I am about to go outside and retrieve some potting soil and pots so I can pot some of the baby lettuce and baby marigolds (possibly) before it gets dark. The lettuce is particularly mature now for planting. About 40% of the 20 lettuce babies are beginning to show a tiny green bud in the center of the first two leaves. They want to expand, so they get first "dibs" on my soil and pots. I want to grow them a little bigger and then perhaps give some of them as a gifts to Merle's neighbors. They have been really cool to me and I thought it would be fun to share the wealth, so to speak. The marigolds, which are just 5 really well-sprouted plants, could wait a few days before being potted, but I might do them tomorrow. In about 4 days' time I think the "batchelor's buttons" or whatever they are called, will also be ready. I think it might be interesting to pot a couple of the marigolds and the "batchelors' buttons" together, although the "buttons" would be planted a little bit later because of their maturity. These two would go well together, I think, because each of them are relatively woody and similarly hardy. I believe they would be complementary for each other and also be interesting colors - the marigolds being a fiery kind of orange-red to yellow-orange and the "batchelors' buttons" being either a hot-pink or a gentle periwinkle, or perhaps a white. The marigolds have rather supple petals but the "batchelors' buttons" will have a papery, origami-like structure and texture. But both are similarly hardy in drier climates.
I keep using quotes around "batchelors' buttons," and a plural possessive ending for the most part. However, I really don't know how accurate either of these things are. A friend in Austin, named Dan, called them this name. I have called them this because of him. But some time ago, someone corrected me and said they were not "batchelors' buttons," or "batchelor's buttons," but something else. This person, whoever they were (I can't remember; it was during my seminary career) didn't know the name of these flowers.
I have been growing these flowers ever since I lived in a duplex in Dallas. It was near my friend Mikey, before he got married, even though during the time that I lived there, for about 2 years, Mikey and I never hung out. I first started planting these really cool, paper-like structures. They look a little like the shape of the amaranth cone, but they don't have flower petals around the cone like the amaranth flower does. These flowers are just the cone itself, set atop a dais of 4-6 green leaves. I can't remember for sure the number of green leaves. The plant grows a little woody in the stem and branches off from a main stem. The flower has a dry texture to it and is dried easily for decoration. Okay, I'll look it up in a minute and tell you.
I used to cut the flowers at their branching-off points and mix them with cuttings of various herbs (rosemary, scented geranium, etc.) into dried bouquets for gifts to others. I remember for a while when I lived in Lakewood, Dallas, TX, I had a brick patio. It was really just a flat area in the grass that had bricks laid into it. They just sat there with stuff growing up between them. I had a really neat window at that house which was really a mini-greenhouse with a shelf inside it. It was a glass box that stuck out from the side of the house over the brick patio. That's where I adopted Bill the lizard. Bill was named after the lizard in Adventures in Wonderland (is that the correct title?). He went up the chimney. I believe the only person in the whole world who got the reference was my cousin, Reagan. She is the only one who immediately guessed the book reference.
Reminds me of more-literate days. Perhaps I am still recuperating from seminary. Perhaps it's because I don't have but a home office right now. Or perhaps I am waiting until life isn't spent thinking about finding a job, and is more living the vocation I want. I confess that I haven't been as motivated as I should be over the last few months. I guess I know that now because I recently did my taxes and it was a little scary.
But I have been stepping up my involvement with Kelly services and I hope they can help me out in the interim. I broke off my involvement with High Desert Staffing, but I think I was frustrated with lack of work, and with their lack of communication. I also think that that was precisely when the recession must have been starting because all of a sudden they had nothing at all, around early November. They called me for approximately 32 hours of reception work. I never got a call from them again, except just to see how well I could do medical transcription. I don't mean to be negative about them at all because I wanted to be a part of a locally-owned business. But then I was "driven" to Kelly Services because they are an internationally-known company which I figured must have at least something for me to do. They did, even though it was not for much more time than I got with HDS. The economy just took a nose-dive, that's all.
Anyhow, I am more intentionally trying to build a relationship with the local Kelly agency and see where it goes this summer. I think that I have hung in there for a while now and am trying to show I am proactive and eager for work. I heard last week that they have had a few new requests that might be appropriate for me.
Well, I think I am going to get going. I would like to sort of tie down the valences over the patio out back because of the gusty wind.
Amy
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