I love it when people complain about how hot it is outside and how they’ve had the A/C on all month long and their electric bill is $500. I hate it when I realize that we had exactly 4 days in June without ran. July is slightly better: I think we’ve had 5 so far. Apparently the last two years, we’ve suffered from less sunspot activity than usual, resulting in cooler weather. Judging by the last two winters, last summer, and this summer, I guess astronomers know what they’re talkingabout.

Needless to say, this has negatively affected gardeners in the Granite State. A friend of mine’s garden is half dead and completely waterlogged with her zucchini barely clutching to life. My garden is doing slightly better. It  is suffering from a lack of sunlight, but not all of that is due to rain. It’s a covered balcony facing east, so it only really gets a lot of morning light. We overestimated the amount of morning light while planning our garden. This was before the sun moved all the way up in the sky and the trees in front of our building sprouted green things that apparently function as some sort of solar panels for the trees or something. All I know  is they’re stealing our sunlight. I need someone to go guerilla chop them down, but I think the property managers would take issue with that.

So, thanks to the rain and really cool crappy summer weather, we haven’t actually harvested anything from our balcony this year except for herbs. Our Rosemary is actually dying and I have no idea why. Our green onions also aren’t doing all that well for the same reason. I have a few buds on my pepper plants. My tomatoes have started to blossom but despite the fact it’s mid-July  I have no tomatoes growing and this makes me sad. All of you who live farther South and have tomatoes have my complete envy. Actually, my friends who have tomatoes here in town have my complete envy.

My cucumber plant, of all things, has turned out to be the star of the balcony garden. It is happily growing and weaving its way along the balcony railing, sending out tendrils and blossoming like it’s going out of style. At last count, I had 15 cucumbers growing on it and I’m sure I have more now. We’ll probably get to harvest the largest in a couple of weeks.

Overall, this has been a good learning exercise for my husband and me. If we’re still living here next growing season, we’re going to do things a bit differently:

1. Only put tomatoes and peppers in our topsy turvey containers. We have 5 and could easily fit one more. We’ll have no tomatoes and peppers in pots on the balcony–they don’t get enough light. I never intended to but Lasse transplanted the last seedlings from our grow tray while I was gone so here we are now.

2. No carrots or green onions or chard in Window boxes. The green onions were a wash. They take too much space and give to little. THe carrots I’m just plain iffy about. Maybe in a pot, but carrots are so inexpensive that I could buy them instead. My chard just isn’t doing well in the Window box, so I might try another batch in a pot on the balcony come September. It’s a cold weather crop that is hardy down to 20F.

3. More vines! THis should have been obvious from the get go. Vines love my balcony. So next year we’ll do more cucumber, maybe a melon (because I love melons and they’re expensive up here so we should try them), maybe some beans. We’ll see. I have a natural trellis that I’m just not taking advantage of.

4. Herbs and vines will go in the window boxes, along with some flowers…maybe. My garden is really not astheticaly pleasing. It looks weedy and insane. Even I cringe while looking at it. I’m hoping that next year, I’ll be able to change that. I’ll grow basil next year but no cilantro. It’s inexpensive and just looks too weird on the balcony. Lasse wanted chives…but again, they look weedy so we’ll have to see.

5. We’ll start growing our seedlings at the beginning of march, possibly earlier for things that are currently taking forever (read: tomatoes and peppers). The growing season is short up here and you really have to take advantage of starting things inside like the nurseries do.

6. Heirloom seeds! I only found out about these after I bought our seeds already. I have a few heirloom tomatoes I got from a friend. I first told her I had no room for any more tomatoes but when she said they were brandywines, I figured I could make room. I’ve heard awesome things about heirloom tomatoes and I really hope I get to try some this year.

Doing this really makes me wonder how early settlers up here managed to live. We get our last frost so late and the growing season is so short, the ground is so rocky, the trees are so many…they really must have been desperate to make a go up here of farming. Nowadays we still have some farms that produce really yummy food, but even then most of those farms produce yummy meat, not yummy vegetables. I’ll give another garden update once we get some tomatoes.

Lasse and I have d one a pretty good job paring down our food budget. When I look at how much we used to spend to feed the two of us when I was working, I’m amazed: it’s nearly twice what we spend now. Clearly, we ate out at a lot more and I bought a lot more crap at work.

