Gardening Must Do's and Must Don'ts

Here are some things I have learned over the years that are really important to know when you are a home gardener. Just thought you could use the information, as it has been really hard-earned for me.

• Always, ALWAYS, squish up your gardening gloves clear out to the tips of the fingers before you put them on your hands. This is to kill any spider that may have found your glove a happy home.
• Do not plant roses near your air conditioning unit or anything else that may need maintenance at any time of the year, because repairmen will charge you extra and curse in your yard if you do.
• Do not plant wisteria near your house or porch or trees or bushes or wimpy trellis or retaining walls or shed or tree house or playset. It will take over. It will overcome.
• Better yet, do not plant wisteria. Just don't.
• Remember that any convenience the automatic sprinklers give you will be offset by lots of time repairing heads that get poked out by aeration guys and snow blowers and just by random acts of God. It will be a love/hate relationship.
• Do check your sprinklers once in a while, because you never know when that random act of God will strike, and if your sprinklers only come on at night, you will have a devil of a time knowing that there is a problem. At least until your neighbor calls and tells you there's a problem, because his garden is being washed out at night, every night, and has been over the course of the last month.
• Do mutter to yourself when you lift off a lid to a sprinkler control box or water meter, "There might be black widows in the perfect, dark, little square holes on the back of this horribly designed lid." It makes it easier to scream, throw the lid, and run, if you are well-prepared first. And just to make you that much more prepared for anything - though it hasn't happened to me, it has happened up the hill a mile or so - rattle snakes in the water meter pits. Gives new meaning to the term 'pit vipers'. Yeah, I know. 
• Hire help for the sprinkler maintenance from now on.
• Do enjoy the gardening catalogs. 
• Don't think anything you grow will look anything like the gardening catalogs. Remember, they have staff horticulturalists and photo-shoppers making theirs look good. You have, well, you.
• Plants that people give away for free from their garden are going to overtake yours, just like they did the giver's. And that is why they are free.
• Free plants you should not ever accept: iris, daisies, chamomile, horseradish, wisteria, parsley, oregano, horsetail, bamboo, sunflower, aspen trees, and holly hocks. Or anything thistle looking (and not because of the thorns, but because of the propensity of seeds!). If you do want some of these plants, however, let me know. I can get you some for free!
• Do not put black thistle into a bird feeder or allow your neighbors within 30 miles to put black thistle into a bird feeder, unless all you want to grow in your yard is black thistle.
• Do wear a belt and long shirt when gardening. Gardeners get a 'gardener's tan' about the same place plumbers have exposed skin and the neighbors don't appreciate gardener's tans, although the hub might appreciate it.
• Prune like you mean it. Too little and the plants know you are weak and they take over completely.
• Do talk encouragingly to your plants, just not when anyone can see or hear you.
• Don't over-water your grass. Not only does it waste water, it makes the worms crawl out of the turf and all over your sidewalk. Dead worms are really hard to get off the concrete.
• Don't buy materials for a yard project until you are truly ready to tackle it or you will forget what you were going to do with them and they will just sit there taunting you for a couple of seasons.
• And, finally, don't make anything you see on the internet that is made out of chicken wire. Chicken wire is a tool of the devil.

Death By Gretchen's Burritos

This is going to be a short post. But I just want it on record, in case someone finds me sprawled out on my kitchen floor, dead.

It will be a sad and solemn scene. I will be laying there on my back, all dead and my limbs splayed across the linoleum that I have always hated. My head will be about where those purple paint drops that I have not been able to remove since we moved in are. The dishwasher door will be gaping open. There will be a storage container lid near me on the left side of my stiff, cold corpse just beyond my curling, gnarled fingers. On the other side of my body you will find a used, plastic container with remnants of a great leftover meal clinging to the sides. My lips will be parted slightly with my front teeth touching, frozen on the last word they spoke: it. As in, "I knew it!"

Question the hub. Question him hard.  Make absolutely certain he did not do it on purpose just to be rid of me.

I hear you all saying, "What?"

Well, here it is.

I make larger meals than we can eat every night so that the hub can take leftovers for lunch. He likes this arrangement a lot. In fact, last Thursday he actually texted me when he ate it. "Yum. Gretchen burritos for lunch." That is what he said.

Well, he worked from home on Friday and then was home through the weekend. This morning, a Monday, he got out a new container of fresh leftovers from the fridge (chicken pot pi - from pi day which we celebrated on Saturday with the whole family) for lunch and put it into his back pack. At the same time, he removed the empty, but unwashed, sealed container from Thursday's lunch and put it on the counter.

When I open it to put it in the dishwasher I will die. The fumes that are trapped in there are noxious. It is beginning to bulge a little. Just want you to know. I love you all.

Goodbye, cruel world.

I Figured Out the BEST Wrinkle Cream Ever

The Infomercial

Do you know how much money is spent annually on trying to look or stay young? Well, the Global Industry Analysts (a market research group) says it is $80,000,000,000 per year. 80 billion! They expect that by 2015 that will climb to $114 billion.

But, really, you can now send me your cold, hard-earned cash, because I figured it out a few years back. It is the wrinkle cream that will keep us all looking as smooth and baby-faced as any little kid in the world. It has been tested as safe for thousands, if not millions, of years. It has been used over and over in every culture and time. It has even been safely tested on animals. It is actually one of those things that is tied into our very biological makeup. It is automatic. It cannot be escaped. It just happens. And yet, somehow, it has eluded us until I figured it out.

I am just that smart. It took me to figure it out. I am a science prodigy.

I think I will name it The B2 Elixir of Youth. I will charge you all one thousand dollars a month for the secret - direct deposited monthly to my secret Swiss account will be fine. And $1000 is a bargain compared to a skin-care product called Peau Magnifique that costs $1,500 for a 28-day supply. And that sounds French. Who trusts the French? You want my good ole B2 Elixir of Youth!

