I cut some irises and brought them in. Out with all the other scents, their fragrance gets lost, but inside, it is very sweet. Walking by them is a lovely experience.
The picture below shows one of their top backyard competitors: honeysuckle.
I got one of the shows closed yesterday, signed up a new client (that would be Client #3), got a new assignment from Client #2, and did some more tutoring. Today I meet with Client #3, work on my Monday night lecture and Thursday cooking show, and get going on that big assignment.
I am as happy as a couple of clams about this, as you can imagine. The bad news is that I have not heard back from any of the places I have applied to, and there was nothing new being advertised yesterday. I must now move
on to unsolicited letters of application.
I shouldn’t say that I have applied for everything there is, because that is not true. Where I live, there is no unemployment.
Actually we have 2% unemployment. The nice man at Human Services explained to me that it is normal to have 5% unemployment — some people are not working because they have small children, or are in school, or don’t need of want to work. Our local level of unemployment, 2%, means that there are people working who would rather not. They have been forced to by desperate employers.
So it isn’t that there are no jobs to apply for. It is that there are no jobs that I want and could live on. I was expecting to have been out there applying for the manager positions at big box stores if I were still unemployed by now, but the things I’ve applied for haven’t reached their closing dates yet. What if I agreed to be a manager at 
Taco Bueno or Toys R Us and then was called for the instructional design job?
On the other hand, what if I am not called by any of the places I’ve applied to, and can’t pay my bills because I failed to apply for those managerial positions?
CD, who is just finishing grad school and knows plenty of jobhunters, assures me that I should expect ten offers from what I’ve currently applied for, once they get the calling started. She was, however, trying to cheer me up.
Here you see the cabbages in our garden. I like cabbage very much, in stir-fries and in soups, in salads and slaws.
My boys are not fans. I also have squash out there, both green and yellow zucchini. It seems to me that zucchini is 
good at every meal.
And truly fresh vegetables are not available year-round in my neck of the woods, so it seems to me that we should really appreciate them while we have them.
But the boys are not big fans of squash either.
They are happy about the lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. I don’t bother growing carrots; our soil is too to heavy for sand-loving carrots, and the boys like the store-bought ones well enough.
The roses are infested with caterpillars, and have only a few brave buds on their skeletal remains.
I sprayed the caterpillars with cleaning solution, the most toxic stuff I have in the house, and I did so with really vicious intent in my heart, but it didn’t kill them.
Oh, well.
I’m being fairly good about keeping to a normal work schedule. I did have a new computer challenge yesterday (I’d never even heard of Subversion, let alone used it) which kept me fooling around with the computer a bit late, but I managed to get another pattern band done on the sleeves of Erin. It’s not going to be proper Fair Isle, and I don’t know that Fair Isle interspersed with blocks of plain color is really a good look, but I have invested too much knitting time in it even to consider frogging it, so this is what it will be.
Congratulations on the new gigs — that’s wonderful — and on the results you’ve already produced for Client #1 — that’s wonderful too. And congratulations on your flowers and vegetables, about which I am genuinely jealous. Especially about the cabbage, which we’ve never been able to grow successfully, and the iris, which are one of my favorite flowers and haven’t shown up in our microclimate yet.
About boys who don’t like squash: Try this. Cut your squash into thin slices — not paper-thin, just thin. Put a tiny bit of olive oil in a skillet, and quickly grill the slices …. just cook them a bit on one side, turn them and cook them on the other, a couple of times. Sprinkle them with lemon juice — the bottled kind is fine — and let people add salt and pepper to taste. They’re wonderful this way, and beautiful to look at, and people who don’t like squash do like this. [Technically you’d do this on an actual grill, but we’ve had very good luck doing it on top of the stove in a skillet.] The secret is the lemon juice; put it on the table so people can add more if they like.
I am sitting at my desk trying very hard to remember the name of the non-toxic powder my Mom used to put on her flowers and garden plants to kill pests. All I can recall is my Mom’s explanation of what it was (from when I was a very small child): that it was made of ground-up fossils and bones (which may or may not be true, and may or may not be a completely flawed memory of the description). It was a very fine, white powder to us, okay for people and animals to eat, but when the bugs would it eat it, it would essentially machete their insides to bits, and they would die. OH, if I could just remember what it was called… I keep thinking “bone meal” but I know that’s not it… I want to say that it had the word “biotic” in the name, but that may be wrong too…
Erin looks great!! Looks like you have a few aphids on the roses, too. We use 1/10 dish soap to 9/10 water to get rid of aphids. As for caterpillars, I think universehall might be thinking of diatomaceous earth. Maybe. I dunno. Anyway, it will work on them. Kinda shreds their outsides.
You are the busiest unemployed person I think I have ever known.
Good luck with all your various projects! Your flowers look beautiful (good luck to those roses) and your garden sounds like it will be quite yummy. I love zucchini, especially in zucchini raison bread and zucchini pancakes, yum! 
Erin looks beautiful to me so I don’t think you have to worry! 
The irises are lovely. And so is erin! Are you down to the home stretch yet?
Look at it this way. Even if your friend is trying to make you feel better, she’s probably partially correct.
I assume that means that you should have two or three offers of work out of what you’ve already done.
Keep looking for the work you want for a while before you resort to looking for work you feel you must do.
You are getting unemployment, right?
@ozarque – Sounds good.
@universehall – I thik Canadian National came up with it — diatomaceous earth? I’m going to go find some of that. thanks!
@CanadianNational – I don’t mind aphids, but I am definitely going after those caterpillars with diatomaceous earth. Thanks!
@JewelE19 – Thanks! Zucchini bread with raisins is a big favorite of mine. With cinnamon. Yum.
@princess_smartypants – Not really to the home stretch. The sleeves are more than half finished, but there’s still button bands and finishing and stuff. But I feel sure that it’ll be finished before it gets cold again.
@lostarts – I am getting unemployment, but I was really surprised at how little it comes to.
delicious. No one can make it like grandma (probably because she used lard, LOL).
That previous comment was supposed to be a reply to your reply to me but somehow it lost that and half the comment! It was supposed to say, of course with cinnamon and with butter/margarine put on the slice of bread while it’s still warm. I wish I still had my grandma’s recipe, it was delicious. No one can make it like grandma (and you know the rest, LOL).
A friend gave me some iris buds last Saturday. I brought them home and put them in a vase in my bedroom, which is a cat-free zone, and on Sunday night I suddenly realized I hadn’t even looked to see if they’d bloomed. So I took them to work where I would actually see them. They did open, and were lovely.
Diatomaceous earth should work on the caterpillars. If not, order those wasps that lay their eggs on them. Gruesome, but effective. Check to see if they work on your type of caterpillar, though.
Zucchini is good, from breakfast to salad to dinner to dessert. You can do so much with it.
I cannot grow carrots, either.
lol
Vicious intent!
@fibermom – YES!! Diatomacious Earth!! We called it “Diatoms”! Man, I feel so much better now.