Tomatoes, Starting to pack

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

I just picked a pint of Sweet 100 tomatoes. Probably my second-most favorite food ever. Marvelous little jewels hanging out there on the vines, just begging to be picked. Biting into one of them is a little bit of sweet-and-tart tomato-y heaven. They are SO GOOD! Unfortunately, the mockingbirds like them almost as much as I do; fortunately there are plenty to go around.

Victoria was here this morning, so Roger and I escaped to the library. I caught up on some of my blog writing. We also checked on the rental storage units. The ones at the end of Belle Terre are now going for $190 per month with a move-in special of $11 for the first month. They have a 10x25 unit, air-conditioned, which has now been saved in our name. We also inquired about their smallest outside unit, which is 6x10 and rents for $30. Ouch! It is going to cost us more than $1,000 here in Louisiana unless we can get our house sold. We stopped by the storage unit place near the library, and their prices are comparable except that their largest is 10x20. Probably not big enough to hold all our worldly possessions.

Speaking of worldly possessions – I am struggling with what to take to France. This is going to be a weighing-and-balancing thing: what do we spend our allocated 200 or so pounds on – clothing? General toiletries? Other items? The camelback? Meds, of course. I take lots of vitamin supplements – will I be able to get comparables in France? I can certainly give some of them up, such as CoQ10, but can I find no-flush niacin (which I order now on-line) in France (for cholesterol)? Chromium picolinate (for my plantar fascitis)? We are going to have Shelli and Ronnie receive and ship our prescription meds for us.

If it weren’t the dead center of summer, I would wear a winter coat, because I don’t think I have room in my allotted two suitcases to pack it. I will probably try to buy a second-hand one as winter approaches in France. But do I try to pack that furry-lined sweater that Shelli and I love so much? And how many shoes? I’m a woman, so it’s a given that I have lots of shoes. I’m trying to hold it to 5 pairs, but I don’t know if I will succeed. That doesn’t count the Crocs.

I have to try to figure out how to add pictures appropriate to my blog. I tried attaching a couple of photos of gravestones – those of Amos and Pansy Ross and of James Walter and Mary Jean Patrick. So now I have those two huge photos at the top of every page of my blog. That’s not what I want! I want to be able to sprinkle photos among the pearls of wisdom I am spewing forth! I guess I am going to have to set up a link to them somewhere – I suppose I ought to start a Flickr account.