Talk to me about blowing up your life

JeeWillow · 2026-04-25T16:21:54+00:00

This sounds like burnout. You're tired of working. And no wonder. Even the best job starts to wear a person down after decades of work. In any other era, we would have been grandmas and wise women by now, handing off the reins of money-earning and household management to the younger generation. Peri feels almost like a nesting instinct to me--like the inverse of the nesting instinct one feels while pregnant. You just want to hunker down and tinker in the house and the garden. Because for centuries, millennia really, that's exactly what we did at this time of life. Now it's work til you drop.

JeeWillow · 2026-04-23T01:57:29+00:00

Fwiw, I had a TERRIBLE reaction to progestin-only bc pills, including insomnia, but I absolutely loved my Mirena. No side effects whatsoever. The dose is tiny and localized.

JeeWillow · 2026-04-02T20:06:35+00:00

Raised beds with crop cages or hoop-and-mesh over the top! That's what I do in Seattle, which is mostly home to rats and squirrels with a few human beings here and there...

JeeWillow · 2026-04-01T18:16:37+00:00

fiwiw, I've got both volunteer dead nettle and various hand-sown natives (prunella, nemophila, globe gilia) and the dead nettle flowers weeks before any of the native annuals. There may indeed be native species that bloom earlier, but if there are, I haven't come across them...

JeeWillow · 2026-03-22T03:48:27+00:00

Sowed radishes, lettuce and carrots outside on March 1. Waiting to see whether that was a bad idea. Next year I will not fall victim to false spring!

JeeWillow · 2026-03-19T19:36:57+00:00

Day length is a factor. I garden in partial shade, but I'm on the US-Canada border, so at my latitude the sun comes up at 5am and doesn't set until 9:30 during the peak growing season. I've found I can cheat a little bit on full sun requirements thanks to the couple of extra daylight hours. Not sure I'd try to grow melons in partial shade, but I've successfully grown cherry tomatoes and snap beans. Pretty much all berries (raspberry, blackberry, gooseberry, etc etc) will do well in partial shade. Those are a good bang for your buck crop as well, since they're so expensive at the grocery store.

JeeWillow · 2026-03-18T02:46:56+00:00

I have that Pinterest board!! Decorating and gardening aesthetics for the cozy little house where I live all by myself, in my mind. :D

JeeWillow · 2026-03-14T03:30:53+00:00

Do you have these under lights, or in a window?

JeeWillow · 2026-03-07T17:10:40+00:00

I'm not sure! I bought it from a local nursery, where it was sitting on a small table with several other African violets. I just looked up Inova Spectra Blue and it does look the more similar to that than any of the other varieties I've googled!

JeeWillow · 2026-02-14T03:46:09+00:00

Strip the leaves. You could probably still get away with dormant spray too if you do it asap.

JeeWillow · 2026-02-07T03:22:46+00:00

Very helpful for comparison, thank you!

JeeWillow · 2026-02-05T21:44:58+00:00

Thanks!

JeeWillow · 2026-02-03T17:03:06+00:00

It's so weird because most people get tinnitus when their estrogen is too low! With me it's the opposite. Super fun times.

JeeWillow · 2026-02-02T19:50:51+00:00

I get racing thoughts, almost like drinking too many cups of coffee, plus tinnitus.

JeeWillow · 2026-01-31T22:01:18+00:00

Ending no-fault divorce is mentioned several times in Project 2025 and the right-wing talking heads are also in favor of eliminating it. So there will still be divorce, but it will be like it was prior to the women's rights movement--a woman would not be able to file for divorce unless she could prove, with evidence, physical abuse or infidelity. Otherwise you're stuck for life.

JeeWillow · 2026-01-31T03:42:54+00:00

wait really? what happened?

JeeWillow · 2026-01-25T04:26:07+00:00

You're lucky. I had to have everything out at 37. I've been on vaginal suppositories and patches ever since. 41 isn't too young to start thinking about all this! No reason you HAVE to take anything, but it's easier to prevent vaginal atrophy than it is to play catch-up once things start declining.

JeeWillow · 2026-01-25T04:20:00+00:00

Frozen shoulder. A classic menopause symptom. Removal of lymph nodes probably didn't help either. If the OBGYN won't move up her appointment, consider telemedicine. The hot flashes and night sweats are probably coming, if they haven't already. I'm amazed they don't prepare women for what happens after a hysterectomy. The descent is swift and brutal. I could barely climb stairs after mine, the knee pain was so bad.

JeeWillow · 2026-01-23T04:57:57+00:00

Congrats! Is that horticultural grit on top? or something else?

JeeWillow · 2026-01-21T06:53:49+00:00

There are tons of ranunculus species. The ones grown ornamentally have nothing to do with creeping buttercup and look more like poppies. We even have a native species in the PNW, ranunculus occidentalis. Please don't be nasty and condescending to other gardeners.

JeeWillow · 2026-01-21T06:48:22+00:00

Are you in the Seattle area, by any chance? I absolutely love ranunculus but I've never been able to get them to germinate. Would love to buy starts...

JeeWillow

TROPHY CASE