The Harnation

Sleep with a stranger... and win an iPod!

I was completely blown away by this article published in the U.K.'s Daily Mail. Due to the huge increase in the number of young people being infected with STDs, the government is giving out prizes for submitting to an STD screening. (Remember, the UK has national socialized health care, so the taxpayers are the ones actually footing the bill for this!)

"If nothing else, the chlamydia epidemic has given the NHS the opportunity to blow taxpayers' money in more imaginative ways than normal. In Northamptonshire, those tested for chlamydia have their names put into a monthly draw for one of a number of Nintendo Wii games consoles (at a cost of £160 [$264] each). In Camden, North London, there are iPods up for grabs; in Nottinghamshire, it's a £1,000 [$1648] Fujitsu laptop; while in Northumberland, it is a £2,000 [$3296] holiday. Fancy a night out at the flicks? In Colchester, self-testing kits are being sent to 26,000 youngsters. Everyone who sends back their results will receive a £10 Odeon cinema voucher."

Wow! I didn't know that you could get such cool free stuff just for sleeping around (and I'm not talking about the STDs). How this encourages "safe sex" practices, I'm not really sure, but it definitely gives reason for pause to anyone who thinks that giving the government more control of any industry is a good idea.

Also, why don't people start questioning what behavior that they're already doing (as opposed to not doing) that is the real root of the problem? The transmission of STDs aren't on the increase because people are becoming more respectful of their bodies and of sex in general.

I love how one commenter of the article puts it: "So.... I'm thinking that if people had any sense at all they'd wait to have sex until they're married. Just think of all of the social problems that would disappear forever if people enjoyed sex the way it was intended rather than treating it as cheap candy good for any occasion."

Matt and I left camp Sunday morning so that I could get a head start on my take-home final. Mom caught a ride back with us since she wasn't going to paddle that day.

When we got to her house, we decided to make ourselves some lunch with our leftover sandwich fixin's. I went to check out her tomato plants and had a sudden craving for some fried green tomatoes.

I haven't had good ones since eating at Veggies to Go back in Auburn (yum), and grabbed two big green tomatoes from the bushes.

Fried green tomatoes are stupid simple and super yummy; everyone should make them.

- slice a green tomato, about 1/4 in. thick slices
- salt and pepper each slice
- dip in cornmeal
- place in a hot frying pan with oil or shortening.
- fry on medium/medium-high until golden brown, flipping once.

They're so good, they made me re-evaluate trying to grow a vegetable garden (again) next year...

This weekend was a good one, a nice distraction from the looming take-home final that will be hogging all of my time this week.

We went up to Chilhowee Campground in Tennesee Friday morning to claim a few camp sites. After pitching tents, we went out on the Hiwassee river for a nice, relaxing float.


Angie and I successfully flipped our boat - right towards the end of the trip. When you flip, you have to float a while until you find a safe place to stand up. I may be smiling, but that water was COLD!


Mr. Pie couldn't keep his eyes open on the ride back to camp. Thanfully, Mrs. Pie was there to make sure he didn't catch any flies for dinner.



Saturday, the majority of the group paddled the Nantahala while Mom, Angie, and I ran the shuttle and stopped off in Bryson City.

Mr. Pie didn't let a silly thing like a broken wrist stop him. He "took it easy" in a sit-on-top kayak with his plastic cast cover. Hope it stayed dry!

July brought more hot weather flowers. It also brought the realization that >1050 square feet of flower beds is a LOT to keep up with.

I'm working on getting all of the beds that need occasional watering rigged up on a drip irrigation system with a timer, including the patio pots, so that I don't have to beg my sisters to come water my plants whenever we go out of town.

I'm also realizing that I can't really just go buy enough mulch from Lowe's to keep everything topped off sufficiently and am saving up for a big truck load of mulch to be dumped off in the back yard. But, other than that, I've only killed a couple of plants in the past few months and the beds are all looking great.

We saw this video a while back, but after Tyson's growing obsession with his b-a-l-l (we have to spell it out now) has forced us to hide the tennis ball, I would really like to build him one of these. He's gotten so bad that we've decided to hide the ball for a week or two since he's started sitting in front of the mantle every day, looking up at his chuck-it and hoping we'll go outside to throw the ball for him.

...an Oscar Mayer Wiener!

Do you remember the song? You don't hear it too much anymore, but it was catchy. The song popped into my head when I saw this:

How does Manda stay in such great shape? When she's not yelling drill-sergeant-style at a room full of ladies, she's whipping some ultimate butt.

This past week was a doozie, we stayed busy with school and work. I got my midterm back and made a 100! I can't remember the last time I've been halfway through a course with a perfect average. Losing my 4th of July weekend to one monster of a take home test paid off.

