Fanfiction Made Me Love Harry Potter More

2024 has quickly become the year of rediscovering parts of my childhood in many different ways, but one way I didn't expect that to occur was by taking a deep dive into fanfiction, specifically Harry Potter fanfiction. I don't know if I could tell you how this obsession started, since I didn't read fanfiction as a kid. Yet, here I am, thirty years old and I'm creating notes on Google Keep so I can keep track of the fanfiction I've been loving, which ones I'm in the middle of, and which ones I need to return to periodically to see if there are updates. My phone tells me that I've been averaging 6-7 1/2 hours a day on my phone lately and that's all because I've been reading fanfiction almost constantly, since it's at my fingertips. I've been allowing myself to dive back into Harry Potter in a way that I haven't indulged in quite some time.

Once it came to light that She Who Must Not Be Named (aka the author of this beloved series) is a transphobic and all-around problematic and terrible person, tons of people felt really conflicted about being part of the fandom. I know I felt that complication tugging at me and still do, to a certain extent. Yet, somehow, fanfiction has been a balm to soothe this ache I've been feeling as I attempt to be a good ally and still partaking in my favorite fandoms and that helped shape me into the person I am today. It's been a really nice way to have more adventures with characters I love while not supporting the author.

I was extremely surprised to find that fanfiction comes in all sorts of lengths as well as styles. There are plenty of one-shot stories that look at one specific part of the fandoms people write about and consider the "what ifs" that the series leaves behind. But then there are also tons of rewrites or complete departures that do the same thing, but in novel-length writing! Some of my favorites involve seeing what might happen if Voldemort recognized the signs that Harry is the horcrux he never intended to make and seeing Harry actually be raised by his parents or at least by Sirius.

There are relationships I wish the author could have explored explored (or not...) and we get to see how things could be if certain characters ended up with each other, broke up with each other, remained friends, etc. (for the record, I'm now a huge Draco/Harry shipper). Things that are subtle or glossed over in the series can now be looked at and scrutinized. Harry doesn't have to be okay with growing up abused and neglected. He can stand up to the adults that continuously did him wrong and let things slide when they really shouldn't have. Characters, like Snape, are able to redeem themselves in ways that actually feel like they make a difference in Harry's life and to the Wizarding World. Harry has been able to get therapy to help him work through the staggering amount of trauma he has been through in his life. People who died in the series get a second chance and they get to rise to the occasion of being the mentors, parents, friends, and family that they didn't get to be either at all or for long enough. And it's been amazing! 

Getting away from plot points, there's also the matter of representation being a much bigger thing that it is in the original series, particularly LGBTQ+ representation. To get personal for a moment, I didn't really dig into my own sexuality until I started college. Not because I lived in a repressive household or had an unsupportive family or anything like that, it just didn't occur to me to think about it too hard and try and put a label to things. I was just myself. But then this summer, I was reading a story in which Harry discloses to someone with the same amount of casualness I had that he is pansexual-- if he's attracted to you, he's attracted to you. Gender isn't really a factor for him. I was reading in the car next to my wife and I audibly squealed because I literally felt so seen. Harry was coming out to someone with so little fanfare and with so much assurance that that's just part of who he is that it almost wasn't even worth mentioning. I've also come across stories where characters have different mental and physical health conditions and that's all representation too.

These fan pieces have made this story feel much more well-rounded and real than they ever have before, which I didn't think was possible. I really didn't give this type of writing the credit it deserves. It's been so lovely to dip my toes back in this world and not be left feeling gross or jaded or something else after diving in head first after not being as immersed in this world for quite some time. I feel more connected with the community surrounding this fandom, I feel more connected with myself in some ways, and I even feel more connected to my wife since we've been able to talk about this.

Who knows, maybe I don't need to stop at reading fanfiction. Maybe now it's time to try my hand at writing it now.