But we’re still looking for ways to trim it further and stock up on the staple items we buy frequently. We decided it was time to join a Warehouse Club.

In New Hampshire, there are three Clubs to choose from: Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s. We being as we are, we went to each one to see what products they had, how far they were from the house, how much membership was and that sort of thing. We also made a list of the products we use most frequently and wrote down their price per lb or quart and then compared it to where we usually do our grocery shopping, Stop and Shop. Lasse then typed the list up in excel and analyzed it. See, there are some benefits to being married to someone who loves statistics.

The end result?

BJ’s was clearly the best wholesale club for us. Not only is it right down the street, it also has a wide selection of HFCS-free items. We won’t buy things that have HFCS in it, so places like Sam’s Club who would have otherwise been very competitive got booted entirely off the list. Costco also would have done quite well, if it hadn’t been located within spitting distance of the Massachussetts boarder. It’s so close to MA and so filled with Massholes that you can tell when Costco executives were looking at sites they found this one and thought, “Aha! Perfect! It’s so close to Massachussetts, our customers won’t have any problem driving up here, especially since they can do their shopping tax free! And should any Granite Staters want to shop here, they can too!” I swear, 9/10 cars in the parking lot were from MA. It took me forever to get out of there because they kept cutting me off.

It was also quite surprising to see what exactly we were paying out the ass for at Stop and Shop. Things like onions, potatos, and butter are just slightly cheaper at BJs while pure vanilla extract, King Arthur’s Flour, and cheeses are ridiculously chceaper. I can’t believe we’ve been paying $17.99/lb for parmesean reggiano at Shop and stop while it’s $12.99/lb at BJs. I really wish we’d joined sooner! Some items, however, are cheapest at Stop and Shop. Lemons, for example, I will only buy at one Stop and Shop due to a wonderful quirk in their self-check out system. Beans are also cheapest there: $1.00/lb for most types, while lentils and split green peas are $0.79. You can’t find them anywhere cheaper.

We are thoroughly enjoying our ability to buy large quantities of things all at once. This is especially true since we’ve decided to up our paranoia level and start stockpiling some food items we use regularly. Yes, there was quite a bit of discussion involved here. On the one hand, we don’t want to look like we had a great time at a tin foil hat making party. On the other hand, with the amount of money the government is pumping into the economy, there are only two things that could happen:

The beginnings of our stockpile

1) Our government will borrow the money from abroad, thus increasing the number of dollars in circulation, thus causing massive inflation and food prices to increase, thus causing the government to institute price controls thus causing food shortages and rationing.

and/or

2) Our government will print all the money, thus increasing the number of dollars in circulation, which will cause massive inflation, which will cause food costs to go up, which will cause the government to institute price controls thus causing food shortages and rationing. Ta-Da!

Don’t believe me? Think back to the 1970s energy crisis when they imposed price controls and we had gas rationing.

Since it looks pretty likely that the dollar is going to lose value and food prices are going to go up, I think it would be very handy for us to at least have a month or two of food supplies hanging around. If hyperinflation does occur, we’ll be prepared. If it doesn’t, we won’t have to do much shopping for a few months. It’s really a win-win situation.

My computer is on its last legs, which is partially my fault and partially the fact that it’s a Dell. First off, I knocked it off my desk on the morning of the Tea Party Money Bomb in my eagerness to see how much money Ron Paul had raised, thus causing the Great Harddrive Crash of 2007.

The casing of my laptop is cracked in various places due to that and other times I’ve dropped it. It falls quite frequently, mainly because I use it while I breastfeed and it perches on the edge of the futon. When I get up, it looses its balance and falls on the ground.

Which brings us to the next problem. One of my USB drives has never quite worked, even when the laptop was brand new because Dell forgot to install a grey thingy in it that would make it transfer data as well as electricity. Now, neither of my USB drives work because I keep knocking my laptop over while the external fan is plugged in and have bent both USB drives. I can still transfer electricity in the top one (which used to be the good one), which is good because…

My laptop overheats. This is apparently a common problem with this model of laptop and it requires an external fan, which needs to be plugged into the USB drive. Even with the external fan, if I do anything that makes my laptop do too much for too long (like watch DVDs), it starts to run reeeaaaaallly reeeeaaaallly slooooooooowly and I have to boot. Plus, now that both USB drives are bent out of shape, I have to make sure it’s plugged in in a very specific manner or it won’t run and then the insides of my laptop will melt, congeal, and die.

