A Full Life

I seem to be living a full life.

By "full", of course, I mean that all my time seems to be filled and it's hard to imagine taking on any additional projects at this juncture.

As far as I can tell, this seems to be a position that most people I know who are voracious readers or who have hobbies reach at some point during adulthood. My Dad seems to, and he's now retired! Both of my friends Lucy and Jim have had pretty full schedules for much of the time I've known them; Lucy occasionally luxuriates in her journal when she has some free or unstructured time in her future.

It's probably no surprise that all four of us read a lot.

Here's a quick rundown of stuff occupying my time this month:

1. Reading. (I average about a book a week read, plus comics books, newspapers and periodicals.)
2. Cleaning my patio and the pond therein.
3. Christmas shopping.
4. Buying and putting up a Christmas tree.
5. Buying assorted supplies and accessories for my house.
6. Writing journal entries.
7. Watching TV shows I watch regularly, including 24, Smallville and The West Wing.
8. Ultimate frisbee.
9. Gaming at Subrata's on Wednesdays.

Heck, I even have hobbies which are basically defunct at this point, like drawing.

And sometime I want to throw a housewarming party... though it looks right now like I might piggyback it on my birthday party sometime in January.

Wow.

Speaking of my patio, I finally went out and looked at some books on taking care of ponds, and ended up buying The Pond Owner's Problem Solver, by John Dawes, which seems like a nice package of information on putting together a pond (useful for me since it provides some context about the kind of pond I have), as well as stocking the plants and animals, caring for them, and maintaining the pond seasonally.

I've learned that my pond is very small, as ponds go, which I kind of guessed (I'd estimate it's maybe 20 square feet of surface area), and it pointed out some things I should investigate buying to take care of it (like a pH tester). I also learned that I need to keep falling leaves out of the pond, as they can decay and unbalance the ecosystem - which unfortunately for me is like closing the barn door after the horses escaped! Darn. So I've spent time the last two mornings fishing out as many leaves as I can from the pond, and will likely spend time this weekend doing more of that. And I hauled out some netting which my home's seller left in the garage and spread it over the pond to prevent more leaves from falling in. Anyway, it's kind of a bummer but hopefully not a fatal one.

Leaves notwithstanding, taking care of the pond will take some work, but I think that will be okay. The running water when I turn the pump on is quite nice, and the garden is actually nicely landscaped. (I'm not quite sure how to get rid of the leaves throughout the garden, as the whole place isn't terribly rake-able. Next year maybe I'll just buy 200 square feet of netting and cover the whole garden!) Heck, maybe I'll enjoy the pond so much I'll wish I had a bigger one!

By the way, I also looked through two other pond books before buying Dawes': The Pond Doctor, by Helen Nash - who's written many other ponding books, and The Master Book of the Water Garden, by Philip Swindells. The former seemed a little too stiffly written for my tastes, while the latter was a lot more expensive. But your mileage may vary.

One more note: I've finished unpacking from my move! Yes, I've unpacked all of my boxes (well, except for the ones in permanent storage, like my APAs), having put all my comic books on bookshelves on Wednesday. So I'm truly settled in now.

My office still feels pretty empty, though. It's just much larger than the one in my old apartment. Moreover, I've decided that the desk that the sellers left isn't really to my taste (it's an uncomfortable L-shape and has inconvenient storage space on top of the desk's surface), so I think I'm going to go the door-on-top-of-two-filing-cabinets approach instead. Cheap and flexible, that's the ticket!

I'm really digging living on the peninsula rather than in the valley. It's a shorter commute to work, I have a lovely view of the Santa Cruz Mountains as I drive down Highway 85 in the morning, and I'm closer to all the places I like to go (I went to Cafe Borrone tonight and was pleased with the 15-minute drive home - half as long as before!). Though there are many things I like about my new home, I think the location is what I enjoy most fundamentally.

Location really is key, I guess!