Will oats, peas, beans and barley grow?

There are two gardens at the community house.  A flower garden in the front and a raised bed vegetable garden on the side.  They'd both been running wild for a bit.  I was eager to dive in and start my contribution to the community house.  My housemates told me to go right ahead and give it shot because they are fabulous people who also happen to not be too big of fans of dirt. Luckily, I have no problem with dirt.

Fiercely not having a problem with dirt in The Gambia.

Proudly not having a problem with dirt in Turkey.

Determinedly not having a problem with dirt at BVS orientation

So I dove right in and started pulling weeds.  Or at least pulling what I could figure were weeds.  I attacked the vegetable garden first and then moved on to the front garden.  I recognized some things as straight up weeds and some as straight up supposed-to-be-there plants.  But there were a lot of in between plants.  Sarah and Sticks had wandered out to keep me company and I would confer together before deciding what needed to be pulled up.  It was rather pleasant.

Either I have just valiantly removed an evil weed or I've just destroyed someone's hard work.  If it's the former, Sticks and Sarah totally told me to do it!

 

 The most nerve wracking thing I did was to plant seeds in the vegetable garden. That, my friends, is faith. You plant these bitty seeds in the ground and just pray that something sprouts.  it was terrifying. While I was possibly committing plant murder, I was fretting about wasting seeds and failing the house garden.  But luckily, my housemates are marv.  Sticks told me that if one things grows, our garden is a success. And Sarah snapped pictures so I had proof that I tried.  (I'm not sure what Marc thinks. He probably hopes things grow if only so he doesn't have to hear me lament about them not growing).


I'll keep you all updated with our house gardens.  Hopefully something will grow.  Until then, here's proof that I'm working hard:

It's also proof that even elbow deep in dirt, my nails look fabulous!

Cross posted at the Cincinnati BVS Community House Blog, which is updated each week by a different member of our house.

Broadway, baby

Note: I make references to specific songs and for the enjoyment of my readers, I've included links to those songs, if you'd like to take a listen.  But really, it doesn't matter.  You can totally ignore all those links.

I love show tunes.  I make no secret of it.  It's probably my number one conversation killer. Some friendly new person will say "So, what kind of music do you like?"  Then I'll tell them I love show tunes and they awkwardly trail off and desperately look for someone else to talk to or tell me that they like Rent.

But despite my inability to have a proper conversation about musical tastes with most other people, show tunes have always been there for me.  There is a song for every occasion.  Making small talk at the office after a hard day's work?  Bam.  "It's Been a Long Day."  Frustrated that your exotic plant won't sprout? Bam. "Grow for me."  Just want to celebrate your ridiculous amounts of hair? Bam. "Hair."

 I was dancing to "Cotton Eye Joe," but I was thinking about "Hair" the whole time.

And in their bountiful wonderfulness, show tunes came through for me when I realized I'd be spending the next year in Ohio.  Right into my head popped "Ohio," a beautiful lamenting song about how wonderful Ohio is and how maybe the singer should return home to Ohio.

Jane Lynch and Carol Burnett pretending to be mother and daughter and that they love Ohio.

Actually, all of that is lies.  Well, the song  "Ohio" mostly consists of "Why, oh, why-oh, did I ever leave Ohio?" but everything else was lie.  That was not the song I thought of.

I thought of "A Summer in Ohio" from The Last 5 Years.  If you want, take a listen to this sketchy and probably illegal video of the song.

It starts off encouragingly enough:

I could wander Paris after dark
Take a carriage ride through Central Park
But it wouldn't be as nice as a summer in Ohio
Where I'm sharing a room with a "former" stripper and her snake: Wayne

But it quickly turns into this:

I could shove an ice pick in my eye
I could eat some fish from last July
But it wouldn't be as awful as a summer in Ohio

Without cable, hot water, Vietnamese food, or you.

I may be lucky enough to have hot water, but I do have to pretend to be interested in baseball.

Truthfully, I love what little of Cincinnati I know so far.  Admittedly it's not that much, but I'm enjoying the process of getting to know it.  I've been to some good restaurants, checked out the art museum (which is having a special Monet exhibit. Can you say fate?), grabbed several loads of books from the library system and have become quite the connoisseur of our local Kroger (Kroghetto, if you will).  I even enjoyed driving a borrowed stick shift car up and down the many, many hills of Cincinnati (well, enjoyed it once the feeling returned to my fingers).

That doesn't mean every day has been a piece of peach pie.  I miss my poodle and the family I babysit for and my church family at Wyomissing Church of the Brethren, and my own family (sometimes).  And part of BVS and living a simple lifestyle is making sacrifices.  Again, I haven't been here that long and haven't had to make all that many sacrifices, but I know that there are things I'm not going to be able to go home for and be a part of.  Life at home will go on without me.

So whenever I feel myself getting too sad, I just start singing to myself "I'd rather be going slightly batty, in Walnut Hills, Cincinnati..."