january 21

winter light

I spent much of the weekend feeling depressed. It's one thing to be up against a big challenge, knowing you're doing the best you can and enjoying the support of friends and family. It's another to be up against a challenge and either not getting the support you need because everyone else is tapped out trying to eek out their own living, or they don't have a clue what it is you're doing and don't really feel the need to know, or they're actually telling you to quit. It's amazing.

And then I pulled out a book about entrepreneurial women's empowerment, something I picked up months ago. I've never read it all the way through--perhaps I should--but I go to it every once in a while because it sets me head straight. There's a story about a woman who was orphaned as a child and actually raised herself and her brother in a hut in the Appalachian mountains living on berries and rabbits, went on to finish school even though she had child in the 11th grade, then opened a hugely successful road-paving business with contracts with the Olympics and NASA.

Yeah. I have it bad. The worst thing I've got going is my attitude. Ignore the naysayers. Most of them don't even ask what we've got going on anyway. It's better than they think.

There's also an incredibly important point in this book: there are mountains of research that prove that women in business have it bad. But research is only about the past. It doesn't determine the future. I have to remember that. I determine my future. Not the statistics.

***

In non-work news, we outfitted half of our house with energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs this weekend. I've bored all my friends with this exciting news and now I'm telling you so you don't feel left out. This would normally be quite an investment, since such bulbs generally cost $10-$15 each. But Home Depot had a sale on the icky blue-light bulbs for $2.40 (they went into the basement) and we had $30 worth of coupons, incentives from our electric company. I didn't need much incentive: our electric bill is $90 this month, on top of the $90 gas bill that keeps our house at a brisk 62 degrees. I hate the utility companies right now. I love how they waited for the worst recession in decades to jack the prices up 30%.

Anyway, it took us a while to get used to the change in the quality of light in the kitchen. It's a little on the greenish side, and the bulbs take forever to fully illuminate. The other shocker was how much colder it is in there now, too. It really is true that incandescent bulbs give off most of their energy as heat. But, hopefully, it will all be worth it when we see next month's light bill. By then A* will be unemployed and I'm not sure what to expect after that.

***

The opening events of Gardening Season continue. I planted over 200 ivy starts on Saturday. The grass in our parking strip is trashed as it served as the staging area for our landscaping projects last year. The area is shaded by two, mature Japanese Alders, too, so the grass was never that great to begin with. We'll dig out the sod and plant the ivy cuttings which I took from a mass of ivy that grows over our neighbor's garage (I think it's holding the decrepit structure up).

Every time I tell someone about the ivy the freak because it's considered a noxious weed in these parts and is taking over our forests. I remind them that this ivy will be encased in concrete and it's unlikely to become a problem. It's not like it spreads by seed or anything.

I also planted a few dwarf sunflowers, seeds I never opened last year. We'll see if they're any good. I can't wait until it gets a little warmer and I can go wild with my seeds. I've already bought more cosmos than I'll be able to plant, nasturtiums, California poppies, Echinacea, zinnias and three different kinds of sunflowers. I'm sticking to the easy stuff for now. This is supposed to be fun and I'm not going to get all type-A and make it another project.

- january 21