Ramblings, Gardening, and Pokemon

The past week I have been on the hyper side of things. So now I am fighting off that restlessness with writing.  This is when I do my most prolific writing--not necessarily better, just lots of it. I have been getting things done. I got a large part of a two hundred page book. A normal writing day for me could be 1000 to 2000 words on a short story. I was writing 10000 a day. Writing is an outlet for my hyperactive tendencies.

So that leads me here, writing about nothing much at all.

I was out in the garden today, admiring the tomatoes and corn and vines. Then I saw it: the perfect tomato. It was the biggest I have ever grown in over five years of serious gardening. On the grand scheme of things it was not very big--only filling my hand--but here in the desert that is a great accomplishment. The heat shrinks the skins and makes them stunted, cracking them if the watering isn't consistent. I am proud of myself! Okay, I am also proud of my neighbor who helps me out a lot in my yard, weeding, mowing (weed whacking is more like it), and making sure everything gets watered. Yes, my water bill suffers from my gardening tendencies. I think that it is a fair trade-off for greenery that produces food at the same time as it is green in the brown of the surrounding areas.

Do I think that gardening here is water responsible? Not particularly. But do I think that it is better than a lawn? Hell yes! What is in the garden? Grapes, pomegranates, peaches, plums, and nectarines on the bush/tree front. These last four are still in the beginning stages of growing so no fruit yet. The garden has corn, watermelons, squash, and cantaloupe on one bed. The spring garden had turnips, beets, carrots, and lettuce. The last one has tomatoes, chile peppers, Thai basil, and marigolds. Lots of food to keep me busy. Would it be easier and cheaper to just buy the produce? Yes. Would I be happy with a basic brown sand garden? Hell no!

In other news, I took the walk today on the spur of the moment thanks to "Pokemon Go." I am not an addict yet, but I am solidly hooked. It makes the time pass quickly while walking and getting rewarded for something that I should be doing anyway. It gets me out and moving in routes that I normally would not take. I also get to see lots of other people who are doing the same thing. It also gets me out to longer walks to get to Pokemon landmarks. Finally, it gives me motivation to get special items and pets. Do these things make a darn difference in my life or are they just useless rewards? I am all about the useless rewards!

My last useless reward system was my Garmen VivoFit meter. It counts my steps as well as my sleep. I can look at if I met my goal and feel better or try more depending on the results. One before that was SparkPeople's Spark Points for logging food eaten and exercise. Back then the Spark Points helped me lose over 50 pounds. (Right now I am using some of the features of SparkPeople for my most recent weight loss efforts.) The points mean nothing, but they are points to earn.

The Nutrisystem tracker doesn't have as much of the point factor as the other two systems, but it does make tracking simple. I thought about just using Spark for my tracking system, but if I need assistance later through the NS help line I have all my foods logged.

So there you have it, a bit of everything.