My current phone's previously wonderful battery life has become pathetic over the years. I could just replace the battery, but am trying to use this opportunity to overhaul our entire mobile phone system.

We've been on the same plan with Sprint for several years now, and it's no longer available. But it was chosen for our needs at the time, which are much different now. Before, we needed something that worked well in many different cities, PLUS on the farm, with a certain amount of data and talk time. We use our phones much, much less now.

I need to review our last year's worth of usage for each of Terry's and my phones, and figure that's about what we'll do going forward. We might switch from an all-inclusive family package to a pay-as-you go system. But I need to crunch the numbers. If we get new phones, even with a family plan, it is likely that we'll lose our grandfathered current plan, which is less expensive than any "plan" available now.

It is a nuisance figuring out what will be both most functional and both economic for us, but it could save significant money over the long-term, so as of now, I'm considering it a worthwhile effort and am keeping it on my to-do list. But I'm not looking forward to the chore.

Slowly but surely, I'm making slight progress. I'm nearing the end of the "standard" course of neurofeedback treatment. So far, I can happily report that it has worked very well to alleviate symptoms of depression. I've been 100% off meds for two months now, and feel fine. However, the ADD is proving harder to treat. But rather than continue seeing the therapist several times per week, I'm going to switch to home treatment. I ordered some biofeedback equipment this afternoon (measures heart rate and skin response), and am in the process of finding a used EEG that will be suitable.

I'm nearly caught up with laundry, and have a reinvigorated interest in working on the garden design for next year. I also ordered a book about the best way to construct a swimming pond (I am determined to get the pond done before the permit expires!). Earlier this week, I made the waistband extensions for four more diapers (although I haven't sewn them on the too-small diapers yet).

Speaking of diapers, I started teaching W how to take his off today. Madness, you say? I think not. I think it's getting in the way of him being potty-trained. Lately, he's been grabbing the pot and carrying it to me (hmm, "sign of readiness", anyone?), but sometimes this happens AFTER he pees in his diaper. I am going to start potty-training him in earnest now. He still needs practice sitting on his potty without being helped on, but I think he's capable, he just really does need to practice this. But there's no point if he's sitting on there while still in a diaper, so he's got to learn to take it off. Plus I'm going to do more pure totally pantsless time for him (yes, I generally perform this experiment when we're outside on the porch), so he can focus on just making it to the pot in time. While it hasn't turned out that he was potty-trained at 7 months like one of the babies in the "diaper-free" book we read, I think it's realistic to hope that he'll be essentially trained by the time he's 18 months old. I'll take that. And even so far, even if by our training-from-birth method we have only saved ourselves from changing a minimum of one diaper per day, that's still HUNDREDS fewer diapers than most stay-at-home parents deal with (albeit probably hundreds MORE than people who stick their kids in daycare deal with, it's no wonder they don't care how many years their kids are in diapers! If we only changed diapers on evenings & weekends, I don't suppose it would be that big a deal).

My garden is also progressing. So far this week I've harvested squash (I've already started preserving squash, I'm harvesting more than we can eat!), tomatoes, peas, and peppers. I'm trying to get a good idea what I want my "perfect" garden plan for next year to look like, so I can get my fall crops planted as soon as possible; as it is, they'll be going in a tad late.

T & I ripped up 30 trees by the roots in an hour and a half this morning. T would have gone one to tear up more, but I was so bored I had to call it quits after 90 minutes. It's my job to back the tractor up about 3' away from a tree. Then T wraps a chain once fully looped around the base, then I drive the tractor forward, pulling the tree out of the ground.

There is a little bit of excitement for me from time to time. Sometimes the trees are quite large, and instead of pulling the tree out of the ground, the front tires of the tractor go up in the air. When that happens, I get to quickly stomp on the clutch to get the tractor back on the ground, and try again. Sometimes I back up and try pulling in another direction. But I'm pretty sure we got all the trees we attempted today. But mostly the job is not exciting. I sit on the tractor and wait and wait and wait until T gets the chain on the tree, then I put it in drive and within a few seconds the tree is out and I start waiting again. Oh yeah, I have to wait while he unwinds the chain from the tree and drags it out of the driveway, too.

Nevertheless, we're fairly productive. To hire this job out would cost us an order of magnitude more than the $10/hour we pay for a babysitter.

