Mid-May Movin' Along

Happy middle of May everyone!

Another week of working from home in the books.  I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day.  My two daughters came over with some logs and s'more fixins' to have a fire and hang.  We had crab cakes and salad from the garden for dinner and instead of a fire we watched ""Fleabag" on Netflix.  I thoroughly enjoyed my day with my girls and LoML.  We'll do the fire and s'mores another time.

We received word this week that we will continue to work remotely through at least Labor Day.  My company is also making noises that they may reduce our overall office footprint by potentially allowing employees who's job allows them to work from home most days of the week, maybe coming in once a week, to do so.  Those who choose to work in the office would have an office assigned, as we do now.  Those who choose to work remote would have to reserve an office hotel space for the day they come in.  I am soooo down with it.  I work in a cubical farm and the walls are about 5 feet high.  My job involves a lot of complex reading, writing, calculations and a gazillion conference calls, so working in a cubical is not ideal for productivity.  Additionally we have our social butterflies who chat all day long with any and all who will make eye contact.  I have several friends in the office but honestly, my work load doesn't allow me a lunch hour, much less multiple hallway conversations.  And seriously, I just want to get my work done and go home.  So even though these circumstances or terrifying and life disrupting, the whole work from home thing is a definite plus for me.

Money-wise things are grand.  My 401k is up another $30K, still down about $60k from pre-COVID times.  Our mortgage keeps going down by about $2k in principle on average.  Our savings keeps increasing by a little less than $3K per month, as budgeted.  And we really only spend money on groceries and liquor.  Way too much liquor. Job and COVID stress and weeks of crappy weather is a bad combo.  But the weather looks like it is finally turning so hopefully my mood will get better and the stress will start to dissipate.  I am also working on being less emotionally invested in my projects at work.  Our culture at work is changing such that respect and accountability are just fading away. Wonder where that comes from?? It frustrates the shit out of me and I need to let it go.

So the weather is finally at a stage where I can plant my veggies and herbs.  That is on the agenda for today.  I am also building another garden along my back fence for honeynut squash and a non-edible gourd experiment.  I'll also plant some mammoth sunflowers there.  Then I'm expanding a garden on the side of the house to include more edible flowers and some pumpkin vines.  I need to run to the garden center and get a few bags of compost, a bag of peat maybe, some mulch, some japanese eggplants (forgot to order seeds) and organic pesticide. Then I need to mow the law and bake a loaf of bread.

Writing that made me think that I should highlight the fact that we are able to save a lot of money simply because we do most things ourselves.  I don't pay anyone to do anything except contractors to do home improvements (LoML is NOT handy with a hammer and saw).  We do all of our yard work and landscaping, we clean our own house, I make most of our baked goods and we cook at home 95% of our meals.  We also rarely do elaborate vacations.

Well I need to get moving and tackle my chore list.  I also have to change bed sheets, do laundry and bake a sweet treat for the week.  I'll save those for Sunday since its supposed to rain.  How is everyone coping these days?  What do you do to mitigate stress?  How does your veggie garden grow?