cheetaking243

I'm planting a vegetable garden for the first time, and need to dig through the existing grass.

My original plan for digging out the plot was to just attack it with a good old-fashioned shovel and a rake, but when I tried, the ground was so hard that the shovel couldn't even split the ground.

So now I'm looking at renting a roto-tiller. When I went to the Home Depot to ask about it, they told me that I would need to rent a rear-tine tiller for the job, a big-wheeled machine so huge that it won't even fit in the back of my SUV. I'd have to rent a pickup truck too in order to rent that thing, an extra expense that I really don't want to have to pay just so that I can plant a garden. When I asked about their mid-tine tillers, they said that they would do me no good whatsoever because they don't work on hard ground.

Advice? Are they right? Do I really need that big honking machine just to dig up my hard ground? Or would one of the mid-tine ones be fine?

Anyone have experience with trying to use a smaller tiller on clay soil where it hasn't rained in almost 3 weeks?

Perhaps the ground will loosen up enough if I water it for the next few days?

I really need quick advice on this, because I'm really late into the planting season already, and I have seedlings that are bursting out of their seed-starters and need to be planted within the next week.

I had an interesting dream last night that felt quite profound, and I felt like God was trying to tell me something, although I can't really wrap my head around just what. (I'm a Christian, by the way, just so you know where I'm coming from religiously here.)

Here is the dream:

I was in Ormond Beach, Florida, standing by the ocean. (This is a common place in my dreams, because it's where my Grandma lived when I was a kid.) The ocean was oddly whipped up into an absolute frenzy. It seemed like it was rushing up the shoreline with such force that anyone who entered it was swept away. There was no beach. This water came all the way up to the sidewalk at the edge of the water. Then something strange happened: suddenly, the whole ocean tilted up, so that the south was facing the sky and the north faced down. And then I could hear this etherial, beautiful singing... a heavenly choir singing a new melody to "I Am Bound for the Promised Land." And on the horizon, far across the tilted-up side of the ocean, I could see the most beautiful streaks of rainbow-colored light dancing there. I immediately knew that God was out there calling to us, saying "come home! The time is finally here!" And for some reason, people were given the power to morph into alligators and swim across the water to meet him. It was downright beautiful. Person after person jumped out into the swift current, turning into alligators and swimming with the current up toward the lights across the water, so happy that God had finally come and that they were jumping out and leaping into His arms to meet Him. And yet, for some reason I knew that there was a dark secret to this. For some reason, I knew that the people jumping in the water weren't going to make it to the Promised Land, and they were swimming into a trap. That very soon, they would lose their power to transform, and they would turn back into humans and be swept away by the current to their deaths. I stood on the shore watching the singing and the beautiful lights, feeling warm and fulfilled in my heart like never before, wondering if I should swim toward the beautiful hymn-singing lights in the sky too, but instead I stood there and cried, because I knew I was watching people die. And then, suddenly, the singing stopped and the light faded, and the people suddenly turned back from alligators into humans, and they were indeed swept away by the swift current and drowned.

That was where the dream ended.

Thoughts? I thought of a few things, but I really can't put all the pieces together.

Please, no nasty answers. I don't want this to turn into a religious flame war.

I had an interesting dream last night that felt quite profound, although I can't really wrap my head around what it meant.

Here is the dream:

I was in Ormond Beach, Florida, standing by the ocean. (This is a common place in my dreams, because it's where my Grandma lived when I was a kid.) The ocean was oddly whipped up into an absolute frenzy. It seemed like it was rushing up the shoreline with such force that anyone who entered it was swept away. There was no beach. This water came all the way up to the sidewalk at the edge of the water. Then something strange happened: suddenly, the whole ocean tilted up, so that the south was facing the sky and the north faced down. And then I could hear this etherial, beautiful singing... a heavenly choir singing a new melody to "I Am Bound for the Promised Land." And on the horizon, far across the tilted-up side of the ocean, I could see the most beautiful streaks of rainbow-colored light dancing there. I immediately knew that God was out there calling to us. And for some reason, people were given the power to morph into alligators and swim across the water to meet him. It was downright beautiful. Person after person jumped out into the swift current, turning into alligators and swimming with the current up toward the lights across the water, so happy that God had finally come and that they were jumping out and leaping into His arms to meet Him. And yet, for some reason I knew that there was a dark secret to this. For some reason, I knew that the people jumping in the water weren't going to make it to the Promised Land, and they were swimming into a trap. That very soon, they would lose their power to transform, and they would turn back into humans and be swept away by the current to their deaths. I stood on the shore watching the singing and the beautiful lights, feeling warm and fulfilled in my heart like never before, wondering if I should swim toward the beautiful hymn-singing lights in the sky too, but instead I stood there and cried, because I knew I was watching people die. And then, suddenly, the singing stopped and the light faded, and the people turned back from alligators into humans, and they were indeed swept away into the swift current and drowned.

