I guess it's fair to say I haven't been up to much since I got back to town. That and intermittent internet access problems have been keeping me offline. The Little Man came to fix the net access a day or so ago, though, and now we're back to our usual blazing-fast, incredibly reliable service and daily blog posting will be easy.

That doesn't mean I have anything to say.

So, monotonously:

Seedlings - All remaining growths seem to be surviving. A few even seem to be thriving. I'm embittered by the realization that the joy of growing your own plants from seeds has to be balanced by the frustration of having to wait months to see any flowers.

It looks like only one of those forget-me-not seeds actually sprouted and survived the first 30 days. The one seedling that's left is, very slowly, starting to show signs of progress.

The marigolds are looking sturdy, though. I think most of those are going to make it to the blossoming stage.

I really should have started these three months ago. At the rate they're going, it's going to be September before my little flower garden has flowers. If I had the money, I'd go out and buy a handful of already-flowering plants to add a little color to my balcony-based garden. Sigh.

Yarn-based pastimes - Largely all stalled. The mood has not been upon me recently. I ripped out two projects (one "completed" and one "in progress" to start them again because I didn't like what I'd done. I need to get back to them.

Maybe later today. I can knit while I watch the last two episodes of ReGenesis that I'm behind on. Or while I finish watching Veritas, a show that annoys me with its wasted potential and yet remains just good enough that I'm watching the DVDs and musing on What Might Have Been.

Drawing practice - An idea that's still in the conceptual stage. I'd like to spend some of this unexpected free time on drawing practice. Really, I would. But being unemployed is depressing and I can't write or draw or do anything very creative when I'm depressed.

So, the downer topics:

Job-hunting - The process continues. I send out resumes into oblivion. It's one thing to know that it always takes months to find a new job--it's quite another to be in the middle of the process so often, as I seem to have been for the last five years.

Mom - From what I'm told, she's gone into a bit of a tailspin since she got the 1-2 year diagnosis. I don't blame her and depression is one of the things to be expected when someone has received notice that they only have a year or two to live, and that the quality of their life is going to be going down until then, but it's worrying.

The R.C. was planning to make a trip down there before I went again, but I think I'm going to have to schedule a return visit fairly soon. I'm getting questions from the L-i-K-S and sometimes from Mom about the promised return visit. I don't know what I can do, even if I go. Mom needs someone to really discuss her finances with, someone to bully her into making a will, someone to start the process of vetting nursing homes, since she's going to need 24/7 care before the end, someone to arrange for her sister and b-i-l to get some kind of care stipend each month, etc., but my mom isn't amenable to discussing such things. I'm not really the Take Charge kind of person to do it, not in my own eyes, but--I'm the one who needs to do it. I'm the oldest, except for my brother and he's the least-suitable of all of us.

Less depressingly:

The weather is gorgeous and I've talked the R.C. into a visit to Denver's Botanic Garden tomorrow. I'm planning to take my little digital camera, so maybe I'll have pictures to post!

Fun-wise, I've gotten together with friends a few times in the last couple of weeks, mostly for conversation. While I enjoyed it, it doesn't make for interesting blog-fodder.

I've made it in and out of two bookstores without making a purchase. I was doing well with Frugal Living until Friday when I fell for a book at Tattered Cover LoDo. No, I didn't need a $16 anthology of the stories that inspired some of today's top SF authors to write themselves (The World Turned Upside Down), but I don't care. I wanted it, I've been reading it, and I've been falling in love all over again with some of my favorite Golden Age SF authors. I may have to go to storage and dig out some of those cartons of SF books I put away a few years ago.

Other than that, I've been re-reading Alexander Kent's Bolitho (naval) series. It's gotten me back into the mood for Napoleonic War era stories again, so I think I'll re-read Dudley Pope's Ramage series next. I'm finishing the last of Cornwall's Sharpe books and being happy that I went to the expense of buying them--it's a series I'm sure I'll read again.

And now I'm brooding on books in general. I don't particularly care for contemporary fiction, but a couple of friends are suggesting that we start our own knit-lit group (knitting and book discussion) and I'm a bit concerned. I'm scanning my bookshelves and wondering if there's anything I read that they'd enjoy, wondering what they, themselves, read when no one is looking, and wondering if I'd have anything to say in a book discussion group anyhow. Sure, I've read 50,000 books in my life, but outside of a classroom, I don't think I've ever done any organized discussion.

I mean, yes, they're friends, so I don't have to worry that either of them will throw offf the mask and stand revealed as a Harlequin fan or anything, but not reading sloppy romances still leaves a lot of book territory.

The R.C. likes biographies, for instance. I'm not a big fan, so I probably couldn't "discuss" a biography. (Just by way of example. She's not one of the people talking about starting the group, although she's welcome to come along.) I mean, you can't read just one, right? If you actually care about what a person's life was like, you have to read from a dozen sources to evaluate how accurate the biography is and to fill in the gaps and stuff. Sounds like a lot of work.

I like mysteries and SF/F, but I read very little that's contemporary. As the aforementioned anthology suggests, I have a fondness for Golden Age stories, in both genres.

I read some nonfiction, but usually writing-related or history stuff. Or mythology. Or, very rarely these days, philosophy.

It's very worrying. What if they hate everything I like?