And since my USB drives are broken, I can’t download pictures onto my laptop anymore. I have to do it on Lasse’s computer and then he sends them to me in a zip file. But you know what? After I unpacked them and saved them to the file I wanted, none of my photo uploading programs could find them. It was like they didn’t exist. I could find the pictures, they were there, but the programs could not. It was extremely frustrating, so I kicked my husband off his computer so I could upload some pictures.

The files are there on my computer, but the internet refuses to acknowledge their existence.

I need a new computer.

Sorry for the complete lack of updates lately. There are a few reasons for it: 1) I’m a lazy bastard and 2) WordPress redesigned their dashboard, making everything different enough that I’m not really sure where everything is. It takes me just long enough to find everything that I’d rather do something else. I’ve really just got to spend some time getting used to it, I guess.

At any rate, it’s a new year and while I don’t usually do resolutions, I do have a few this year.

1) I’m going to lose the last 15 lbs of baby weight that simply refuse to budge. Anyone who comes up to me and says, “but you’re breastfeeding! That burns an extra 500 calories a day…the weight will just melt off!” will be shot. It did melt off in the beginning (giving birth really helped with that) and I lost 29lbs in 7 weeks or so. But since then I’ve been pretty much stagnate. I think I’ve even regained some of the weight I lost and I still can’t fit into my prepregnancy clothes. So it’s time to knuckle down, get serious and just lose the friggin weight. To show my determination, I had cookies and tea for breakfast this morning.

2) I’m going to learn how to knit. I actually started trying to learn to knit last year after seeing all the beautiful things Poppins at Handmade Homeschool was knitting and learning one of my friends had learned how to knit. I wanted to make pretty things, too! I managed to learn the long-tail cast on and knit stitch but gave up when the purl stitch soundly kicked my ass and set it aside. Then after New Year’s I was confronted with Poppins’ year end knitting review and felt the same whine, “I want to make pretty stuff tooooooo!” so after discussing the purl stitch a bit more with my friend, watching more videos on knittinghelp.com, I picked it up again, struggled another day, set it aside, picked it up again yesterday and something clicked and I could purl. Yesterday everything was clicking with me and I just had a really good day. So I’m knitting, just for practice right now, trying to get the stitches even and trying different techniques. Eventually I might get some good yarn and knit Lasse a scarf and then move on to other cool projects. I’m not a crafty person, but since I had el bebe, I’ve certainly wanted to be one. We’ll see how it goes.

I had another one, but I can’t remember what it was. I suppose it should be “write more and better blog posts” but I don’t see that one sticking any time soon, so take what you can get.

The weekend before last, the heating element in our bedroom sprang a leak, soaking the carpet around it. We called maintence and put a measuring cup under it to try and catch the water. They came and fixed it on Tuesday.

Now, this morning there is a mushroom growing in our bedroom. It’s right next to the wall, about six inches away from the radiator. The carpet underneath it is black.

The mushroom in question

You should also know that I hate mushrooms. I think they’re disgusting horrible fungi and I can’t believe anyone in they’re right minds would eat them. This mushroom, however doesn’t look like the edible type. It looks nasty,  with a shaggy head and a white point right in the middle of it. Disgusting.

At any rate, I called the office and told them. The receptionist paused and said she’d put me on with the property manager, who said she’d call and find out what needs to be done. It’s either in the carpet or in  the wall. Fun, fun!

It’s weird to think how a few posts in a thread, followed by some private messages, then chat sessions, and international visits can result in this:

Haakon and the Moose

Our son, Haakon, was born a week ago at 10:49 in the morning and totally surprised his parents by being two weeks early. We definitely weren’t prepared and when my water broke and a call to the midwife confirmed that I was in fact in labor and the water would not just stop coming out, there was a mad dash to pack the bags and finish a few things before he came. The week since has been spent staring at him and noting how cute he is andd trying to figure out what he’s inherited from us. So far, we can tell he got my feet (which I got from my mom) and Lasse’s tongue (long, pointy and reptilian). We’re also eagerly watching him for signs of personality: what will he be like? The only indication I’ve seen is how easily he gets frustrated. If he can’t get a good latch nursing on the first or second try he immediately starts screaming.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how the next few months go with (as Lasse calls him) Our Little Thingy.

