Somebody Turned on the Summer

We got the AC fixed just in time. Summer happened.  But the garden is happy.

Rose of Sharon

Homestead Flynn's flower

Shasta Daisy

Rudbeckia with bee

Marigold

Osteospermum

Laura Bush Petunia

Petunia

Ladyug eating aphids on the Rose of Sharon

Aloe "Red" flower buds

Ornamental Pepper flower

Angel Trumpet flower

Bee on Lavender

This is the time of year when the plants are growing quickly and flowering but the weeds aren't too tall yet.  I like this time.

Work is interesting.  This week the guy that has the desk job that I wanted got another job.  I may or may not get asked to take his position.  I don't think I have the standing right now to ask for the job.  Richard is trying to be nicer.  He says please and thank you (when he remembers) and has passed up several opportunities to be hateful.  On Thursday I ran the cutter all day and during the morning I cut a casino mailer that we do all the time.  Usually when we cut this job we go ahead and get it ready to mail as well even though that's technically the mailer's job.  So that's what I did.   On Friday morning the mailer guy comes by and tells me that Richard told him not to talk to me in the mornings because he distracts me.  At first I was baffled but then I remembered that I did that casino mailer and so instead of asking my why I was getting the mailer ready and letting me explain that it's the way we usually do it but I don't have to do that anymore, he told the mailer not to talk to me so I wouldn't be distracted.  I was livid.  I was so mad I was shaking.  I had to go outside and wail on the dumpster with some pvc pipe I found.  But that helped and I was able to go back to work just fine after that.  But I did not talk to Richard voluntarily the rest of the morning.  He left at lunch for vacation fortunately because I was having trouble holding my anger.  He's also gone on Monday.  Needless to say, I am relieved to have a day free of that and I also would really like to have that desk job and no longer have this boss.  I don't know if maybe he was trying to not have a confrontation with me or "get me in trouble" or what but being passive agressive and going behind my back to tell someone else not to interact with me is extremely humiliating.  This is at least the second time he's done this.  I don't know how many people he's told to not talk to me but two of them have told me about it.  The first time was before he was even my boss.  He told one of the drivers not to talk to me because he was trying to teach me how to be a team player. (?!)  Apparently what Richard didn't like was when the driver had questions about where things were I would help him find the answer.  First, he wasn't my boss in any way.  Second, even if he were, he should be able to simply tell me he didn't want us helping the drivers find stuff.  Third, what a jerk.

Many more people have had confrontations with Richard.  Many people have told me how much they hate him.  Like there's anything I can do.  The company is on Richard's side.  I lost all my status, importance, responsibilities, usefulness, everything when Richard became the boss and I asked for advice on what to do about his hatefulness.  I got in trouble and was told that his behavior was my fault.  I was told that I am a caustic force in all my relationships and eventually I alone will ruin them all.  I was told that I deserve to be fired many times over but he believes I can become a better person.  I've spent two years trying to believe that I am worth something.  Many therapy appointments.  Lots of work.  I had almost gotten there and then in one conversation, Chris completely destroyed me.  This past month has been hard.  I cry almost every day.  It's one thing to be depressed because that's all you've known, but to be depressed and know what it means to be happy is way worse.  Any self confidence I had is gone.  And because this is the only way I know how to be a "good employee", I have to just be sad all the time.  I've lost almost all my work friends because I'm so miserable to be around.  I'm miserable.  I don't want to quit because of one person.  I used to love my job and I think I could again.  But this is miserable.

Chris told me to read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" so I am.  I'm mostly done with it.  So far the book is about how to be a good boss.  Maybe Richard should read it.  But I did get some good information about how most people don't really care about having correct information or being right.  I'm supposed to let them be wrong or believe faulty information so they can save face and I don't argue.  Makes no sense to me.  Accurate information is one of the most important things in my life.  But ok, I won't argue or tell others they're wrong.  Whatever.

Apparently I'm supposed to smile.  Smiling does not come natural to me.  Especially this month.  It feels like a lie and it makes me cry.  It reminds me that I used to feel like smiling and I didn't have to concentrate to do it.  So now I avoid eye contact so I don't have to smile.

Everything else is how to be a better boss and make your employees feel important and worthwhile.  Maybe Chris needs to read this book again.  But I'm almost done, and then I'll review it and take notes before I have another meeting with him to discuss what I've learned.

DH has been wonderful and supportive throughout the process and he makes home happy.  I'm very thankful for him and whichever friend told him how to be this way.