That was where the dream ended.

Thoughts? I thought of a few things, but I really can't put all the pieces together.

Basically, I'm just looking for some entry-level job suggestions. I'm not looking for a career yet, just something that I can do for a year or two while I'm paying off my student loans. (I was a Christian Ed major in college, and do eventually plan to go into teaching, but I still need to go to grad school and get teacher certification to do so, and I want to get out of debt first.)

So what temporary jobs might be good for me? I'm good at math, particularly number sense. In the past, I've worked at a Cedar Point food stand, and was a prep cook at TGI Friday's. And although I wouldn't mind going back to those places, I'm just looking for some suggestions to broaden my job search.

Hi, everyone.

Basically, I just tried to make homemade mozzarella cheese for the first time.

The recipe I read said that all I needed were curds and a pot of salted water to melt them in.

I made curds by separating store-bought milk, then draining the results with a cheese cloth and collecting them all into a big ball. That part went fine. I had a nice-looking ball of curds.

But when I tried to actually turn the curds into mozzarella by melting the curds in very hot water, the ball of curds refused to stay together, and would not melt at all. It just kept breaking apart, and the curds would not fuse into cheese.

Giving up, I decided that if I could get them hot enough to melt, they would surely fuse together, so I put them into the microwave for 30 seconds. I kneaded the melted curds, but they still would not stick together.

So now I am stuck with something that definitely tastes like cheese, but has a texture basically like very fine-grained ricotta.

Help, please?

The level of competition, I think, has been great this year, but it seems like every 5 minutes the game is getting stopped for a technical or a flagrant foul. Thoughts?

You know the feeling... when you almost make it to the end of the level and then every single time something different goes wrong. Well, that's been happening to me today, and I really don't understand why it feels so frustrating. There's just this deep gut feeling of shame, almost like the game is mocking me. And I have seen a lot of other guys really get upset when this happens, so I know it's not unique to me.

So what is it about games specifically that causes that feeling of wanting to throw something into the ground out of frustration, and why in the world does yelling out loud make it feel better? It really doesn't make sense, since I'm not an angry person by any means. Seriously, the only time that I ever get angry is when I'm playing computer games. It's the only time I swear, the only time I feel like screaming, and the only time that I have actually thrown something to the ground out of frustration. Why is that?

So, basically, I have a very bad problem with procrastination, and dedication in general. I hear the callings of the Spirit constantly, telling me that I should get up and do things, put my mind to good use, stop being a lazy son, but I just never can. I always end up wasting my time with meaningless worldly distractions, and before I know it the day's over and I haven't accomplished a thing.

I have lived by the Spirit before, and it was probably the happiest month of my life, but now I have just fallen into this routine of always knowing what I should be doing but never doing it. And at the end of the day, I always feel unfulfilled and stupid, and not living up to my potential, but I can never seem to snap myself back to reality until the damage has already been done and my whole day is wasted without having helped anyone or done anything constructive. This is how it goes with so many things in my life, and I'm tired of being unable to do what God is calling me to because I can't get myself to take that first step.

So how do the rest of you do it? How did you learn to heed the Spirit's wise instruction at all times, and put your own desires behind you?

Tonight's debate is at least the hundredth time that Obama has accused the McCain tax cut program for giving $200 billion in tax cuts to big corporations.

As a concerned voter, I honestly want to know, has John McCain ever:

a.) Refuted this claim?

b.) Claimed a mis-reading of his plan, and corrected Obama?

c.) And if he hasn't done either, has he ever defended his stance?

Thanks in advance.

This is baffling me. Just a few short weeks ago, it seemed like McCain was running a lost campaign, lagging in the polls, called "more of the same" and dismissed, while Obama was being heralded as a symbol of change and fresh ideas. It seemed like the Democrats were unstoppable.

But now all of a sudden, since nominating Palin and launching his national ad campaign, McCain has pulled ahead, and he is now "the original maverick," and has suddenly become the instrument of 'true' change, while Obama has rapidly been reduced to something like a non-credible kid throwing stones at the establishment.

My question is, how in the world did this happen so quickly? How did McCain manage to turn his campaign around, and do you think there is any chance that the Democrats can recover from this sudden unexpected shift? Discuss.