Work has been crazy and boring at the same time. The manager that was in charge of my previous one and stepped in to fill  in for her has quit. My store is still the messy store, and my coworkers are basically untrained. They don’t come to work on time, don’t understand how to do their jobs or what their jobs really are, and they don’t trust me.

I’ve had so much free time at work lately that I applied to online school. Unfortunately my manager put in her notice the week after I was accepted, and now I’m working 6 day weeks in 2 different stores, and basically get paid to drive. I don’t really do anything in either store, I just get paid to have the door open essentially. And since its finally nice out I don’t plan on doing any homework at home. School work was honestly only going to be done at work because I have nothing to do all day. Home is for fun stuff, and I don’t plan on wasting it on school. So! I withdrew from this term the day before it started. I’ll get a full refund for tuition and can start up again at the end of the summer if I want.

With all the projects I’ve got going on in the garden, I’ve decided its time I finally get chickens. I feel like gardeners that keep chickens are a different kind of gardener. It makes them seem more advanced to me. Getting chickens will just be another step in attempting to be as off grid as one can be in the city. I’m really excited to get rain barrels in. This is also something I’ve been talking about forever and it’s so simple I wish I had just done it sooner. I don’t know how much of a difference in the water bill it will make, but I think it will keep the plants better watered and it’s more about making me feel good than anything. I will also add on another 6 barrels in the future, once I get everything setup a little bit more.

I’m spending most of my down time researching chicken coops. I literally spent an entire shift on pinterest a couple of days ago. The joy of having no customers and no manager. And no work to do, plus having been told that doing anything more than your job description is frowned upon.

My tiny house has been put on the back burner for the moment. I don’t have anywhere to build it, or anywhere to keep it, and there isn’t really a reason to move out of my mom’s house yet. It’s hard to say if she would like it if I moved out, but I think we’re both content with the way things are. Moving out now would be unnecessarily expensive, and I wouldn’t really gain anything by leaving. I’m still saving up for one of course, but its a lot easier to wait for something if you’re distracted with a smaller project.

So yeah, I’m trying to stay as busy as I can. This year I’m not entirely sure why but I’ve gotten really serious about projects. My garden will be completely transformed by the end of the summer, and it’ll be great. I don’t know what I’ll do next year. If I don’t build a tiny house then I might just go insane. The trouble is that I have a fair amount of energy when I get home, but no daylight left do really go DO anything. If I was off earlier in the day, or if I actually got proper days off, I could go adventuring. Chickens will be a nice adventure this year I think though.

 

OH!! And the most important thing! My favorite person/idol, Falaah came to my house today. I gave her a full tour of my garden and asked for her advice about chickens and the front yard, which is my least visited spot. She said she loves everything and I’ve got all the right plants. And that she was proud of me for all the work I’ve done and for “walking the talk”. Which is probably the nicest thing I’ve heard all year. I really enjoy her and I’m glad to have met her. I think if I didn’t have a garden of my own I would volunteer with her more. It’s just hard for me to justify spending a day off volunteering away from home when my dogs spend the entire week locked up. She’s the woman I was volunteering with at a community garden a couple of years ago. That summer of volunteering taught me a lot and I’m glad to have done it.