Friday, October 12, 2007

Happy, happy autumn!

The last few days, I have been harvesting. My volunteer grape tomato plant has provided me with dozens upon dozens of tasty tomatoes, my lavender is ready to be cut down for the winter, and this past week I have harvested nearly half a cup of morning glory seeds.






The lavender is going in my linen closet and to co-workers, and the morning glory seeds are being divvied up into packets for next spring. I am going to plant some of them, some are going to Mallie for her new house, and the rest are available for anyone who wants some very pretty vines with dark purple, red-streaked flowers.

The cold fall air makes my evening baths much more enjoyable, and now I can use all my glorious fall scents. So far, the winner has been Julphia Soapworks' Sandalwood Vanilla, followed by Red Egyptian Musk from Skindecent. I am also very proud to announce that I was one of the forum contest winners for Isle of Eden's holiday collection. My suggestion, called Tucked In, is a pretty layered scrub, is currently one of the top ten best-sellers on the site, and I get a free jumbo scrub!

I built my very first book recently at work, and I am now responsible for three more. Even though my name doesn't appear on them anywhere, I still feel a real sense of pride in them. I'm also amazed at how much I am learning. And earning, for that matter--overtime is not only permitted, but encouraged, and so I have been bringing work home with me. I'm sure I will get tired of it, but right now, it makes me feel very grown-up to bring a book home with me and work on it. There is one annoyance that is not going to change any time soon--the software which converts data to PDFs for our books automatically adds "ISBN #" despite the teeth-grinding redundancy thereof. I get little angry quivers when I think about this, so I shall try not to think of it!

To paraphrase Berke Breathed, "L. R. Jammies, signing off and heading for the tub!"

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a huge amount of lavender. How do you store it?

Jammies said...

Lavender is very easy. The leaves are fragrant as well as the buds, so you can get scent even when it's not in bloom. Cut it down almost to the ground, then spread the stalks flat on a linen or cotton towel (the kind you would use for drying glassware). When the lavender is dry to the touch, store it in a ziplock bag or glass jar, and put a few stalks at a time out in a drawer or closet for the fragrance.

Becs said...

Do not, I repeat, do NOT go dissing the ISBN! The entire Becs household depends upon it!

Jammies said...

Becs, I am NOT dissing the ISBN.

It's just that Hyphenated Corp insists on adding the # sign to something that already means "ISB Number." Blech.

Anonymous said...

I still wanna know - if its only volunteering to be a tomato plant, wot is it really? :)

Romantic Heretic said...

So glad to hear things are going well, Jammies.

*HUGS*

Murphy Jacobs said...

It isn't volunteering to BE a tomato, it's volunteering to grow in the garden without being asked.

Speaking of which, how many has the Bigfoot eaten and is he still working on tomatokenisis (the ability to make tomatoes roll of the counter without touching them) ??

Jammies said...

Bigfoot has not eaten any, and so far, the attempts a tomatokenisis consist of sitting in front of the counter and whining, and do not appear to be successful.

Otoh, I don't actually count the tomatoes, so...