Torianna's Corner

While perusing my e-mail this evening, I came across a message from the GreenStalk folks, which mentioned something I want to try this year:

a “Pizza Sauce Planter”.

I would dedicate one of my eight 3-tier GreenStalk vertical planters to be a “Pizza Sauce Planter”, and it would contain all of the plants needed to make homemade pizza sauce, including:

• Roma tomatoes,
• Basil,
• Oregano,
• Thyme,
• Rosemary,
• Marjoram, and…
• a couple of others that I WON’T be putting into MY pizza sauce: jalapeno peppers and sweet banana peppers (since I don’t like either of them.).

I think I’m going to like growing the makin’s for my own homemade pizza sauce because Sweet Thing and I definitely LOVE pizza.

Hmmm… I think I’d better also have a planter that’s dedicated to salads since I always try to have a big bowl of salad whenever I eat pizza. So, yeah… I see a pizza sauce planter AND a salad planter in my garden this year.

To end this Vanity Post about gardening, I’m going to share a quote from Gertrude Jekyll (pronounced JEE-kill), a famous Victorian gardener/garden designer:

“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfullness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all, it teaches entire trust.”

~ Gertrude Jekyll ~

This morning, I was reading the local newspaper that Sweet Thing had brought home for me, and I discovered an article that made me angry, which had this headline:

“Postal rates are expected to go up 4.8% in July

Here’s the text of that article:

“The U.S. Postal Service has announced mailing and shipping adjustments that, if approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), will go into effect on July 12, 2026.

Mailing rate changes include:

• First-Class stamp: Increase from 78¢ to 82¢
• Metered 1-oz letters: Increase from 74¢ to 78¢ maintaining the 4¢ savings
• Domestic postcards: Increase from 61¢ to 65¢
• Certified Mail fee: $5.30 to $5.55
• Average increase: 4.8% across mailing services
• Forever stamp: $0.78 to $0.82 (+5.1%)
• Postcard stamp: $0.61 to $0.64 (+4.9%, pending final tables)
• Additional-ounce price: Unchanged at $0.29
• Marketing Mail letters (commercial): 5-6% increase, varies by presort
• Nonprofit Marketing Mail letters: Lower increases, varies by presort
• Periodicals (Newspapers): Increases averaging 5-7%.

The 4.8% average is one of the larger mailing-services increases of the past decade.“

This article was the main cause of my “anger before breakfast”, but close to the above-mentioned article was another that caught my attention — about “traffic safety checkpoints” being announced. I just hope they don’t pop up on my way to/from one of the many upcoming appointments I have in town! Don’t want to be late to any of these appointments by being stopped at one of these “traffic safety checkpoints”!

Maybe I don’t want to read any more newspapers…

Had a rough night (thanks to LOTS of wandering thoughts that kept me awake much of the night) AND I had to get out of bed earlier than usual. So… I felt exhausted almost from the moment I woke up this morning.

However, I did manage to get myself to the first crafting session of Summer 2026 — despite being VERY tempted to stay in bed and skip it. Today’s craft project was the making of an armchair caddie — something I plan to keep on my end of the couch in an attempt to keep track of such things as my PDA and pens (both of which I’m constantly losing — mostly by putting them down in strange places that I then don’t remember). So, yeah… I’m hoping the armchair caddie I made (that reminds me of my shower curtain, actually) will help me keep better track of these things — and whatever else I decide to keep in it since it does have FOUR pockets in it!

As I was selecting fabric for today’s craft project, I immediately fell in love with a pretty print fabric. Sadly, though, it wasn’t big enough for today’s project. However, I thought it would be perfect for a vest, so I purchased it for $1.00 ! I’m determined to add a vest to the new capsule wardrobe I’m in the process of assembling, so I can wear it to one of the upcoming crafting or “quilt-along” sessions to show ’em what I did with that dollar’s worth of fabric.

Anyway… As Liz, the instructor for this crafting session, was explaining the project to me, I immediately thought that it reminded me of something I had asked her to make for me: a cover for my spiral-bound notebooks! After my discussion with her about that project, I had done an online search for such covers, and I found one that I was going to try — one that looked exactly like today’s armchair caddie project. So… Now, I’m thinking about modifying today’s project and then turning it into a cover for my spiral-bound notebooks as a way to make these notebooks less modern-day and more old-fashioned.

I managed to make it through the rest of the day — thanks to LOTS of dozing on my end of the couch, with my new armchair caddie holding both my PDA and at least one pen! I’m content.

Back in my younger days, I used to hate Mondays — as did almost every working person — since Mondays meant having to get up early for the start of yet another work week. Thankfully, my feelings towards Mondays have changed. Lately, they’ve been feeling a lot like Sundays.

However, I just realized something: With my Mondays feeling like Sundays, nothing has really changed. I STILL have to get up early the next day! The main difference is that I’m getting up early for something fun!

Hmmm… I hope what I just wrote makes sense.

As the title of this post indicates, I experienced MORE “technical difficulties… AGAIN! When will they ever end?

