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A Bit of Catch Up
Sep. 4th, 2023 09:37 pmIt isn't that I have been sooo busy, but I have been busy enough that I haven't managed to update this blog in a few days. Let's fix that.
Health:
The water situation is more or less stable. I am only drinking bottled water, and my stomach is mostly okay. I also brush my teeth with bottled water. Tap water is used for vegetables, but I dry them off carefully after. My blood sugar is edging a bit higher, so I have cut back a bit on the amount of rice in my breakfast soup. However, tai chi and language lessons will start this week (hopefully), so that should probably use up more carbs. I'll try to keep it under control. In annoying news, I ate a very bitter (probably unripe) cucumber the other day with dinner and threw up after. I shouldn't have eaten it. However, since my blood sugar has been a bit high anyway, it didn't seem to screw me up too much.
Painting:
After a ridiculous amount of fighting with the mint, it is all now more or less the same hue (if I understand this correctly, hue is the difference between turquoise and emerald green), it has more or less the right amount of shadow, and both Joel and I find the flowers acceptable. Next, I need to finish painting the green grapes, attach the grapes to stems, and put colored sugar designs on the cake. If all goes well, it will take 2 to 3 days for the grapes, 1 to 2 days for the stems, and then 1 day for colored sugar. I think. So, in theory, I will be done soonish.
House:
The contractor and his guys have been working on the house. They peeled the ivy off the outside of the house and started in on the roof. It has been raining a lot, but how they handle that is their problem. We plan to go up once a week to check on them. If it is raining there like it is here, we certainly won't need to water.
Garden:
I think I have narrowed down the plants I will put in the garden. However, I had hoped that ChatGPT could help me, and it isn't doing a great job. Grrrr.... I wonder if it is having the same problem that I have - that there isn't tons of info on gardening in Portugal. It turns out that the planting zone for our new house is 10b, which is the same as San Diego. I might be able to get a lot more accurate information from ChatGPT by asking it about San Diego instead. I think that the best way to go about this would be to make a spreadsheet. For the first round, Joel and I are thinking of putting in mostly drought-tolerant perennials. I may also put in one plant of something that I eat a lot of. Maybe cucumber or cabbage. Also, it seems like (again, after a long conversation with ChatGPT) I will probably try trench composting rather than traditional composting. I absolutely suck at the "5 parts brown to 1 part green" ration stuff. You can be a bit looser with the trench style (dig a hole, put vegetable waste and some paper, leaves, or cardboard in hole, cover with some dirt). We'll see how that goes. I'm also thinking of using a real drip irrigation system instead of soaker hoses. It is seriously important to not waste water here, so I want to do this right.
Language:
So far, no info from/about my new language teacher, but I did pay a school for 30 lessons, so hopefully that will start on Thursday. * crosses fingers *
Health:
The water situation is more or less stable. I am only drinking bottled water, and my stomach is mostly okay. I also brush my teeth with bottled water. Tap water is used for vegetables, but I dry them off carefully after. My blood sugar is edging a bit higher, so I have cut back a bit on the amount of rice in my breakfast soup. However, tai chi and language lessons will start this week (hopefully), so that should probably use up more carbs. I'll try to keep it under control. In annoying news, I ate a very bitter (probably unripe) cucumber the other day with dinner and threw up after. I shouldn't have eaten it. However, since my blood sugar has been a bit high anyway, it didn't seem to screw me up too much.
Painting:
After a ridiculous amount of fighting with the mint, it is all now more or less the same hue (if I understand this correctly, hue is the difference between turquoise and emerald green), it has more or less the right amount of shadow, and both Joel and I find the flowers acceptable. Next, I need to finish painting the green grapes, attach the grapes to stems, and put colored sugar designs on the cake. If all goes well, it will take 2 to 3 days for the grapes, 1 to 2 days for the stems, and then 1 day for colored sugar. I think. So, in theory, I will be done soonish.
House:
The contractor and his guys have been working on the house. They peeled the ivy off the outside of the house and started in on the roof. It has been raining a lot, but how they handle that is their problem. We plan to go up once a week to check on them. If it is raining there like it is here, we certainly won't need to water.
Garden:
I think I have narrowed down the plants I will put in the garden. However, I had hoped that ChatGPT could help me, and it isn't doing a great job. Grrrr.... I wonder if it is having the same problem that I have - that there isn't tons of info on gardening in Portugal. It turns out that the planting zone for our new house is 10b, which is the same as San Diego. I might be able to get a lot more accurate information from ChatGPT by asking it about San Diego instead. I think that the best way to go about this would be to make a spreadsheet. For the first round, Joel and I are thinking of putting in mostly drought-tolerant perennials. I may also put in one plant of something that I eat a lot of. Maybe cucumber or cabbage. Also, it seems like (again, after a long conversation with ChatGPT) I will probably try trench composting rather than traditional composting. I absolutely suck at the "5 parts brown to 1 part green" ration stuff. You can be a bit looser with the trench style (dig a hole, put vegetable waste and some paper, leaves, or cardboard in hole, cover with some dirt). We'll see how that goes. I'm also thinking of using a real drip irrigation system instead of soaker hoses. It is seriously important to not waste water here, so I want to do this right.
Language:
So far, no info from/about my new language teacher, but I did pay a school for 30 lessons, so hopefully that will start on Thursday. * crosses fingers *