Setting Up For A Book No-Buy Year

 It's no secret, especially to the people who know me personally, that I love books.  Last year I read over 60 books (I just looked it up, the average American, whatever that means, reads 12.6 books per year... I don't know what I thought the average would be, but that is pretty darn low).  One thing that afflicts many heavy readers is the collection of books in our personal libraries that never get read.  I am 100% guilty of a large TBR pile.  This is the year I want to make a concerted effort to make this situation better.

Right now, my collection of books fits in my home office, which is great.  I don't want my collection to expand beyond these confines.  But that's the thing... my physical collection of books is fairly manageable... my digital collection, however, is a different story... don't check my Audible or Kindle lists...

Over the years, I have heard of people starting a no-buy or low-spend year for either particular areas of their lives or all areas of their lives.  I love the idea of using what we have before getting a new thing, appreciating what we have, and paring down the belongings we own.  I don't think I can ever be a true minimalist, but perhaps I can be a better minimalist when it comes to my personal collection of books.

The Mission: Forego buying any books (physical or digital) for the year of 2024!

Why do I want to go to the trouble of having a no-buy year for books?

1. So I read more of the books I have that have been gathering physical or digital dust
2. So I can save money and/or re-allocate money I would have spent on books somewhere else
3. So I can declutter my belongings

How I Prepared

1. 
   Reorganizing and Decluttering.  This is mainly for my physical books.  I went through all of the books in my office and took them off the shelves.  First, I took out the books that I have read and don't want to keep in my office anymore.  These books will go to my classroom.  I think a number of them I took from my classroom library in the first place, so they're going home.  Then, I sorted through the books that I have not read.  All of those books have been relocated to one area.  That way, I don't have to go on a hunt for the books that I haven't read.  I'm taking the guesswork out of things.  I have a small pile of physical library books from the public library and the school library and those now have a designated place in my office.  In the photos on the right, all of the books in the top photo have not been read and in the bottom photo, the top shelf and most of the lower standing books are all candidates for me to read this year!  This practice also helped me get rid of duplicates that had been taking up space on my shelves.  
   
   
2. Create a physical list of all the books I own and have not read.  I did this in my bullet journal.  There's a list of all of my physical books, eBooks, and audiobooks on separate lists.  This was honestly so eye-opening for me because it made me realize the true extent of my book-hoarding issue.  I have a good number of physical books that I haven't read, but they're quite contained.  The danger for me lies in my digital books.  Holy cow, I have acquired so many eBooks over the years and a vast number of audiobooks too.  In all, across all modes but not including books I have in more than one medium, I have 279 books that I have not read yet.  This helped me go back to the rules that I wrote and be more strict on the limits I put on myself.  For example, I was going to allow myself to borrow books from the library freely-- I'm not spending money on those books, after all.  But I have access to so many books.  It will take me years to read through all of them.  There's no reason for me to bring in a lot of new titles.
   
   
3. Create smaller, monthly TBRs.  This will help me prioritize what I own and allow me to keep these books at my fingertips-- I'm creating a path of least resistance.  I think this will make the task of reading my books a little less overwhelming than staring at a wall of unfinished books constantly.

The Rules

One aspect of a No-Buy year is to create lists of things that are okay to buy, exceptions to this mission, and hard boundaries to achieve my goals in starting a book no-buy year in the first place.

Green Light: Book Purchases and Acquirements I Can Make

• Any books bought or pre-ordered prior to the start of 2024 are fair game (that being said, I did not treat this as permission to go wild).

Yellow Light: Limits and Exceptions for Book Purchases and Acquirements

• Presents for others, thoughtfully gifted (thrifted books as much as possible).  The only occasions where this can happen are birthdays and Christmas.  I want to avoid "just because" gifts of books.
• I can enter contests for books as long as I don't have to pay for them.  The odds of me actually winning these drawings are very, very slim.  I'm thinking particularly of GoodReads for this.
• I can buy a book if I need it for work or a class.  First though, I must check the library to see if it's available within a week or two there.  If it's not, I can opt for a digital copy.  If a digital copy isn't available, then a hard copy can be acquired (secondhand as often as possible).
• Request books on NetGalley if I have immediate plans and desires to read that book.  I don't want to create a new backlog just because I want to read brand new stories.
• I can use the library to find a mode of a book that I don't already own (for example, if I own a physical copy of a book but I'd rather listen to the audiobook).