Maybe if/when I STOP relying on technology so much…

Spent part of the day making room for more GreenStalk vertical planters, which will be homes for more “garden babies” — the plants in this year’s garden! Since I have yet to test the soil in my “kitchen garden” area, most of my “garden” has been located on my front porch — thanks to my GreenStalk vertical planters — a wonderful solution for those who either don’t have the room for — or want — a traditional “in the ground” garden.

I discovered these vertical planters a year or two ago, and I absolutely love ’em! They’ve allowed me to grow some of my favorite veggies (cucumbers, green peppers, and tomatoes) on my front porch!

With Sweet Thing’s help, I relocated all of our unused firewood from the front of the porch to the far side of it this afternoon. Once I empty and clean the remaining tiers of the GreenStalk vertical planters I used last year, I’ll then be able to assemble the last FIVE homes for my “garden babies” — for a total of eight! At that point, I will then be ready to head over to the local nursery for some of the above-mentioned veggies as well as order some seeds for such things as green beans (to make myself a “secret garden” — a green bean (and morning glory) teepee, which is something I’ve been wanting to make for a long time!) and maybe pumpkins or watermelons — dwarf kinds, of course.

So, yeah… Been spending lots of time on my “garden babies” lately. I’ve been tending to/ watering my current ones, including “Black” and “Berry”, my two blackberry plants (both of whom have been nibbled on by the local wildlife, unfortunately) as well as “Chandler” and “Duke”, my two blueberry plants — all four of whom reside in my “kitchen garden” — as well as lots of onions, potatoes, and strawberries in three 3-tier GreenStalk vertical planters on the front porch. In addition, I’ve also been planning who will reside in the five upcoming planters! Only time will tell who ends up on my front porch…

Since I happened upon Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards” (which he puts at the end of his sitcoms), I’ve been “watching the credits” of “Mom” episodes (my current “Chuck Lorre Productions” sitcom on Netflix). The “vanity card” (#435) at the end of the episode of “Mom” that I watched (during a treadmill session) tonight originally aired way back on 16 December 2013!

In it, Mr. Lorre admitted that he’d “achieved a state of exhaustion that (he’d) never known before” AND that he’d “managed to completely burn (himself) out.” He continued by saying “the phrase ‘words fail me’ has suddenly become deeply and frighteningly meaningful.”

He ended with: “Dammit. I just remembered I have to stick around ’til January. I’m really curious to see if “The Big Bang Theory” wins a Golden Globe. I already know about the People’s Choice.”*

After reading “Chuck Lorre Productions, #435 vanity card”, I was curious, too. So… I did a quick online search, and I discovered one possible reason for how/why he’d “achieved a state of exhaustion” and “completely burned out” as well as the results of January 2014’s Golden Globe Awards show.

First, I discovered that during that television season (2013-2014), he was working on FOUR sitcoms at the same time:

1. “The Big Bang Theory”;
2. “Two and a Half Men”;
3. “Mike & Molly”; AND
4. “Mom” (his 7th sitcom series)!

This meant that he was writing FOUR “vanity cards” each week from about September through May AND that’s in addition to whatever else he had to do to keep those FOUR series on the air! No wonder he felt exhausted and burned out! WOW!!

• FYI: “The Big Bang Theory” did not win a Golden Globe in 2014. It received two nominations: (1) Best TV Series — Musical or Comedy (which was won by “Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and (2) Best Actor in a TV series — Musical or Comedy (Jim Parsons). Note: The award for the (2) nomination ended up going to Andy Samberg, of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”.

Because I knew I’d be waiting to be called in for a much-needed doctor’s appointment this morning, I brought my Kindle with me, so I could read something today — in an attempt to obtain a “perfect month” award in Kindle’s Spring Reading Challenge — a very elusive award for me. I ended up waiting SO LONG to be called in that I managed to FINISH reading a book!

That book was “Stages of a Fiction Writer: Know Where You Stand on the Path to Writing” by Dean Wesley Smith, and I discovered some things that I’m hoping will help me remain firmly seated on the “writing wagon” from which I’ve fallen too many times to count. I am going to transcribe them into this vanity post, so they’ll be easily accessible whenever I hit a bump on my writing path and/or feel as though I’m about to fall off the (writing) wagon.

Without further ado, here goes…

Heinlein’s Rules

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must not rewrite unless to editorial request. (Editors are people who buy things, not someone you hire, folks.)
4. You must put your work on the market.
5. You must keep it one the market.

The Secret to Working Through Stage Three

Just tell the next story.

Do your best on every story you write, keep learning, keep practicing, and then just tell the next story.

Get that story you just finished out to sell to readers in one way or another.

And then just keep learning and tell the next story.

Make writing fun.

Make learning fun.

Make telling stories fun.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this experiment, I was inspired by Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards”, which aired in the final seconds of each of his sitcom’s, beginning with “Dharma and Greg”. After discovering them at the end of an episode of “Mom” (that I’ve been watching on Netflix — for the first time even though the series actually aired way back in 2013!), I’ve been hooked! Now, I “watch the credits” instead of skipping to the “next episode” like I usually do when I’m watching series on Netflix — just so I can read what Chuck Lorre had to say in his next vanity card!

So, yeah… I’m enjoying Chuck Lorre’s “vanity cards”, AND I’m looking forward to continuing my experiment with “vanity posts”. Stay tuned for more!

“Technical Difficulties”…