Thursday was busy, running around checking on granite prices (again) and then grabbing the boys to go to Matt's ultimate game. He played Ryan, Amy, and Kary's team. It was fun to see them play one another and Wade and Amanda were on the field right next to them.

I made the mistake of bringing both of the dogs instead of my usual maximum of one. Ace couldn't sit still and so I decided to put him in the car, moving to the front of the lot so that I could see him from the sidelines. Backing up in the dark, I couldn't see the posts around a fire hydrant and did this:



My poor car! There's nothing like backing over a pole and having 13 ultimate frisbee players have to help jack up your car so that you can get it off of the post. Thankfully, it's only cosmetic and there's no real structural damage. However, my pride was hurt and I was too depressed to drive my car to work on Friday. I actually woke up depressed about my no-longer-perfect car and driving record.

I had to pull it together and put things into perspective. What a stupid thing to be sad over - a material possession! Of all of the things to be upset about... this is a no-brainer. I have so much to be thankful for - a loving husband, great job, incredible family, good health, the list just goes on. Poor Wade broke his wrist that night and can't paddle when we go on our upcoming kayak trip, but here I was pouting about my car's back bumper.

Later in the day, I was able to suck it up and make the best of it. I'm still sad for my car - but mostly for our bank account which will be absorbing the repair costs. The rest of the weekend went well and we got to enjoy the gorgeous weather and hang out with my long lost cousin and later some friends from work. It was a much needed respite before the next two weeks of school.

If I can just make it through my final at the end of the month, I'll be good to go!

I'm all for dressing up your pets (heck, I'd put my boys in their matching cable knit sweaters more often if Matt would let me), but this is just going too far.

We once saw a lady at the train station in Japan who had a purple poodle that matched her own dye job. Weird.

Poor puppies!

My sister sent me this vid and it reminded me that there won't be any more new Jaywalking dummies to laugh at. Sigh.

I've been trying to talk my sweet honey into installing a tile backsplash in our kitchen for me for a while now. Last week, we went over to Lowe's to check out some of their tile to get some ideas about what we want to do.

As we're walking over to the tile aisle, we pass through the kitchen display. Big mistake! Matt found this textured granite countertop and it was love at first sight. So, we start looking at all of the rock samples and the extremely helpful countertop guy came over and gave us a great run-down of all of the different types of countertops and their basic pros/cons.

The obsession begins.

We go home and think about it, coming back the next day to grab a sample to take home. We finally decide on the color/finish ("brushed" granite instead of the more common polished finish). I swear that I've been to Lowe's more in the last week than the last several months! They find a supplier with the counterop that we like but can't do anything else until we pick out a sink (they have to have a template to cut the sink hole out from).

We went back last night and tried to pick out a faucet from their 200 options (and that didn't include the 100,000 special order options in their giant books) and figure out filtered water spout/built-in soap pump stuff. Have I mentioned that the people at Lowe's are really helpful?! Wow, and they really know their stuff! I find a faucet I like, but Matt doesn't. Second choice: too many holes. Okay, back up. Drop the separate filtered water spout and make the main faucet filtered. Bingo - fixtures we both agree on. My feet hurt.

We pick out a sink - a white ceramic/cast-iron one that says it comes in black. Punch in the code to the computer... the black costs twice as much! What a load of crap. I'm willing to pay for this sink since it's the one I like, but the fact that it's more than double the price of the white one ticks me off. It's the principle of the matter. I'm annoyed.

We decide to run next door to the other, orange, place just to see what they have. I'm instantly reminded why I don't shop at HD - the guy in the sinks area sees us standing there trying to figure out their unlabeled displays and doesn't bother offering to help. Leaving, now.

I try to look sinks up online. No luck. They're all the same price (or more) than the one I like at Lowe's. My head hurts. Time for bed.

Wouldn't you know it, I'm dreaming about the darned sink! What the he$$? I'm not this person - I am not into/good at decorating. I'm not a home-project type of girl. I don't care about this stuff. What's wrong with me?! I feel like a grown up - a responsible home-owning grown up who cares about color swatches and patterns and textures and all of that stuff I completely don't understand.

The thing is, I can't go back. I can't drop it all and live with what we've got. I've seen the other options. I've pictured them in my little kitchen. I'm obsessed. Got to change the countertops, sink, fixtures. I haven't even touched on the backsplash and re-doing the floor yet.

Is this normal?!

This last Friday, on our day off, Matt and I made it up to the Space and Rocket Center with a friend to learn about a lot of the behind-the-scenes details and designs.

Craig, our retired NASA expert, gave us so much information about every engine, computer, o-ring, and vacuum tube in there that I thought my head would explode!

Craig has so much knowledge and knows so many details about the space program. As he was talking, visitors would stop and listen to him tell Matt different things, asking him questions along the way.