Garden Tour

Here's a tour of my yard:

Sunchokes from Swap

Cypress Vine from Swap

Dwarf Burning Bush $2.50 @ Lowes

Daylilies that came with the house

Hyacinth Bean from the swap

White Butterfly Bush $3 @ Under The Sun

Clematis from Mom.  They might make it!

Angel Trumpet.  Gonna have to move it somewhere else

Front bed with daylilies and salvia and lots of things yet to bloom

White Hill Salvia.  I love this plant!

Rudbeckia $3 @ Under The Sun

Baby Zinnia from seed

Anyone know what this is?  It was $1.12 at Lowes so I brought it home.

The north side of the house post plumber.

Apricot Hibiscus tree $5 at Lowes

My Begonia is blooming!

Ornamental Peppers with petunias.  Peppers $4, all in one pot, purple petunia $1.50 at Lowes, Laura Bush petunias from swap.

New gardening shoes, $7 at WalMart

Fig tree from Grandma Carol

Desert Rose (Adenium obesum) $14 @ WalMart

Our house works again

On Monday I got much less done than I had hoped. I took lots of pictures for DH since he was at work but still wanted to be in control of the situation. I made lots of tea and lemonade for the guys and then I brought DH home at noon. Guess he just couldn't take it anymore! It was still too hot to do any work so we sat around in front of the fans and watched the plumbers. It took them longer than they thought because our main sewer line wasn't as deep as they thought and so they had to add lots of piping and go out further into the yard to connect it. Something about the grade. They left at like 8:00 and we had AC, laundry, and the sink back but not the dishwasher or the garbage disposal. Those got fixed the next day when they finished up. That was the day of the tornadoes.

Mic digging up my yard

Michael leveling the ground for the new pipe

My pretty soil!

Tuvok is ready for the AC to be fixed

Since Richard is from California, he had no idea what that day meant. I don't know if he watches the news or anything but he had no idea what tornadoes are capeable of or what a PDS tornado watch means. When I explained it to him he thought I was just trying to scare him. The storms fired up at 1:50 and I watched them on my phone radar until we decided to make a break for it at 4:00. The government offices had all shut down at 3:30 and many other companies had followed suit, which just meant that rush hour was an hour earlier. Everyone was in a panic and the highways were at a standstill. I took side roads home and it still took me half an hour longer than it normally would. That was kind of scary. I was listening to KFOR storm coverage on the radio, stuck in traffic, with the giant storm looming in my rear window. David Payne was busy driving into a tornado and Mike Morgan kept marvelling at the debris balls. Since the broadcast was meant for TV, they weren't really saying where they were. Little bit of freaking out there! All the cell towers were jammed and it took several tries to send text updates at stoplights. So there was no way DH and I could communicate about storm prep until I got home.

Since I hadn't seen the radar in 45 minutes I thought the tornadoes were much closer than they were so I was in a hurry, and then DH and I argued for a few minutes before we realized what the deal was. Then we were fine. We got the shelter set up and popped a pizza in the oven. The tornadoes were still half an hour away. We were in the line of the Chickasha storm and it got right on top of us before it started to fizzle. We were standing in the living room, eating pizza with our coats on, ready to run to the shelter any second. It was kind of funny. It reminded me of a couple of years ago when we had Dave and Froggi over and a storm came. We were all standing next to the closet, peeking around to see the TV, and eating potato soup.

But the storm fizzled and we only got a minute of small hail and a ton of wind and rain. The backyard was a muddy mess from the plumbing reroute. But everything was good so DH turned his attention to cleaning up two weeks of plumbing disaster. And then I had a meltdown.

All the stress of the plumbing, the yard being dug up and trampled, and the tornadoes just came out all at once. And I think they had stirred up something I'm allergic to, because my legs were super itchy and my feet were swollen. And then we realized that I ran out of my Effexor sometime during the last week but we were so distracted we didn't notice. So yeah, meltdown. But DH handled it with amazing skill and he held me until I felt better and then he developed a plan to get things cleaned up but not too much at once so I wouldn't be overwhelmed. And we refilled my meds.

Needless to say, I felt progressively better over the next few days as the meds got back in my system and we got the house cleaned up.

Prickly Pear flower

This weekend we decided to have a staycation.  It is our 7th anniversary.  We have basically just hung out at home and then gone to eat at restaraunts.  Yesterday we ran errands.  Thrill-a-minute!  We were going to visit the Museum of Osteology yesterday but I didn't wake up in time.  No biggie.  Today DH is going to go to work to get caught up on stuff and I'm going to shop some more, and then we're going to have dinner at the inlaws.  Oh, and I'm going to make a blackberry cobbler for that.

