Well, we've finally entered the 21st century. I now have a faster Internet connection! I'm not sure what it's called, but it goes through our cell phone service provider. It's cheaper and faster than satellite. My husband and son attached a little cell phone-looking device, called a "card," to my computer and now it's so much faster than dial-up. I have to use a new browser, though, and I'm trying really hard to get used to it. I had my old one for many years, so this is tripping me up big time.
The speed at which it loads videos is amazing. What would take our dial up four hours to load, takes only seconds with this service. So, if I'm offered a video while reading a news story, I've been tending to click on it. I've resolved that I've missed absolutely nothing for the almost five years that we've gone without a TV hookup.
The other day, I was reading a story about a reunion, of sorts, for the cast of the 70's show "One Day at a Time" on the Today Show. It was one of my favorites back then. (Why is it that I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I have total recall of the words to the theme songs of every show from the last 30 years?). Oh, look! There's a video! At first, I watched intently to see what the stars from back then look like today, but after about three minutes of the 10 minute clip, I had to exit. What a royal waste of time! I can't sit here all day and watch old people reminisce about fictional characters and how they "impacted" society 30 years ago. I'm raising the future generation of this country. The ones who will make a real impact. This video addiction (which just started) must end! (OK, I won't watch anymore--except for that teenager who sings like a pro on American Idol.)
That was the "Net" part of my title. Now for the "Veggie." We planted our little vegetable garden yesterday afternoon. We have two acres, but our garden is about 4' X 8' or so. We had to make it that size because that's all the good chicken wire we had left, plus the planter is already primed and irrigated next to the house. We just had to pull all the weeds and place the fence around it.
We had been preparing the site for days (because the kids are "helping," it takes
As we continued to dig, I started to break a sweat. It was so cold in the house and so hot in the backyard that I felt as though my yard was just south of the equator and my house was up further north. Anyway, I digress. We planted tomato, broccoli (my kids are addicted to it raw), red onion, and celery plants. I hate celery, but I thought it was parsley when I bought it. One of my sons was perusing all the little plant containers after we brought them home and asked, "Mom, why did you buy celery?" I looked over and said, "Oh, honey, that's not celery, it's parsley." He said, "Well, the sign says 'celery.'" I thought that the store had made a mistake. I tasted what looked like parsley leaves to me, and, sure enough, it wasn't.
Then we put down cucumber, bell pepper, green onion, and snap pea seeds. We kept the strawberries (we're up to five berries a day now) and four other tomato plants in the pots on the table with the bird netting. One side of the planter is exposed to the yard, the other butts up against a wall. Gophers are able to get in through the yard side, so I planted the celery closest to that spot (maybe they'll hate it as much as I do--or eat it first, anyway). I planted my personal favorites--tomatoes--back by the wall, and everything else in between.
Let the race begin . . . who'll enjoy the "veggies" of our labor first? The rodents or us? I bet on the little furry nuisances.
