Of Cucurbitaceous, D&D, Writing, and Sewing: In other words a life update

How many of you knew that squash and cucumbers were in the same family? If you didn’t know, you do now. I’ve been having some particular trouble lately with the squash members of this family. My yellow squash, zucchini, and my pumpkins are all suffering from Blossom End Rot. This sucks. Basically, what happens is that the blossom end of the fruit, opposite the stem end, rots before the fruit is fully developed. The causes vary, but a common one is due to uneven watering methods. I know that this is not the culprit in my case, though. What is causing it? Calcium deficiency. My soil has had this problem before and although I add a good amount of organic material to the soil each year, for some reason, the calcium just seems to be sucked right out. I added a goodly amount of Bone Meal around the plants this morning and gave the rest of the garden a dose of Organic Fertilizer. I’m hoping that will help. I wanted to add some Oyster Shell since it’s a much better source of calcium than bone meal but I couldn’t find any at Lowes, and I didn’t have the time to go running all over checking for it. Anyway, I went with the bone meal, we’ll see what happens. Keep those fingers crossed.


On to the D&D game. It looks like we may have to put the game on hold indefinitely. With R starting this new job and his schedule being very difficult it appears that he may not be able to run it. Not to mention the fact that when he starts classes again this fall he just won’t have any time free at all. This, of course, sucks but I certainly understand, appreciate, and admire the sacrifices he is making in order to provide us with a better life. He’s really quite remarkable. If I haven’t ever mentioned it before, let me just state it now that, I really love this man. So, even though the game may suffer, in the long run it will be for the betterment of the family. Now, there’s a small (and I do mean small) chance that we can talk R’s cousin into running the game for a while. (R’s cousin’s name also begins with an R, so we’ll call him CR, for Cousin R) Anyway, CR has been playing for as long as R has played. We’re talking something like 25 years or so, since D&D first came out in the seventies. CR doesn’t like to run games anymore; he only wants to play so…convincing him to run may be a problem. He’s really dead set against it. The only other option would be N. She could run if she wanted to, but she has never actually run one before. I know she would do great, though. Her imagination is awesome and she’s been playing almost as long as R and CR. Hopefully, one of them will pick it up, otherwise it’s hiatus city.

As for my writing, I’m getting back on the horse if you couldn’t tell by this long-winded post. I feel recovered even though I’m still in mourning. I’ll be ok, and onward I write. I need to write, I can’t live without it. I would go crazy, really, if I didn’t write. I’m sure of it. I’m planning to do some work on a really bad first draft of a poem that I wrote a while back. It’s the vampire one that’s posted on the Blog under April 10th. I took it to the writer’s group the other day and received some good feedback and I’ve decided to make it a pet project. There’s a lot of potential in it, I’m sure. It definitely needs some work, though. We’ll see what becomes of it.


Finally, I began a new sewing project. I’m making aprons for all the girls/women in the house. I love aprons, I think they’re pretty, versatile, and make good common sense. They protect clothing (god knows I need help in that department) and they feel great and look pretty. Anyway…I digress. My first one is finished; I have three others to go. This first batch is all half aprons (tied around the waist with no top), but after I get those done I plan to move on to the more challenging stuff. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time now, but one thing or another delays it. But, now I have the material, the patterns, and the time so…onward. After, or possibly in the midst of, aprons I would also like to get busy on some matching linen table covers and napkins. I have a million ideas and it just seems like I’ll never have enough time to complete everything I would like to do. I suppose time will tell.

Well, I guess that’s it for the update. Now that I’m feeling a bit more like my old self I hope to be Blogging more regularly. Then again, now that I’m feeling more like my old self, well…let’s just say; check my previous track record for posting. I have good intentions; we’ll see what happens.