It is super windy today.  We're in a wind advisory.  Blech.  At least it feels cooler when it's windy.  But my poor plants are not liking it at all.  I went out and took some pictures so I'll make a new post fot that. 

The Best Laid Plans...

Well, they cleaned the air ducts, but then we realized that the air conditioner has condensation that goes into the plumbing system.  So we call Rick and he says either to not use the AC, or saw the drain pipe and divert it to a bucket.  That sounded easy... until I get in there and realize that the pipe is, 1. almost to the bottom of the closet to begin with, 2. there's another pipe blocking the path out of the closet, and 3. the part I need to cut is encased in the previous metal drain pipe.  I thought about pulling out the drywall under the closet to see if I could do anything but that's right where the cats' bathroom is and Bones would almost certainly get himself in trouble under the closet.  So no AC.  Yesterday was hot.  Today was hotter.  It's 83 in here right now.  It got up to 91 according to the Mesonet but our reading was 95.  I think our temp sensor is in the sun part of the day.
I forgot how much the heat saps the energy out of you.  And I forgot the simple joys of stand fans and iced tea.  Celing fans are nice and all, but they just don't have the power you need in these conditions.    This really brought back memories of growing up.  I remember chasing the fan as it swiveled back and forth.  I remember talking and singing into the fans to hear my distorted voice.  I remember planning meals around whether it's cool enough to use the oven.  Playing in the sprinkler.  Renie's gallon jugs of iced tea with a tablet of sacchrin in it.

It was a little cooler out on the porch in the shade than it was in the house- as long as you didn't actually do any work.  So although we planned to clean out the garage this weekend, the only thing we really got done was taking 2 weeks of dirty dishes out back and spraying them with the hose.   Looking back, I'm not real sure why we haven't done that all along.  I guess we're just too used to our normal way of doing things.  I also repotted a bunch of houseplants.  Well, they're porch plants during the summer.  The rest of the time we were all splayed out being miserable.  Even the pets.

I meant to take pictures of the plants.  Some neat things are going on.  I guess I'll have to do that tomorrow.  Since I'm staying home to babysit the plumber again.   Maybe this time he'll actually show up.  I shouldn't be too hard on him I guess.  Lightning is dangerous.  But I wish he had canceled the day before  I could have gone to work on Friday.

DH says the insurance is actually paying reasonably so we should be ok despite all my lost work. Too bad the medical insurance isn't as good. They are still refusing to pay for DH's post-surgery glasses. And this is supposed to be the best insurance available in the state. I guess the next step is involving a lawyer.


Random Picture: Bed 2

So then we went camping.  Last fall we were planning to camp in a campground but it was full so we had to go to overflow camping out in the middle of nowhere. DH really liked it because there weren't lot of people and lights.  He could even see the milky way.  That's a big deal when you're blind.  So we decided to try wilderness camping.  We started small and safe on my family's property.  There's a creek that wanders onto the back of the acreage for a little bit so we went out there and camped on the sandy bank.  That turned out to be a mistake because sand gets everywhere.  Plus the creek is about 20 feet below the surrounding area and we had two loads of heavy gear.

 I found a great spot for the bathroom!

 Here's the view looking both ways.

 Tuvok had a blast!

 We learned a lot and we have a list of things we want to make the next trip better. Like a camp mattress.  Regular air mattresses are heavy and take up too much room.   Army duffels are not made for backpacking. And I found a couple of good spots to set up next time that don't require scaling a 20 foot sand cliff.  I thought we'd use the creek water more than we did.

Back to real life.  These bugs are on my tomato plants.  I posted them on GardenWeb so we'll see if anyone knows what they are.



For the most part, the tomatoes are doing well.  I've been skyping with my aunt who happens to be a Microsoft Applications trainer and she helped me get my trial spreadsheets in order.  I was doing ok but she showed me some things that will help tremendously.  LOVE LOVE LOVE the format painter!!!  I know I don't have to be this detailed for the trial but this is what my degree is in and I've missed doing scientific experiments.  Data collection rocks! (when you're a nerd like me.)  Seriously, I'm having a blast going out there and measuring the growth every day and documenting the bugs and the number of flowers, etc.  And I'm really looking forward to analyzing the data at the end of the season.

So anyway, I'll be home again tomorrow but hopefully this time it'll be for a purpose and then we'll have our kitchen and our washing machine and our AC back.  Won't that be nice!  The ice storm and week-long power outage of 2009 helped us appreciate electricity.  This experience is really driving home the wonders of plumbing and climate control!  I really hope I don't have to appreciate my car next!