OK, so I'll be first to admit this wasn't my idea, but I think it's pretty nifty anyway.
I bought a bag of scallions at the supermarket for a recipe. Instead of throwing away the root ends, I kept them and planted them in a pot of dirt.
You can see the little white nubs in the photo below, where I originally cut them. If you look carefully, you can also see slender green shoots emerging from a few of the scallions.
Pretty cool. I put them in the sunniest room I have, an upstairs bathroom with southwest exposure, and hope to grow them all year long.
I've done the same thing with celery, although in this case, I happened to be growing celery in my home vegetable garden, so after I cut down the entire stalk about 3 weeks ago, I kept what was left, and all the attached roots, and stuck that in a pot too. This is still sitting in my driveway since we haven't really had a hard frost yet, but I will bring it indoors soon, too.
You can see the green leaves coming up. I like to use these in pea soup.
I might add that the scallions sprouted even though what I bought in the store was not organic.
In other news...
I discovered how delicious chai tea is. It's black tea plus lots of aromatic spices like Cinnamon and ginger, which just happen to be loaded with antioxidants.
Got my first paycheck from the new job Friday. Hooray! It's pretty small (net about $600-something) but that's because I started mid-week and only got in 23 hours. This week was better, at 30 hours, but there was the holiday on Monday. Hopefully this coming week I'll be able to put in 40 hours.
I'm feeling broke right about now as all my credit card bills had to be paid, and between car and homeowners insurance for the year, plus the hot water heater and the furnace humidifier, plus the deposit for the carpenter coming to do some work next month, the checking account is REAL low.
I have learned from another employee at the job that they hire a ton of contractors (like me) and that it's not uncommon for them to extend the original contract. They also have hired any number of contractors on a permanent basis. So one can hope for the same treatment.
I couldn't resist checking out the benefits handbook for regular employees, and I must say their benefits look very good, even above average. They offer benefits, including health insurance, even to p/t employees who work at least 20 hours a week. They offer 4 CIGNA plans, they seem to contribute a generous portion to the 401k..they match $1 to every dollar contributed up to 5% of pay, I think. Isn't that more than the usual .50 of every dollar?
When I was walking at lunchtime the other day I came upon a farmer's market in the park. They even had an organic vendor from my hometown there. Too bad that next week is their last week for the season. I will definitely go next week as I want to get some apples, and when I was there before, I didn't have any money on me.
My friend R. came over last night and we had some popcorn and a good talk. His PSA levels are rising again, despite the meds (chemo in a pill) he's on. His prostate was already removed, but the cancer is circulating in his blood. Things don't look good. The only alternative is a $93,000 drug that only extends your life 4 months. He was invited to do a clinical trial in Maryland area for a year, but there would be no guarantee he wouldn't get the placebo, so it would be risky to do that even though he'd get the drug for free after the 1-year trial was over.
He's also trying to help his niece who is going through a contentious divorce. He's going through his own divorce too and getting near the trial stage. He's trying to care for his 96-hear-old father who he recently had to move into a nursing home. He visits his dad twice a day, every day.
He's thinking of just giving up on all his prostate cancer meds and just letting the disease take his course. He figures he may have another 3 years. I tried to discourage him from doing that. It breaks my heart to hear him talk like that; he is very fatalistic. He says he's had a full life with no regrets.
He has been very generous to his niece, and is prepared to help her buy a house where she and her 2 kids can live after the divorce. He made some money transfers previously and then she decided she was going to work things out with her husband, so he wound up losing several thousand dollars.
He previously loaned her and hubby $40K so hubby could build a grand garage to store all his truck equipment.
Now R. is worried that he may run out of money (he'd assumed he would die before that happened). Since his retirement, he's worked a variety of p/t jobs; right now he works at a gas station and teaching kids how to drive at a driving school.
Unfortunately, a kid he was recently teaching froze up in the middle of an intersection and people were beeping horns, etc, and R. had him pull over to the side of the road and parked the car there temporarily, and a cop came along and gave them a ticket for parking there. So R. will probably lose his job there as a result.
I told him not to try to appeal it, let it happen, it will free up more time in his hectic schedule to see his dad and see his friends and just have a saner life. There are any number of other jobs he can do when he's ready to do them.
Never buy scallions again
October 20th, 2013 at 01:24 pm
October 20th, 2013 at 02:02 pm 1382274155
October 20th, 2013 at 02:08 pm 1382274521
October 20th, 2013 at 03:04 pm 1382277884
This is indeed generous. I'm not sure if there is a "usual" any more when it comes to 401Ks, employers offer so many variations. My current employer offers $1 for every dollar up to 3% of pay, and then $0.50 for every dollar for the next 3%, for a max of 4.5% ... and that is also considered pretty good.
Depending on the size of the company, you may be able to rate it's 401K at Brightscope.com
October 20th, 2013 at 04:10 pm 1382281828
And good trick about growing your own plants! I didn't know that.
October 20th, 2013 at 06:00 pm 1382288440
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October 20th, 2013 at 09:27 pm 1382300870
October 21st, 2013 at 01:34 am 1382315667
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October 21st, 2013 at 03:06 am 1382321174
and *sigh* after reading the rest about this poor guy, I can't complain about my struggles the past month or two (just parenting stuff and struggling with other personal stuff).
thx for the read