Too busy! and a garden report

I haven't posted for a while because I'm uncharacteristically BUSY. (Lazy me is much more typical.)

For one thing, work is wild. Both bosses have decided to need major projects completed at approximately the same time. ARGH!! Fortunately, they both are out of the office a good deal, which allows me to work; I can't get anything done when they're in the office since they take turns hollering for me from their respective offices. "Do we have a folder for recruitment?" "What's this student's ID number?" "How do I do a search on my e-mail?" "Can I have a piece of letterhead?" Frankly, I don't even try to get anything serious done when they're both in the office.

Outside of work I'm editing/proofing a manuscript, and is it torture. TORTURE, I tell you! And it turns out I'm charging the guy way under market; I wish I'd found it out before I gave him a price. I've got about 100 pages to go, and I'm really pushing to get through it so I can get it out of my life. Though I may have to go through it quickly once more, just to make sure I got everything. At any rate, this reminds me why I gave this up years ago. I'm not sure it would be worth it even if I was charging him the going rate.

And I'm knitting away on this commission, trying to get in an hour or so every night. I got the little seed-stitch hat finished, but not the crocheted flower for it, and have gotten up past the pockets (these are knitted in, not patch) on the sweater. I sure hope this is going to be cute and I won't have to do any extensive mathematics to get close to the proper dimensions.

I've been doing considerable reading, too, just to cleanse my mental palate, so to speak, after working on that ms. I'm still on my Civil War kick and am reading Grant's Memoirs and a book contrasting Grant and Lee as generals. This guy has a decidedly Grant bias. I'm thinking about getting Shelby Foote's Civil War history, but it's about $35 US used. I suppose I could buy it one volume at a time. I'd also really like to have the anniversary DVD edition of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, and that's even *more* expensive.

And I'm playing Ragnarok (old DOS RPG game). It's kind of addictive, although I'm not very good at it; I've got no strategy or tactics, I just bash monsters. I've got a good character going right now, though, and have fulfilled 3 of the 7 quests.

I've taken some pictures of the garden, but haven't downloaded them yet. Some of the new hostas look like they're taking and doing very well, but a couple look kind of limp--not sure what's wrong there. The clematis out front is dead, dead, dead; guess I'll have to pull it out and plant a new one next year; luckily Jackmanii clematis are easy to find. I'm thinking about moving the scraggy shasta daisy out by the trellis out into the front corner garden--I think the shasta daisies would look great with the Russian sage behind them (although it would crowd the roses--maybe if I moved Othello east of the pink rose and put the shasta daisy in its place). I still haven't found anything to plant in front of it, though. I keep looking through the catalogs for something low-ish, perennial, pink blue or lavender, and, preferably, scented.

The Hyperion daylilies are just thrilling this year--I love their pale, glowing yellow--they're exactly my favorite shade of yellow--and I like it that they're scented.

The gnawed-on rosebush is looking slightly better because last time I looked a spider had taken up residence. I immediately stopped spraying and let her do her work, and she seems to be getting things under control--at least it doesn't look quite as pathetic as it did a couple of weeks ago. Francoise Rabelais is getting ready to bloom again, but the buds are weighing down the stems. There's some reason a hybrid tea gets weak "necks" (besides genetics), but I can't remember what it is--research is needed. Sterling Silver is also having an outstanding year; it's getting ready to bloom again for the first time in years, and not just one or two blooms, but about ten--which isn't much in the world of floribundas (which I believe Sterling Silver is), but for this rose, considering how old it is, how often it's been moved, and how borderline the amount of sun it receives is, it's excellent.

The oriental lilies are about 6 inches high and looking like thick asparagus stalks (and I believe asparagus is in the lily family, isn't it?). I don't know if they're going to manage to bloom this year or not--it is mid-July, after all--and oriental lilies aren't famous for coming up a second year. "The world's most expensive annuals," I read someone called them.

Remember those sweetpeas I planted--oh, months ago, March, I think? And I made little paper cups to plant the seeds in and put them in rich potting soil and watered them tenderly? They have just now this month gotten past the four-leaf stage and started vining, and a couple of them are blooming. I love sweetpeas, and I'm thinking of trying seeds from a dedicated sweetpea breeder and grower and see if I get better germination and growth from her seeds compared to K-Mart seeds. None of the morning glories I planted germinated at all.

More garden thoughts in the offing, but it's time to go tackle that manuscript... :-P