Red Light: Hard Boundaries Around Book Purchases and Acquirements

• 
  I won't repurchase any books I used to own but previously gave up-- nostalgia is not a good enough reason to acquire or re-acquire books
• Keep Audible account on pause so that I can keep listening to the books I already have but without acquiring more credits
• Sites like Chirp and BookBub can be used to inspire requests at the library and adding books to my GoodReads TBR, but I cannot take advantage of any of the steep discounts for the duration of 2024, including books that are free.
• No buying physical versions of digital books I fall in love with just to own a hard copy of that book.

These are the "rules" I can think of right now.  I'll revisit this list periodically to make sure it's still working for me.  I imagine that I'll come across the rare situation that I could not have foreseen that I'll have to make a decision about in the moment.  But I think the rules above will help me chip away at my backlog of books before diving into new books.  I plan to do periodic updates on this task, so I'll be able to report back what is working and what struggles I'm having.  I'm really looking forward to this!

Reflecting on My Masters Program

This past May, I graduated with my Master of Arts in Educational Studies!  Now that I'm months removed from this huge milestone, I have some thoughts about it and I've been able to see how my cards have been dealt now that I'm done with degree.  Was it worth it?  Did it get me where I wanted to go?  

What Are My Circumstances?

Not everyone goes into a Masters program immediately after graduating with their Bachelors.  I am told (and I did come to discover this as well) that many people in my classes were similar to me in what I was dealing with outside of going to school.  So here's what I had going on:

• I have a full-time job as a teacher (I started during my 5th year as a teacher, so I already had a teaching license and experience)
• I'm married
• I have a toddler (he turned 3 right around when I graduated)
• I opted to take on a full-time courseload (while still giving myself permission to scale back if it ever became too much)
• The school I attended and the school where I work helped me pay for my tuition, so the financial load was lessened a little bit

My set up will not work for everyone.  A lot of people thought I was nuts for doing both my job and school on a full-time basis.  And to be honest, I probably was a little nuts.

Why Did I Start?

My full Masters is in Educational Studies with a concentration in Teaching College English.  In my state, there is a program called College in the Schools through the University of Minnesota.  It's a concurrent enrollment program meaning that high school students can enroll in these courses and earn both high school and college credit at the same time.  I have wanted to do this for years, but the main thing I needed was experience in the classroom (3 years) and a Masters degree (there's a little more to this, but simply put, that's what I needed).  I had been told that, especially with teaching younger high school students, it could take a toll and I might want to find ways to save my sanity.  Working with more mature students could help.  I also love writing and teaching this particular writing class that I was striving to apply for would allow me to dig into the craft and practice of writing and prepare students for the future, especially if it included college.

What Did I Learn?

Now that it's been about 6 months since graduation, I have been sitting in this post-graduate bubble and figuring out how my Masters has impacted my life so far.  Just to get my head on straight, here are the positives, surprises, and even some disappointments I've noticed so far:

Positive: I'm teaching a college class!

• This is the best thing that has come of this!  Even though I'm teaching a new class at my high school, there is an application process that I had to go through at the University of Minnesota in order to be able to teach this class.  I'm so relieved that I didn't have to wait to teach this class and that the work I did was enough to get a chance.  Because I have limited experience with upper high school, that could have been enough of a reason for them to say no to me teaching this class.  I'm so happy that they gave me a chance.

Positive: I have more professional possibilities!

• I've been becoming more and more aware of this since graduating.  Having a Masters degree means that more schools are willing to look at me.  I can even teach at community colleges and/or as an adjunct at colleges and universities.  I've been feeling really restless in my job lately and even just knowing that I don't have to be stuck is a little bit relieving.  Like, I don't have to be a high school teacher until the day I die if I don't want to be.  What a cool feeling.

