Seed Freak

I ordered way too many seeds the other day. It was so easy. I was on the phone with the representative from Peaceful Valley, rattling off the item numbers, one after another. Before I knew it, I had ordered 14 seed packets. Whoops. And this is in addition to the 3 types of hierloom tomatoes (Brandywine, Green Zebra, Marvel Stripe) that I started indoors last weekend.

Here are the 14 that are on their way:

Beets - Bulls Blood
Brocolli - Di Ciccio
Pak Choi
Lettuce - Gourmet Mix, Little Gem
Tomatoes (yes, more tomatoes) - Beefsteak, Black From Tula, Old German Heirloom, Black Krim
Mint - Korean
Basil - Thai Queenette
Cilantro- Slow Bolt
Lavender - Spanish
Onion, Scallion - Bunching Ishikura

Well, I'm new to all this, so I guess more is better since many of the seeds won't take. I'm going to start sowing seeds indoors in the next couple weeks while Mr. Octopus and I figure out how to order cedar planks for my raised veggie beds.

I Bore Myself

I have been very delinquent in keeping up the chanchow. Either I don't have anything I want to write about or I can't be bothered. I thought that posting about the 26 movies I want to see this year (see prior posts) would motivate me , but it hasn't worked (although I have watched 2 of the 26 movies-- (The Searchers and The Shining).

Anyways, here's a quickies about what's been going on.

We just returned back from an A+ 10 day trip for Hanoi (and Halong Bay) and Angkor. If you go to Halong, I highly recommend (insist, actually) that you stay overnight on a junk (we booked on the Red Dragon junk and had a fantastic time). I'd been to Halong once before and stayed at a hotel on land, and it just doesn't compare. Angkor was awesome, just as you'd expect. See Mr. Octopus's posts for more details.

My page turner for the trip was Twilight. It reminded me of middle school, when life revolved around the boys I had crushes on (except in the book, the guy likes her back). Good times.

I turned in my Oscar ballot for the office Oscar pool. My picks for the major categories:

Picture: Slumdog
Actor: Mickey Rourke
Actress: Kate Winslet
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger
Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz
Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog
Original Screenplay: Happy-Go-Lucky

For the other categories, I picked Slumdog in most instances. I think Button will come up short. I feel pretty good about my chances. I won the pool a couple years ago and took home over $100. Yeeoh.

I'm planning to do a vegetable garden this year. I'm looking into creating raised beds, made of cedar. May need to go to a lumber yard or something. I've been going through seed catalogs, which is great fun. Tomatoes, broccoli, beets, lettuce, bok choy, cilantro, mint, the list goes on. Farmer chanchow.

That's it for now.