Whoops.

What the what? I have a blog??

I totally forgot. No, that's not true. I got busy saving the world as a member of a super secret government initiative that adequately utilizes my super-pow-- you're not going to believe that either, are you.


I just lost the joy of writing. Again. This seems to be happening more and more to me, except all of a sudden I'm having these massively detailed dreams which I suspect might be stories trying to escape and make it on their own. I also have a huge to-do list, not the least of which includes decorating for halloween this weekend. I also have some commissions to work on, a disgusting house and some personal projects that I suspect will bring me huge amounts of angst as well as joy. So there's that.

The garden became a garden of neglect. It was super weedy thanks to Manthing's insistence on putting weeds in the compost. I don't weed. I also apparently need a watering timer because I would forget to water for days upon days and then water for 24 hours straight because I forgot I turned the damn tap on. We got 1 beautiful pumpkin out of the garden, and an enormous amount of tomatoes and carrots. The potatoes had what I thought was potato scab but after being out of the ground for 2 days they rotted and made the most horrifying smell I've ever encountered from something that came out of the ground, so I think it must have been blight. Which would make sense because of my Irish ancestry. Or something.

The peas... the poor sad peas. I never got around to stringing them up so the squirrels loved them. And the squirrels also loved my zucchini, which were appropriately enormous, and still growing when the little bastards started to nosh on them.



But here's the good news! Manthing secured a transfer home on October 1st, so guess who won't be responsible for the veggie garden of cruel neglect again? ME! I will tend my remedy garden (the third attempt!) and mind the pumpkins because they are my favourite and leave the rest to him.



I should talk about remedies now. I learned myself how to make a sore muscle salve this summer. I thought it worked quite well, and it also worked for me as a bruise salve, so I made some more and gave some away. Then one of my friends blew out his knee, and I gave him a tiny container (because tiny was all I had on hand in the moment) and he said it worked better than the store bought stuff he had! So I made him more, and he still loved it! So I had one test subject who thought my sore muscle salve worked well - after his MRI, it turned out that he has a torn meniscus and possible ACL tear, so knowing it helped an injury that bad made my heart happy.

I was chatting up one of the women I work with and she was having a hard time with her elbow, so I brought some in for her too. And she said she used it for a few days and then was fine. <i>It actually cured her pain</i>.

To say I was pretty stoked would be an understatement. I was thrilled to bits. So now I know what people are getting for Hexmas! With the success of my antiseptic ointment as well as the sore muscle salve, there's going to be some home remedies in everyone's stockings.

So that's my crunchy update. My other news is that I may have to start a new writing blog because I have these tales rolling around in my head...