Surprise: The amount of doubt around what I'm doing right now

• Perhaps the trade-off of having new professional possibilities is feeling a lot of restlessness and doubt about where I'm currently at professionally.  This is a much more complicated conversation that I probably won't get into here.

Disappointment: My paycheck

• One reason I decided to go for my Masters was so I could move up in the pay schedule.  I don't know if other types of jobs have this, but I can more or less look ahead in my career and have an idea about what I would make with a certain amount of experience and with a certain level of education (not precisely because inflation and such is taken into account each year and is adjusted accordingly).  So I was excited to see that there was a decent bump in my salary!  But after taxes and when it's translated into a bi-monthly paycheck... it's not very noticeable.  I felt really dumb.  That's partially a me problem-- I clearly didn't do my math right and had some false ideas-- and partially a choice in how my school chooses to pay its employees.  That's the reality of the type of school where I work.

Surprise: The workload + finding a rhythm

• This is another oversight of mine.  I think I had it in my head that everything would be hunky-dory as soon as I started teaching this new class and working with the University of Minnesota.  But there's a bit of a learning curve.  I haven't quite gotten the hang of the grading load and the things I've been doing in class are, for the most part, not my own.  I'm recycling a lot of materials from the previous teacher and using as much as I can from my cohort's already existing materials.  It's devoid of my own take on things so it feels really foreign right now.  I know this is something that will improve with time

Positive: I like being a student!

• I loved not being the teacher for a while.  I loved talking with classmates and professors about subjects we were exploring and learning about.  I liked the writing that I got to do, even if I complained about the workload in the moment.  I look back on that work fondly now.  Being a student is a different kind of pressure than being the teacher and I appreciated the challenge!  I don't know if I will take university courses in the future (and I have serious doubts about pursuing a doctorate at the moment), but I will absolutely be pursuing opportunities to continue learning even outside of my field of study.

Ultimately, I do not regret starting a Masters program.  It was a tough two years, but we (my family and I) made it work.  I'm really proud of myself for working through my program.  Since I'm still fairly fresh out of my program, I'm excited to see how things continue to develop and how I'll feel about this experience a year or more after the fact.

Goals for 2024!

Happy New Year!  Welcome to 2024!

It's the time of year where lots of people are setting goals for the year and I'm no exception to this.  I really like putting to paper (or the internet) the things that I would like to do in a year.  I think it helps guide my adventures and keeps my values at the forefront of my mind.  I don't think it sets a path my how my year is going to go or what I do-- there's still plenty of room for adventures and spontaneity!

Without further ado, here are my goals for 2024!

Recycled Goals From 2023:

1. Get a tattoo.  I think I'll be more likely to do this if I reach out to an artist right away at the beginning of this year/month.
   
   
2. Create a rhythm for blogging.  I have taken up blogging again!  But none of that matters if I don't have a schedule or workflow of some kind.  That's my mission this year.
   
   
3. Get my nose pierced.  This is something I've probably been thinking about too much and I just need to do too.  Same thing, I will find a place and make an appointment early this year, even if it's months in advance.
   
   
4. 52 weeks of gratitude.  I tried to do a version of this last year that was meant to become a daily thing, but it quickly fizzled out in March (which, hey, that's still like, 90 posts...).  I think posting once a week will help me be more successful.

New Goals for 2024:

1. Find a side-hustle.  I have big dreams.  I want to travel.  I want to do things around the house.  These are things that, without going into too much detail about my family's financial situation, would stretch our budget too much without some kind of change or boost.  So I'm in search of a way to make extra money without being away from my family.  We'll see if it's a pipe dream.
   
   
2. Write for the purpose of publication.  One of my big goals in life is to become a published author.  I took a class last year about writing fiction and part of that class was my professor, who is a published author herself, talking about the world of publication and bringing in writers to talk to us about their work and how they got to be where they are today.  So many of the writers were writing in the early morning or into the evenings when their kids were asleep, just plugging away at their stories.  More importantly, doing it consistently.  So part of this goal is to build a routine for writing on a regular basis.  
   