Lasse got another translating job and though he’s still in the finishing stages of getting hired (they’re checking references, etc.), we’re both rather amazed at how this situation has developed. Out of one random translating job he got back in May, it’s spawned a career, more or less. Now if only translating work had occured to us way back in January when he was looking for work…Ah well. Who would have thought Finnish and Swedish translators would be in such high demand? The sad thing is that the engineering company he’s translating for is having issues getting the drawings ready and to him to translate, so he spends a lot of his time bored. Then the boredom progresses to worry, then sadness and general malaise. Fortunately, he got this other job right around the same time or else I might have had to get him on some anti-depressants. The good thing is that the engineering company wrote him a kick-ass reference, though they put down ‘Romanian’ when asked what language he translated for them. I guess we just shrug and say, “that’s why they’re engineers and not linguists.” The project leader also got into a minor panic: “You’re not quitting this project, are you? PLEASE don’t quit this project!” and Lasse had to reassure him that no, he wouldn’t be quitting the project, don’t worry, this is just something else to do. I’m beginning to wonder if maybe Lasse could negotiate a higher wager rate as he seems to have a lot of leverage here…

We’re also reaching that stage of the pregnancy where we spend a lot of time staring at each other and saying, “We’re going to have a kid soon.” It’s really intimidating once you have the crib assembled, the carseat ready to install, the diapers well on their way to being made, and you can feel a small round probe moving all around your belly…okay, so the probe is probably a foot, but I’m not discounting anything. It’s hard to imagine that anyone could feel ready for this sort of thing, ever. Amidst it all, I’ve started to feel way to young to be doing this. The sad thing is that I’m 24 and when I consider my mother (married at 18, pregnant immediately, gave birth damn near 9 months to the day after getting married) or my sister (pregnant at 18, gave birth at 19), I’m quite old and settled down. But I don’t feel that way at all. Sure, I’ve had experience with babies before, but the last time I spent any significant amount of time with a newborn was 6 years ago, when my youngest nephew was born. It also matters that I wasn’t the one who was post-partum or breastfeeding him. I pretty much got to just enjoy the cute floppy newborn and maybe change a few diapers here and there. This is going to be completely different. For his part, Lasse enjoys talking to the belly as loud as he can (so that the baby can hear, you know…) and all of the random kicks. He’s also fairly worried about this whole fatherhood thing, but really: he has about as much experience with kids as most guys do when they become dads (none). He’ll learn, though, and hopefully not rely on me too much to be the expert! It’s been a while.

The light in our kitchen is a constant source of frustration. When we moved in, I replaced all the light bulbs with CFLs (bought on sale at work) to save money and energy, except for the kitchen because that light fixture is completely impossible to take down. We can’t figure it out! We’ve turned it every which way, pulled on it, and basically done everything except swing from it and it won’t come down. One of the light bulbs in there is burnt out, which was annoying, but this morning I went to turn it on and the other one burnt out as well. So, I ended up having to call maintenance up and put in a work order to get this light bulb changed. How stupid does that sound? Seriously. The sad thing is that they didn’t come today and I want to make sure we’re here when they come so that we can learn how to replace this stupid thing, so I’m debating whether or not we can leave the apartment at all tomorrow…this will be resolved!

Just found this this morning–a diaper giveaway of 12 Bum Genius 3.0 diapers (and found it via Frugal Babe, one again). So, I figured what the heck, might as well enter. Technically if my sewing goes according to plan, I won’t need these diapers, but it’s a contest, dammit, and if I win, I’ll be a winner! And according to Xenophobe’s Guide to the Americans, Americans like to win because it makes Americans feel good, and good is the American way to feel. So, in the interest of patriotism, I’m posting a link here because you get an extra entry if you link to the post somewhere. Sorry, guys. But who knows, you might actually find yourself interested in it, too!