holy shit! i guess i could call myself a beekeeper now. this is a crappy photo, i keep meaning to take more but as soon as i open the hives up, i forget all about it. i never had a hobby before, where you forget all about the outside world. well, except reading, but you know. so passive.

queens jolene and josephine are thriving and laying eggs just fine, i believe. it's so neat to find her, so different amongst thousands, but hardworking in her way as well. jolene is more aggressive and the workers bang against my veil trying to attack. josephine nicely chills out, though it might have something to do with the fact that i usually open it up second and by then my smoker is going a little stronger. eh. maybe, maybe not.

i stole my first taste of honey yesterday from some comb i had to rip off. oh. my. god.

all in all things are going fantastically, i couldn't be more pleased! if they continue this way, i might just get a few jars this year instead of the none i had been planning on.

like any new mother, i am nervous and scared kinda shitless, for soon 18,000 odd stingly flying honeymakin insects will be my charges. also i am nervous because this DEMANDS that i not just dabble in a renaissancelike knowledge of things, like all "lah-tee-dah, that's cool to know, i could totally ace that jeopardy category," as i am wont to say to myself. if i want honey (uh, YES) and if i want the bees to thrive and go forth and multiply (yeah!), i probably should know what i'm doing a little. and i just....DON't. right now, anyway. books can only take you so far, and to be honest i've been damned lazy about the reading in any case.

i am hoping it IS sort of like parenting, and you quickly get the basic hang of it or just suffer. they will for the most part take care of themselves (i hope the queen kicks ass).... and for the most part i will learn this year and not get any honey for meself. some pro at the meetings said after 25+ years you still realize how much you don't know. so that's ok. that's good.

i'm just feeling sort of like "what the hell did i get myself into??" ---all based on some romantic view i had of dancing insects, flower juice, and hexagons. god.

paul once asked me what i love about buffalo, and it was during an i hate buffalo ebb. after thinking real hard, i answered "the houses." you could walk for hours, and spot hundreds of nifty little details you wouldn't find repeated elsewhere. there are some gems here too, but i really miss that about buffalo. god i could never live in the south, where so much is new.
for fun, i sometimes browse e-house plans but have been having some disturbing realizations come out of it. it's almost impossible to find one without the palatial master suite, which says a lot about homeowner/mom/dad/queen/king type stuff, and entitlement. then the outsides just look like monstrosities. it is the kind of "luxury" that is so barf-o-rama, new money & tasteless. i don't really get the whole "let's have an open floor plan downstairs" mentality when your bedrooms are compartmentalized and often, the "master suite" is set so so far away from the kids' rooms. if they cried in the night, they would have to mop up their own tears in their own bathroom, or run about 2K to the parents' room. that is so so sad.

i love this house, it's feeling more and more like ours (it's beginning to absorb us now)--- but i do not think it is the last house i will live in. i do not know where life will take us, maybe we will stay or go...if we stay eventually i would love to build a house, one i laid out a floor plan for myself, maybe partially dug into the earth. it would be so odd to live in a house no one else ever lived in.

....is about to get worse. we now run a small-ish grocery store and have taken a big hit as far as wheat, milk, eggs, etc.--- in short all the things we use to make the rolls, cakes, pizza, etc.-- people are balking at raising the prices but the flour for these things literally tripled in one week. all your basic goods have gone up so so much.

now, to make things SO much worse, it will be insanely expensive to have the cup of coffee you have when you sit down to bitch about such things. coffee, store brand coffee, is apparently going to skyrocket to like $10 a can according to one of our reps. not even maxwell house, STORE brand. ich. STOCK UP NOW, people. starbucks is about to get a whole lot richer.

insomnia is the worst fucking thing, i would not wish it on an enemy. all the livelong day i feel somewhat akin to a slave, albeit to children i love and adore, but still, i am working hard and putting in hours, and then at night..... nothing. very little, and struggling to get it.

i went to see an acupuncturist, it was INCredible

---

wowo... i haven't felt so relaxed, i think ever in my life, than i was on that table. for two days i felt calmer and better, now i am back to the crazies. it would be nice to get an acupunture treatment every week, but i don't think it works that way. ...and i can't help thinking i have THAT much negative energy?--so much that it would only last 2 days?

part of it is so so bad because you are completely alone in your insomniac world. you can say i'm SO tired, but yeah yeah--- everyone's tired. you don't GET insomniac tired unless you're an insomniac too. then at night there's no help for it, nothing can really put you to sleep i believe, except yourself, naturally. There are distractions but they're pretty shitty when your mind just can't focus on ANYthing. TV is about it--ug.

it has occurred to me too that it's probably like riding a bike, you can't think about it too much. and i know i am. here i am, when i'm really tired and should be in bed. but i dread it, what might happen once i'm there. i have tried so much, and it makes me angry and it sucks, but i think i have to resort to good old fashioned western medicine, and just go on something.