   
3. Decorate for all of the holidays.  Whenever holidays come up, my house looks so sad.  I want to be able to put up decorative lights and some other decorations to get into the holiday spirit, whether that's Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Valentine's Day.
   
   
4. Understand my ADHD brain better.  Towards the end of 2023, I received an ADHD diagnosis.  It's taken a little bit to figure out what this means for me and what I want to do about it.  But in December, I started taking concrete steps.  I want to keep learning about brains like mine so that I can better do the things that I want to do while not working against my own mind.
   
   
5. Learn to identify agates.  I have a rock tumbler that I've been using on cool rocks I find in my backyard or on camping trips.  But agates look so neat!  I'd love to be able to find some out in the wild, but I need to learn what to look for first.  Then I can worry about polishing them up.
   
   
6. Find/rediscover mobile hobbies.  This is part of my "discovering myself outside of my job" mission.  I feel like when I talk to people in real life and they ask me, "How are you doing?  What have you been up to?" I don't have anything to talk about other than my job.  I don't want to be that person anymore.  I want to be the person that says, "I've been great!  I just finished a new embroidery project!" or even, "Not so great, I couldn't get the electrical on my mini-build to work.  How frustrating..."  Like, ANYTHING other than talking about my job all the time!  And it's a bonus if I can take it with me in my bag without dragging a ton of stuff around!
   
   
7. Go through the junk boxes I've been avoiding.  I think a lot of us have "doom boxes," or boxes that we feel acute dread or doom when we think about dealing with them.  I don't think that's just an ADHD thing, but I could be wrong.  Well, I want to slowly but surely deal with them.  I'm trying to keep my basement fairly organized and junk-free and dealing with these boxes is paramount to reaching this goal.
   
   
8. Create an indoor storage system for tools.  I have collected some tools since moving into my house, but I do not have any real organization to them.  I'd like to fix that!  Even if it's temporary-- the garage won't be a great storage place for a little while probably.
   
   
9. Create a savings.  When my wife and I combined our money after marriage, the account that was my savings account became our savings account.  But she still has an account that is just hers.  I want to have an account that is just mine.  This will let me keep our finances on lock a little bit better.
   
   
10. Learn basic electrical.  I'm very lucky that my father-in-law has a background in electrical work.  I want to learn how to install new outlets and fix basic electrical issues from him!  
    
    
11. Physical and Digital Book No-Buy Year.  This is a big one and probably worth digging into more in a separate post.  I've heard of people doing a no-buy year in all areas of their life and I think that's wonderful.  I'm proud of them for being able to do that and accomplish that task.  I don't think I'm quite at that level of having a no-buy year for all areas of my life and even then, I think I would need to get my family on board with this.  But I do have control over my own belongings and books.  I have really slowed down on buying physical books, but I still have a lot of books that are on my shelves that I haven't read.  I have even more books on my iPad that are much more hidden, but I still haven't read them.  I want to do this to clear out my personal collection of books.

I feel like this year, compared to other years, my list of goals is so eclectic.  But they're all meaningful to me and aimed at improving my life in very specific-to-me ways.  I'm really looking forward to seeing how this year goes!

2023 Goal Reflection

What a year 2023 was.  I met some cool milestones and went through many a challenge.  But this post isn't entirely about that.  At the start of this year, I set some goals for myself and I'm taking a moment to check back on how accomplishing those goals went!

✅ Learn how to do something new around the house.  I feel like when you move into a house, you can't help but learn something new.  In my case, we moved into a house that is over 120 years old and was most recently a rental property before we bought it.  There's plenty to do around here!  I learned how to do a board and batten wall in my entry way and I learned a lot about fitting doors into older properties (and just how difficult this actually is).  I'm excited to learn more going forward!

