Saturday in the Garden | Planting Has Begun in Earnest!

OUTSIDE

The top photo above is this morning and the bottom photo is last Saturday.  This comparison is to convince myself that my work in the garden last week did show forward progress. Besides cleaning up and organizing, I also planted a bunch of things: radishes, carrots, lettuce as well as seedlings of kale and chard.  I'm trying a new thing with all the pots I use by filling the bottom 1/4 to 1/3 of the pot with leaves in an attempt to decrease the amount of potting soil I have to use.  We'll see how it goes.  Potting soil ain't cheap even if you assemble it your self.  I still have a bunch more yard/garden clean-up to do but it felt good to finally get out there and get something done last weekend.  Sadly this weekend is supposed to be all rain all the time.

LIFE

As the picture and my comments above indicate, it is a rainy morning and I once again have to shortly get on the road for work.  I think since early March I've had two weekends with no work and my schedule during the week has not been conducive to taking any compensatory time off.  I have to work the next two weekends as well.  I keep trying to chide myself that there are many many people around the world where "leisure" time is something they can't even fathom having and I have an awesome job and a fortunate life.  Still doesn't change the fact that I am Burnt Out with a capital B.O. and it stinks.  So that's my prevailing mood, tired and unenthusiastic about a day of driving and then teaching folks some stuff about landscaping for wildlife.  And it's raining.

WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING

Watching 

I've been indulging in my recent TV obsessions - The 100 and Arrow  - this week.  I re-watched the first season of The 100, taking notes with an eye to doing some future posts on the blog and the Arrow I've just been enjoying having on in the background.  Oddly, both shows have me kind of worried.  Unwisely I have looked at some reviews and spoilers for the current seasons that are close to finishing up on TV right now (season 3 of The 100 and Season 4 of Arrow) and in both cases folks are kind of hating the direction of the shows.
In Arrow, it sounds like to show runners, after getting Felicity and Oliver together in season three, have panicked and lost their ever loving minds.  Apparently at one point Felicity breaks up with Oliver because he has a secret kid and in the next episode post-break up they must pretend to go through with their wedding to stop a bad guy.  Can you feel me shaking my head and rolling my eyes.  Why can't TV show writers write romance properly??
In The 100 it sounds like the show runner has gone gaga and decided to completely change and assassinate all his characters.  Sometimes literally.  Since the show's biggest strength was its strongly well written and developed characters, this is a really big problem.
So my enthusiasm for catching up with the current seasons when they are released on Netflix later this year is....confused to say the least.  I so love the shows up to the point I have watched them and I really don't want to see them fall apart.  However, how can I resist new seasons?


Reading

Finished Last Week:

• The Last Ever After (The School for Good and Evil #3) by Soman Chainani:  Final book in this trilogy questioning Fairy Tale tropes.  
• The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #3) by Rick Riordan: This series is really growing on me!

Currently Reading:

• One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein: A gardening book about maximizing food production in a small space.  An ARC from Netgalley (though I think it's an older title).   
• The Round House by Louise Erdrich:  I started this in D.C. on my kindle and it pretty immediately sucked me in despite the brutality of the subject matter (violent rape against a minority).  
• The Wicked and the Divine, Volume 1 by Kieron Gillen, Jame McKelvie, Matt Wilson, and Clayton Cowles
• The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (Flavia DeLuce #6) by Alan Bradley: This is a fun historical mystery series that I thought had a planned end but looking and there are two more books listed.  I wouldn't mind but I'd actually like Flavia DeLuce to move forward and grow up a bit.  I'd rather she not be a perpetual 11 year old.
• Monks Hood  (Brother Cadfael #3) by Ellis Peters:  Medieval mysteries set at a monastery. Need I say more?  I didn't think so.

Added to the TBR:

This is a list of books that I have added to my Goodreads TBR list this week.  It helps to burn the books I want to read a little more firmly into my mind, maybe get them on some other folks TBRs and gives me a chance to recognize a lot of the awesome bloggers that add stuff to my TBR!

• Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel:  I had been hearing a little buzz about this sci-fi novel featuring a giant buried robot and Mogsy's review on The Bibiolsanctum solidified my interest in reading it someday.

Blogging 

On the BLOG LAST WEEK:

TUESDAY: TOP TEN TUESDAY | Bookworm Delights
WEDNESDAY: Review | The Raven Cycle | Books 1-3 by Maggie Stiefvater

It's Saturday. Bring on the Parade.