T went on to do a lot of landscape work today, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures. Which left me here to tend the baby. W went to bed very late last night, so I let him take a three-hour nap. But that didn't leave much time for an afternoon activity, so I just did my best to amuse him here at home. Spent a little time in the garden with him, let him play on the porch while I read a magazine. But I was pretty bored and unmotivated for all that, too. I didn't get much sleep last night, myself, so maybe I'm just lacking energy because I'm tired. I'll go to bed early tonight, hopefully wake up rarin' to go tomorrow.

It's hard to believe that all the summer programs are ending already. Tomorrow is the last family day program sponsored by the library. Our babysitter's last day is next Tuesday, then she goes back to school in NC. Guess I'd better start looking for a new one. . .

I checked out a few gardening books from the library this afternoon. One detailed garden design trends through history (from the 1600s onward), the other illustrated various classic combinations of flowers.

They've given me several new ideas for developing my garden. I'm now considering elongating the entrance pergola inward from the fence, and using it to grow climbing squash and beans. I'm still leaning toward planting trees toward the back, but now I'm thinking I might make a cordon type espalier of fruit trees instead of just letting them grow naturally (or doing both along different portions of the fence).

I also got more ideas for arranging narrow beds, I'll just have to work out again where the main wheelbarrow paths will go. I've found that there really isn't a huge need to get a wheelbarrow around the garden once it's established, so having fewer wheelbarrow paths than I originally designed probably won't be a hardship. And now I've got more ideas how to better fill out the narrow beds by using contrasting colors of varietals in each one (example: alternating red and green leaf lettuces for a pleasing pattern).

I no longer feel a pull toward pretty brick and gravel walks-- although they do look gorgeous in the photos, all I can think of now is how uncomfortable it is on the knees while weeding, and how unpleasant to walk on in bare feet (although the all-brick walks are fine for the feet they're still hard on the knees). Now, I look at all the historical garden photos and think how much improved the garden would be were the paths lined with carpet. Although I concede it would look best if the carpet were all one strip for each path and the same color, I can also just put that down as something to work towards. If someone is re-carpeting their whole house, and removing a quantity of carpet that is uniform, I could easily outfit my garden with whatever is removed. Remember, I'm currently working with just the carpet from a single room, so it's not surprising I might run out. Then again, with a redesign, I might make it work. But it still will have a lot of cuts and overlaps. I put a listing on the local freecycle board, trying to get more carpet.

While having a Tivo has made watching our few regular shows more convenient, it has revolutionized my cooking.

I have the Tivo record cooking shows that I would ordinarily never watch. It's very hard for me to remember to do things (like take medicine at regular intervals, hence the neurofeedback cure), so I can only watch a couple shows per season, otherwise I'd forget when to watch them. But with Tivo, I don't have to remember. I don't even know when exactly the shows do come on, it could be 2am every Tuesday, I have no idea. But when I get a few minutes to spare, I do watch what has been recorded.

This week I caught up on some Baking with Julia's from the mid-1990s. And she had someone on there making galettes, so I decided to give it a try. You have to make the dough in advance, since there is a high percentage of butter and it must be very cold in order to work with it, so last night I made enough for 4 galettes. For lunch today I made one with goat cheese, squash, and onions, and T liked it so much, I made another for dinner. For dinner I used mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, and heirloom tomatoes. They cook up in 20 minutes, so it's a reasonably quick meal. When the dough is chilled it really doesn't take long to roll out. And it's a good way to use up leftovers. Very much like pizza that way (I usually use up various leftovers as toppings on my weekly pizza night), but it tastes quite different.

I also watched a few episodes of America's Test Kitchen. The woman in charge of creating the idea ciabatta tried her best to explain how it's really worth the time and effort to make at home, but after seeing all the steps involved, I've pretty much ruled it out for myself. Why spend hours and hours over the course of two days to make a loaf of bread, when I can have a delicious fresh loaf with just a few minutes of work? True, my bread is not ciabatta, but I can live with that, since it is delicious nevertheless.

I did, however, make note of their recommendation for baking salmon. They preheated the oven and pan at 500F, and cut slits in the skin to help release the fat to crisp it up. Then the turned the heat down to 275F before putting the fish into the oven, and finished up that way. They also explained why fish sticks to the grill when meat doesn't (the protein molecules in the fish are shorter, and chemically bind to the metal in the grill pan unless you first coat it with TEN applications of oil). The grill part isn't particularly useful to me, since I don't have a convenient place to grill until T builds the deck. But I will try the two-temperature thing next time I cook a salmon filet.