❌ 365 days of gratitude.  This was a very big goal.  It's not that it was hard to do, but the amount of time was a huge barrier.  I think I made it to March before I had too much of a backlog of gratitude.  Then it felt like a chore to do.  I don't want to 100% let this go, but I think I need to adjust my goal.  Maybe 52 weekly posts rather than 365 daily posts, if that makes sense.  That might be more do-able.

✅ Successfully cultivate a sourdough starter.  I managed to do this!  The problem is, it didn't last more than a month.  Cultivating sour dough starter is kind of a full-time job.  You can't let it go for too long or the starter goes bad.  I'd like to try it again in the future, but perhaps at a time when I'm better able to put more attention on it.

🤏 Complete 5 exercise programs through Beach Body.  I, like many others out there I'm sure, have a complicated relationship with exercise.  It's not enough for me to simply set a goal and then accomplish it.  I completed more programs than I have in the past, but I need more supports that I thought in order to do this.  Next time, I don't want to tie my success to just one program.  But I'm still looking for ways to stay active and find interest in what I'm doing rather than it just becoming a chore.  So this is a complicated success.

❌ Get my first tattoo.  This is still important to me to do.  There was just an issue with finding an artist, finding the time, and having the money available to do this.

✅ Learn how to preserve food.  I did this!  I now know how to make tomato sauce, fruit jam, and pickles!  I also have some fun new tools to make this job easier.  Immersion blenders are amazing :). I'm looking to expand my garden even more this year so that I can use more of what I grow!  Especially towards the end of the season, I wanted to keep canning things, so I relied on what I could find at the grocery store.  Maybe next year I'll have enough where I don't have to worry about that so much.

✅ Learn how to make food items I would normally buy out of convenience at the grocery store.  This is related to number 6.  I have ketchup and pasta sauce in mind.  This could help us save money, use what we grow in our garden, and make healthier convenience food.

❌ Find the best farmer's market in my area.  To be honest, this one ceased to be important to me.  That happens with goals sometimes.  I'm gracefully letting go of this

✅ Take up blogging again.  Technically, yes, I did take up blogging again.  Was I consistent though?  Not in the least.  I'll be extending this in my 2024 goals-- I'll elaborate in a future post.

🤏 Explore 10 places in my neighborhood and around Minnesota that I've never visited before.  I'll call this one partially accomplished.  I don't know that I visited 10 new places (unless I count individual places, not just new towns... then maybe...), but I did get to visit some new places around Minnesota!  We crossed off a few state parks when we went camping (blogs incoming this January/early February)

❌ Get my nose pierced.  Again, time and money didn't align for this goal, but I still want to do it!  I'll be moving this over to my 2024 goals.

While I didn't accomplish all of my goals this year, I'm really proud of what I did get to do.  Some of these goals will stop here and others will be let go of, which is also okay, especially if I don't find importance in them anymore.  Just because I set a goal does not mean I can't re-examine my priorities and values in the moment.  

Stay tuned for 2024 goals!

5 Things I Learned In My Twenties

I am officially 30!

This is usually a time of life where people freak out.  29-year-olds are freaking out because they're "getting old" and their "best years" are behind them (or something like that).  I've definitely joked that I'm getting old, but I'm actually looking forward to my 30s!  I'm proud of what my 20s were, but I'm feeling ready to move on to a new decade.  I feel lucky that I've gotten to live such a full life already-- there are things I've gotten to do that some people get to do later in life or possibly not at all:

1. Lived abroad --> 2014
2. Earned 2 degrees (Bachelors and Masters) --> 2016 and 2023
3. Got married (to my high school sweetheart) --> 2016
4. Went on my first road trip (LA to San Diego to the Grand Canyon) --> 2017
5. Became a full-time teacher --> 2017
6. Had a baby --> 2020
7. Lived through a pandemic --> 2020-2022/???
8. Bought a house and ended apartment life --> 2022
9. Sought ADHD diagnosis --> 2023

Not to mention the amount of travel I've gotten to do, especially before we grew our family, and the smaller milestones and cool things I got to do within/leading up to these bigger milestones.  

