Lovely math...

After such a wretched day yesterday, I wanted oodles of productivity today.  Not only did I have a respectable amount of productivity, I also had a most lovely encounter with math.  So lovely that I do not even care that my photos are less than lovely.

Remember the vintage Indian carved table?  I posted it on Craigslist and immediately sold it for $80!!!  That's the lovely math part.

You see, I bought a new HEPA filter for my HVAC unit yesterday.  And...

...I popped over to Menard's late last night, just before closing, and bought four legs for the piece of wood from the basement to make a table (because I was feeling so down about what a wretched day I was having).  I primed and then painted the first coat last night and painted the second one early this afternoon.  Since I put slides on the bottom so that wooden legs wouldn't scrape against the wooden floor, I already put the table out tonight just to see how awesome it looked.  Yep, awesome, eh??

That lovely math?  The two purchases were $60.  The unexpected sale was $80.  That means I am still unexpectedly $20 ahead, having tended to my HVAC and tended to my comfort.  [I really should take a better photo during the day.  I was too excited to wait.]

[Another blurry evening photo.]  I got a free pot and so removed one of the rosemary bushes from the raised bed to try and winter it in the solarium.  Can you believe this was a $2.98 rosemary plant from the produce section at the grocery store just last January???

I harvested herbs and set up the second rack of herbs for drying.  Primarily, I have thyme and sage, with a little bit of oregano.  I have enough sage for all of Fort Wayne's Thanksgiving meals.

The first miserable plant is the sage I am keeping for next year.  The second is the thyme, which went nuts this summer and so the second thyme is in the garden waste bag, having failed to find a home for it.  The third plant is the oregano. I still need to harvest from it, but I am having difficulty.  I wondered if it is supposed to have a cage around it or something because the runners put out roots and how do you dry herbs that are covered in roots???

The last plant at the far end is my second rosemary bush. I very much want to try and winter it, too.  And I very much want to do so in another free pot. I put feelers out for free pots.  It is a smaller plant, because I think that the rosemary likes sunshine and the far end of the bed has less sunshine during the day.

Doesn't the bed look empty??

Here it was at just 30 days old.

In all my digging up and knocking off of all that wonderful soil mixture I created back into the bed, I only came across a single earthworm. I cannot figure out what happened to the other 249 I bought.  I relocated the earthworm to the rosemary pot just to give the rosemary bush an extra bit of help for surviving the winter.  I think that next summer, I need to find a place that sells grown up worms.

In addition to harvesting, bundling, and hanging the herbs, repotting the rosemary, putting the basil roots and unwanted plants into the yard waste bag, selling the table, painting the new table legs, and hammering in the slides, I also wrapped up in waxed paper the additional 18 cubes of rosemary butter I made the other night.  The first nine cubes have all been given away.  What does it say about me that I want to keep these last 36 to myself???

[Another grainy evening photo.]  Since the wine box is absolutely and totally dry now, I went ahead and put it outside.  Do you think that it needs some feet or something small to raise it up off the airing porch floor???  

The pieces of wood spoiling the view behind the chair (I tried to angle the shot to hide them) are one of each type of wood used on the airing porch.  Firewood Man suggested that I let them age and then use them for sealer samples if I am going to go with a tinted sealer.  It is this product he found that I could match to the house and has a 10 year warranty.  It is more expensive than my beloved deck sealer, but has a longer wear life.  Only sealing this once sounds good to me.  I am, however, rather anxious to try and see if the wood, having been exposed at a height for several weeks now, might not actually be okay for stain and paint (the railing).

Amos just loves, loves, loves the airing porch and the railing on the back porch.  He just loves, loves, loves being able to keep an eye out on his domain without actually having to step foot on the dreaded GREEN grass of that domain.  I like that I have a contented puppy dog.

He would be more content if I had been willing to share my blueberry lime muffin with him.  Amos needs to learn, though, that life is not always fair.  Even puppy mommas who adore their faithful companions can be so cruel as to eat every bite of muffin and even lick the crumbs off the plate.