Did you know that that pointy thing on the end of the Saturn V is actually an escape rocket? If something went wrong during a launch, it would fire up and pull the capsule with the astronauts out of the trajectory of the rest of the rocket. It was never needed in a real launch though, and was only deployed during tests.

I hadn't been to the S&RC since I was a kid and was a little overwhelmed. There is a lot of stuff in there, and it had a lot more exhibits than I remember. We didn't stay for the movie (I remember being so impressed with the iMax as a kid), and didn't do any of the rides (vomit!). We basically stuck to all of the space-related exhibits (why stop at the defense/Army stuff? We work around that stuff every day!). I'd recommend going if you've never been, or even going back if it's been a while.

Hydrangeas are probably my favorite flowering shrub. June brings the first cut blooms from my parents' gorgeous 25+ year old bushes and I still go over to snip some for my table each summer.


Given the right location and soil amendments at planting, hydrangeas will last for years and provide long seasons of gorgeous blooms with practically no maintenance. They are not fussy plants and will put up with a fair amount of abuse.


Location: The most important aspect of planting a hydrangea is location. When we first moved into our house, we installed our first flower bed right on the front (west-facing) side of the house. My poor hydrangeas put up with all of that summer heat against the afternoon sun and hot brick, but they're much happier now that I've transplanted them on the East side of the house where they get morning sun and afternoon shade. They don't wilt nearly as much as they did when in the afternoon sun (but they still wilt a little during the hottest part of the day and will continue to do so until their roots are more established or if there is an extended dry/hot spell). Another thing I noticed about hot afternoon sun: the leaves get scorched looking. Also, rust can get on the leaves if the leaves get wet and there is too much direct sunlight.


Color: When you plant your hydrangea, if it's a blue/pink/red/purple, the odds are that the color can change according to the acidity level and presence of aluminum in your soil. I bought some pink hydrangeas, but wanted blue. I added some aluminum sulfate (or garden sulfur, found in the fertilizer section) when I planted them. Two years later, they're almost all blue. A few blooms will still show some residual pink, but as the soil evens out and the plant settles in, they should all be the same color. If you'd like to go pink/red, add lime to your soil according to the directions. Depending on the cultivar, you might be able to get purple blooms with slightly acidic soil and a limited amount of aluminum present. White blooms will not change color, no matter how much sulfur or lime you add.

Bloom: The general shapes of hydrangea blooms are mophead, lacecap, and panicle. Mopheads are probably most common and generally make great cut flowers. They're big and bushy. Lacecaps are more flat-topped with a row of sterile flowers around an inner circle of smaller fertile blossoms. Panicle-shaped blooms are conicle and look similar to the shape of crepe myrtle blooms. Even among these, there are many different variations. Striped, solid, double, single, frilly edged... the list goes on! You can even find hydrangea trees and climbing hydrangeas to fill a pergola.


Foliage: You can choose hydrangeas with not just colorful blooms, but also colorful foliage. There are variegated types, and also tons whose foliage changes color in the fall. Oakleaf hydrangeas do especially well in hot, humid areas, and their oak-tree-shaped leaves change to deep red in the autumn. They generally come in white or pink blooms, and are panicle-shaped.


Water: Hydrangeas like lots of water, especially when they're first planted. I had to water a mature hydrangea that we transplanted to our yard twice a day for the first few weeks until it started putting out new roots. (This is the only one I've had to do this with because the rootball was too small for such a large plant). Generally, I make sure that my new hydrangeas get watered if it doesn't rain two or three times a week. Once established, I water them when I think about it or if they droop in the hot afternoon and don't perk up when it cools off in the evening.


Fertilizer: Hydrangeas don't really need fertilizer, but will be happy with one or two applications a year of a balanced fertilizer (where all 3 numbers in the fertilizer are about equal). Sometimes I put on a handful of my acid-loving plant fertilizer or just a scoop of good old fashioned cow manure, but not always.

Size: Since we've been in our house just at 4 years, we don't have any plants older than that, and I don't have any really big hydrangeas yet. Hydrangeas can become great big shrubs at 6-8' tall and wide, but there are also miniature versions for small spaces or pots. The Cityline cultivars generally stay at about 2-3' and would be great for a small spot. For a fast-growing hydrangea, I'd recommend 'Annabelle'. This pretty white snowball-type bush has really taken off in my yard, growing from a cutting to 3-4' in just a couple of years.


Cutting: Hydrangeas make excellent cut flowers. The way to get the longest-lasting vase of stems is to cut blooms that have been on the bush for a couple of weeks (not the newest blooms). Also, keep oxygen bubbles from forming in the stem by cutting the stem and placing immediately into water (or re-cut under water), placing the end in boiling water, and leaving in water for at least two hours. Removing the leaves will also help the bloom to receive as much water as possible.

For more info, Hydrangeas Plus has lots of good tips (and *lots* of cultivars to choose from). For info on starting hydrangeas from cuttings, here is a good article.