That's not to say that my 20s were easy and without its challenges or that I never made mistakes.  There's plenty that I would change if I had to do it all over again.  But if I went back in time to fix things, there's a lot I would miss out on learning too.  These are 5 things I've learned or started to learn in my 20s:

1.  You don't have to have everything figured out or know where things will lead.  In fact, you can't have everything figured out or know exactly where each action you take will lead.  Priorities will change, interests shift, and circumstances will be altered... so much is out of our control, so it's rather naive to think that decisions you make as a teenager will last forever.  But that is how I thought.  So that being said, I've been learning that there really isn't such thing as wasted time.  The things that I choose to spend my time on could lead me to unexpected places and opportunities, even if that wasn't the plan with them in the first place.  Even if my hobbies don't lead to any new opportunities, that doesn't make them bad or not worthwhile.
   
   
2. Your job isn't your personality.  Maybe this is a byproduct of spending most of my 20s in school working towards becoming a teacher.  I put so much time and energy into becoming a teacher that in time, I didn't have anything else that I really cared to talk about.  I lost sight of hobbies that I used to enjoy and all of my free time was devoted to my job (planning, grading, contacting home for students).  But since having my son, I feel like I've woken up a little bit.  I realized how much of my life was devoted to work and not to my family or to my interests.  I'm never going to claim to be perfect at this balance, but I think I've made some good steps in re-evaluating different parts of my life so they're more in balance with my job.
   
   
3. It's not enough to be silent around those who hurt you if you also want change to happen.  Silence is communication, but I can't say it's always the clearest form of communication.  If I'm angry because my wife said or did something that hurt me, nothing improves by giving her the cold shoulder.  She's just left to wonder why (or ignore me if she chooses, but she usually doesn't).  If a family member or a friend screws up and I just decide to cut them off, how are they ever going to understand why I'm reacting this way if I don't say something?  
   
   
4. Appreciate where you are.  There is beauty in the journey to wherever you're headed next.  Thinking of the difficult things I've been through in the last decade, I'm realizing that this was when I found the supporters in my life.  This is when the quiet moments meant more than the loud celebrations at times.  This is where I would be forced to listen to myself in a way that I didn't always used to.  Those are all good things to come from hard times.  The end goals will come, the day-to-day appreciation of the mundane is what can take work sometimes.
   
   
5. Leaning on others is not a weakness.  I'm still learning to accept help when it's offered and to ask for it, but I'm getting better at it.  I'm a very independent person, but no one can be strong all of the time and there are times when others know better.

May I continue to bear these lessons in mind as I enter my 30s and may I be open to what I have to learn in the coming decade.

Backyard Gardening: Round 2

 I am not so secretly obsessed with my backyard garden.  My dad was the family gardener growing up, so a lot of this development comes from him.  He focused on flowers and grew beautiful gardens every single year.  Usually each year, they'd get a little bigger and take up more grass.  This is especially true now that I no longer live at home.  There aren't kids running around daily and tearing up the yard anymore!  

When I did live at home, my dad encouraged me to garden and even give me a place to plant whatever I wanted.  I remember growing cucumbers, trying to grow peas, corn, etc.  There was some mild success in that tiny garden plot.  Not everything grew and I fought a number of battles in an effort to get things to grow.  I learned a lot and became excited to do that more when I moved out.  

I've lived in a couple apartments and tried to grow an indoor container garden.  Mild success.  I definitely needed outdoor space in order to be more successful.  It turns out, bees are important and I kind of forgot about that.  So then I was excited to live in a house and actually have a yard!

Fast forward to May/June of last year (2022).  We had been living in our house for a couple of months and it was time to plant things in the ground.  I started seeds inside and was ready to transplant them.  I cleared an in-ground plot and planted zucchini, tomatoes, and some other things.  It was definitely more successful than my pitiful indoor apartment container garden!  I actually got tomatoes and a few giant zucchini before the squash bugs took over!  I loved the feeling of growing my own food.  After my first real garden, I learned:

1. Squash bugs are the worst.  But there are things I can do to deter them.  I had some strategies I could try during the 2023 growing season.
   
