Where did the time go?

Post # 60
I have not posted anything since last July!  During that time I read a lot of books, slept alot, finally realized how much stress I had been under for decades and just ...stopped ...and let the healing begin.  I gained a new daughter-in-law, a new granddaughter & a new grandpuppy. DD Casey moved out, DD Becky moved in. My dog ate my hearing aides and i said hallelujah, I hated those things anyway.  My depression and anxiety problems have just recently been greatly reduced with the help of a very wonderful therapist, meds from my psychiatrist and by me doing the things required to get better and help keep me healthier. It took a year, a very hard year, and I am not really well but not as bad as when I went to the hospital for sure. I still fall in the depression hell hole too easily and too often.  I still have anxiety just thinking about being among people and like to just stay at my home but that is ok. Now, If i could just lose those pesky 60 extra pounds!  I sure do miss work, my library patrons, the safe haven the library has always been to me, but guess what?! Retirement is just pretty darn good except for the absence of money!  I highly recommend it! But not if you have to live through a mental breakdown to do it. I stay up most of the night reading or on the computer...I'm just a night person and I have insomnia, and then sleep during the heat of the day. In between I play with my dogs and putter in my yard...two things that really help with my depression. See my grandchildren when I can, that really helps.  Appreciate it when my kids treat me kindly. Love to have emails from friends. But pretty much I spend my days with my dogs or in the yard planting stuff.   The morning glory photos here are from last year. I have lost count at how many paper bathroom cups I have planted this year with morning glories but enough to line 309 feet of fence with a plant every few inches!  Last year I just had morning glories that covered 1/2 the width of my property in the front, this year they surround the entire lot. Re: my garden... I am such a procrastinator! I almost have all of the garden planted but I am at least a month behind.  Tomorrow I will finish up. Last year I tried square foot gardening and it would have been great if the insects had not eaten my plants up.  And I want to know why they don't eat the weeds!? This year, since we are in a serious drought, I made self watering containers (see how at http://www.globalbuckets.org/ ).  I was able to get food grade buckets for free...formerly contained cake icing.  I have a fenced off section of my yard 20' x 30' for a garden area.  This week I totally lined the perimeter with 4 o'clock plants, as well as morning glories on 2 sides. I have pots of catnip, nasturtium, allyssum, and marigolds scattered among the buckets to hopefully deter some insects. In the self watering buckets I have tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, bell peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, black eyed peas, green beans and turnips.  Another thing I would like to know is where in the heck do those squash bugs come from???  I live sorta in the middle of nowhere so how do they find me?  Anyway, I am going to find an organic way of getting rid of the bad bugs (other than picking them off).  Tomorrow I am going to get my grandsons to help me make arched garden trellis's out of 4 cattle panels. Right now my garden is not very attractive, dead bermuda, with rows of white Walmart icing buckets and a Rubbermaid tub or two but once the 4'oclocks and other flowers are in bloom, the vegetable plants start overflowing from the buckets, and the bermuda seeds I planted come up it ought to be a pretty garden.  For the first time I invested in Miracle Grow Potting Mix and my tomato plants are beautiful.  I have never had such dark green leaves, and I have a lot of tomatoes and more blossoms on them already.  I took my 4 square ft gardening boxes I made last year, moved them to an area around my swing and planted them in flowers.  The crepe myrtles I thought had frozen last winter when we had two weeks of below zero temps have all started to come out.  My knock out roses are full of buds and I have sunflowers coming up.  By the end of July I think my yard will be looking very nice.  If we could get some rain it would just be wonderful.  This year we have only received 0.16 inches of moisture since mid-February.  My favorite weatherman said this is the worst drought for us since 1956.  Lord, please send us several days of drizzle please!