So how to get your own supply, you ask? Well, it is simple, really.

Just spit and rub. Yup.

Have you ever seen a wrinkle-faced cat? A slobbery, bubble-faced baby with wrinkles? And little kids don't have wrinkles either, obviously, because their mothers are constantly going, "Hey, kid. Come here. You got a little something right there. Let me get that for you." Followed, of course, by a lick to a thumb and a cleaning of the cheek.

It is only after the kids get old enough to start thinking that type of motherly protection is gross that they begin to age. But then they start kissing - really make-out and slimy and saliva-y kissing and that keeps it at bay for another 10 or 15 years.

After that, everyone keeps their spit to themselves, in their mouth and off their face, and the wrinkles begin in earnest.

Saliva. Sputum. Spit. That is the wrinkle secret.

You are welcome.

E-mail me for my account number to send your direct deposits to. I appreciate it. 

The brass spittoon we got as a wedding gift. It has remained empty all these years. Had I only known then what I know now, I would still have the skin of a teenager.

Sunday Sermon - Virus Database Updated

Sunday Sermon #1

It was quiet. Very quiet. Our whole congregation sat reverently during the very last moments of the administration of the Sacrament of Our Lord.

"Your virus database has been automatically updated!" screamed a laptop or tablet somewhere in the silence. A few snickers followed, as the Sacrament was finished.

For me, though, it was a warm teaching moment from the Father Himself. I partake of the sacrament weekly to remind me of the sacrifice and atonement of the Son of God. As I partake, I pray that I can always remember Him and act in accordance of His plan for me. I focus on His flesh, His blood, knowing that through His sacrifice I am saved. It makes me whole again after a week of being beaten down by temptation and burdens.

I was able to picture, at that moment, the protection of the weekly sacrament in my personal life - a protection so much more profound and thorough than that of the virus checker in the computer. And I need it's protection as much or more, than the machine needs a virus checker.

Please, Lord, protect me from the world this week as I remember Thee. I have been updated.

My Family is Different From Yours

My family thinks differently than yours. I am a dummy surrounded by a lot of smart and gifted people. That becomes more evident all the time. Here's an example -

When the doorbell rang one night, my kids hurriedly disappeared, as usual. Social, we are not. When I answered the door, it was my friend Elenore bringing a bag of freshly made peanut brittle for us. She is a sweetheart, for sure. 

As soon as the door clicked closed, my whole family swarmed in like killer bees. "What did she bring? Can I have some? Elenore is such a good cook!" Sounds pretty normal familyish, so far, right?

Now, I don't make peanut brittle so this was going to be a real treat for everybody. You'd think they would have just eaten it with a few oohs and aahs and yums and that's that. Not so!

My rocket scientist husband - really, a PhD in rocket science - took off his glasses, because unlike real old people, he needs them only to see at a distance, and examined the edges of the pieces for clues to how the candy cracked before he ate them. "See this?" he said, pointing to the edge of a candy chunk. "This is a stress fracture." And he did that with EVERY piece he ate. His oohs and aahs came before he ate the candy.

Then my son, a geophysics major - don't ask me, it is hard to explain - picked up some candy and on it's way to his mouth, he stopped and began examining it. "Mom, how do you make this?"

"Boil water, sugar, and butter to hard crack stage. Stir in some vanilla and peanuts and pour it into a cookie sheet." Remember, I don't make brittle, but I think that's basically it. Don't judge me.

"This doesn't have a flat side," he replied, still turning it over and over in his hand in a methodical, scientific examination. Now everyone was looking at their piece of candy. "Wouldn't it have a flat side if it was poured into a pan?"

That was the trigger and everyone's theory finger started jerking.

"Maybe it was still bubbling and oozy as it hardened, like lava, or amoeba." - the microbiology major daughter.

"Maybe she poured it from the top of the stairs to a bowl at the bottom and it hardened on the way down." - 13 year-old brainiac.

"Maybe she used a bumpy pan." - me. Told you I was the dumb one.

"Hey, and why is it so light colored? Isn't peanut brittle usually a warm amber brown? This is barely toasted ecru." - my fashion designer daughter.

That started a whole new examinational barrage. The crystal structure, the fat circles on the surface, the shapes the pieces broke into, how the candy part clung to the peanuts.

Normal families play with their food occasionally. My family doesn't play with their food. They work it from every possible angle.

My family isn't much like yours.

Gotta love 'em.

By Janet Hudson (originally posted to Flickr as Peanut Brittle)

Here is an Introduction

     A lady at church once actually called me eccentric. Out loud. To my face. Where other people could hear her.
     I was flattered.

    I am Bea Tew. Pronounced B2 - like the Bingo space. If you just do the first name and last initial I am BeaT. If my middle name was Uriah, then I'd be BUTT (my maiden name started with a T - a long German thing that was hard to spell). But my parents didn't give their daughters middle names.
     Too bad.

    And this is why I am B2 'at random'.

    I have a little of my artist grandmother's creativity in me, a little of my dad's writer in me, a little of one grandfather's love of nature, a little of my other grandfather's persistent optimism, and some of my father-in-law's wondering about the world in scientific terms. (How did that happen?)

    But, I have none of the math from my rocket scientist (yes, he really is) husband. And that's okay with me.

    I graduated from high school with 36 other people. Then I went on to attend five universities and had six declared majors. I ended up with a master's degree in fun and games. No kidding. Recreation, they call it. My emphasis was outdoor recreation, tourism, and interpretation.

    I have four nearly grown children, all very unique from each other and the world. All brilliant and curious and constantly learning. Guess we did something right.

    Welcome to my random and eccentric world. Hope you enjoy the ride. It might get bumpy.