   
2. Green tomatoes at the end of the season can still be used!  I found out that if you pick all of your green tomatoes and put them in a paper bag with a banana, most of them, if not all of them, will turn red.  That blew my mind.  I wasted a lot of perfectly good, but underripe tomatoes.
   
   
3. Label everything right away.  You will not, in fact, remember where you planted things.

Lots of good things, only some of which I applied right away this year as I planted my second garden at this house.

This year, I upgraded my garden and, with my dad, built three more garden boxes using some old decking I had acquired from my local Buy Nothing group.  I love having the extra space!  And I've made sure to fill every bit of it.  This year, I'm growing:

• Strawberries (ordered live starts from CZ Grain through Amazon and so far so good!)
• Sweet corn
• Pumpkins
• Chives
• Tomatoes
• Bell Peppers
• Raspberries (from my local Buy Nothing group!)
• Cucumbers
• Green Beans
• Zucchini
• Carrots

I have recently moved my carrots out of their original pot and into my raised bed in the hopes that they'll be able to spread out more and get bigger.  They were definitely growing, but they were pretty small when I pulled them out of their pot!  

Raspberries are doing really well but are reaching the point where they're starting to look spent.  That makes sense though.  I just found out that raspberries are typically in season until mid-July usually.  Raspberries tend to spread though, so my plan is to go in and spread out the new canes so that we can have even more raspberries next year!  I also learned about ever-bearing raspberries or fall-bearing raspberries.  Maybe I'll look into those for next year (or to plant this summer to get fully established).

Zucchini is my losing battle right now.  I've had to pull a zucchini plant already, leaving one of my original ones.  But that one is starting to get overrun by squash bugs.  I have put out a jar of soapy water so that I can put bugs in there when I hand-pick them off my plants.  Another neighbor suggested taking a spray bottle of soapy water and spraying down the plants.  I have planted chives, which is a good companion plant, but that's still growing and probably isn't affecting anything right now.  My next moves are probably going to be adding garden netting over the top of my plants (creating a hoop cover) and putting in diatomaceous earth.  Surely between those two tools, my zucchini will survive longer?

I did better with labeling things this year, but not well enough.  I thought I was really awesome at growing peppers!  But I mislabeled them and I actually have grown tomatoes.  I feel a little silly for getting some tomato plants from Home Depot when I had four perfectly good plants growing in my bigger garden bed right now!  There are some green tomatoes sprouting, so I'm excited to get some tomatoes in not that much time.  Then I get to learn how to make tomato sauce!  And ketchup :). There are a couple of things I will do differently though.  First, I will make sure to pick all of the green tomatoes off of my plants before the first frost.  Second, I want to try to overwinter my plants.  Last year, I pulled my tomatoes out of the ground and put them in organic recycling.  But that seems like such a waste.  What if I could keep the same plants and continue their production or at least keep them alive through the winter so they're ready for spring!  

There are some cosmetic things that I want to do in my garden as well over time.

1. I want to put landscape fabric and woodchips down between the garden beds.  I don't need the grass there and I think it'll help my garden look nicer too.  
   
   
2. I'd like to place stepping stones from my front yard to my backyard so that I can start trickling into my side yard and front yard, if I'm able.  Every year, I'm planning to expand my garden a little bit more.  It's really expensive otherwise.

One thing that's new in the garden this year is a compost tumbler!  I've been wanting to compost since we moved in and I was gifted one this year when I made that desire known (thanks, dad!).  I'm still learning how to cultivate that soil.  I just found out I need to be adding paper and watering it when it looks dry as well as adding my kitchen scraps.  I might have some compost ready to add to the garden by the end of the summer.  Cross your fingers.

A lot of things are happening!  I love this garden and I love figuring out how to make it better and grow more things.  I'm excited to see how things develop for the rest of the season and what things will look like into next year!