book bribery

ok, so.....my child has taken to reading my mother's trashy paperbacks...the bodice-ripping ones with fabio on the cover that.....well...are not worth reviewing here.....my middle child picked one up off the counter and read a random passage over his break that gave us all pause......and reminded us that grandma's taste in books may not be in line with our goals for this child's education....and so we downloaded the ultimate teen book list.....which has hundreds of classics and recent releases...in alphabetical order....and so she started to circle what she wanted to read the moment i mentioned that i would be willing to reward the completion of each book from the list......sadly angela's ashes is right up there at the top, in the a's.....and the moment she mentioned that book my spouse piped up....'don't let her read that book, it is too depressing'...which made her insist all the more to read that particular book first.......i did gather up a dozen selected volumes....easy to find as this list includes most of our book club picks......who know whether she will be willing to read good books for money....but it is certainly better than reading trash for free

wild onions.....

ok, so...i complain about the wild onions every year.....and so not to disappoint my gentle readers......let me just say that i am taking a few moments before and after work to pull out the conundrum weeds.....and letting the piles of fallen stems accumulate as a warning to those that may pop up later......

another work day.....

ok, so.....i stayed up much too late chatting with my spouse after he returned home from d.c.....and now i am exhausted in addition from being sore from gardening......i am so very tempted to take the day off to lay about, but it is spring break and most of my workmates beat me to this conclusion.....so i will drag my sorry body to work and make the best of things.....and daydream about sleeping-in on saturday....

daddy's cell phone....

ok, so one of my spouse's running/biking buddies sits behind us in church....and he asked about the marathon during the morning turn-and-say-hi-to-your-neighbor section of the service...and then he asked for my spouse's phone number so he could call and congratulate him....to which i replied that he would be back in the shop tomorrow morning...and that he wouldn't be home tonight until late.....'oh, i was thinking i would call him on his cell phone'....and it was all i could do not to laugh at how little this friend of my spouse knows him....'he won't have his phone on, so there is no use calling the number' i replied.....'not have his cell on? who does that?.....we have ours on all the time, and we are always on our cell phones.....'......which is precisely the point.....we are not a family of phone-o-holics....we can find far better things to do than to talk on the phone.....i do not even take my phone out of my purse (i toss it behind my seat) when i drive to pick up my daughter after school....no use calling me then because i will not answer the phone while i am driving.....better leave me a message...if i hear the little trill of notes that is my ring i will check when i get home.....i do leave on my phone because being 'on call' is part of my new job...in case of some public health emergency.....i will freely admit that email is in a different realm than the cell phone.....i live to get emails from my far flung children.....but i digress from church.....it was surely a sunday-after-easter service, with the pews mostly empty of those on spring break.....and a fill-in pastor covering for our usual fellow who is on spring break.....i was tempted to beckon to my daughter so that we could sneak out, but as i was sitting in front of a running/biking friend of my spouse i opted to stay and set the moral example, such as it is.....thankfully he wrapped up his sermon in time for my youngest and i to dash to the lowes to get the correct mortar mix to complete our walk project, and some moss and other organics to mix in with the soil in our new beds......i do admit to buying a few more perennials....2 different types of wallflowers, 2 different types of lavender, some mountain salvia, and pink pincushion flower (scabiosa)......i do have to make time this week to lay my seep hoses in my new beds, and figure out how to connect them to the spicket.....but that is for another day.....i most move back to the back room to watch davidson/kansas......

dreams so real.....

ok, so.....i woke up at 4:00 am, tempted to creep downstairs to check my purse....in my dreams i was living in an apartment, and as i was heading to an upstairs apartment to ask a neighbor about something, a quick errand that should not require the locking of doors, i chanced to see a man standing nearby talking on a cell phone....so i ran back inside, grabbed my keys, and locked the door in his full view.....moments later i returned to find that my wallet and checkbook were gone and the back door to my apartment was wide open.....these are curious details......in that the layout of the apartment matches none i have ever visited let alone lived in, and my front door was locked....but my purse was sitting by my computer, as it was when i went to bed last night....and i can recall in my dreams telling the police officer that i had only the one check in my checkbook (true) and that the order blank for obtaining more was inside the checkbook (true).......and the officer was asking about my debit card and did i have the pin number in the wallet (no).....even as i lay awake for a few moments the scenario replayed, with minor adjustments to the plot.....until i arrived back to my apartment to find that the purse had been opened, but that the robber found nothing inside because my checkbook and my cards were all in my coat pockets.....hmmm......no idea why we dream what we dream.....and without getting all freudian, i will let it go at that.....

legal bribery

ok, so.....an hour into my digging project, it occurred to me that as i toiled away...my youngest was sitting on the sofa watching cartoons at her leisure....and so i marched in, and advised her that if we could collectively get the job done by 4:00 i would treat her to supper at applebees.....bingo.....we were out the door, showered and tidied up by 3:45.......we stopped at the lowes to get the materials to use with the brick walk connector, and also to buy a few plants for the enlarged bed...not too many because i like to save my cash for the hospice plant sale.....and then we sat down to a mighty mediocre meal......at least from my seat...my child was thrilled, especially when i offered her my leftovers for a late-night snack.....but i digress from the actual digging.....my neck, back, arms and wrists are in that state of pain that even a hot bath can numb temporarily at best......and when my spouse called to tell me about his marathon....3 hr 50 min......he gently pointed out that i had purchased quickcrete instead of mortar mix......rats...i'll have to go back to the lowes after church.....bottom line....i am on target to be mostly done with my gardening pre-season projects....life is good.....

marathon man

ok, so....my spouse is running in the suntrust national marathon this morning.....he started about 7:00 am.....and he will likely finish between 3.5 and 4 hours....i tried to locate the blow-by-blow stats online....some races allow one to enter a bibb number, and you can find out where they are on the course during the race....or at least which checkpoints have been crossed by the microchips on their shoes....but i cannot find this application on the race website.....the weather looked quite chilly given the television coverage i WAS able to find...the brave souls in front of the cameras were bundled up....which means my spouse is likely running in shorts....go figure.....he is also enjoying a weekend with his eldest brother......it is good for siblings to spend time together. as for those of us back home, we seem to have no intention of getting dressed until after noon.....it is quite cold here as well, and i see no point in venturing out to work on my gardening projects until the dirt has warmed up a little....

uncle norm

ok, so i had my first meeting with a local preparedness person...and he was so similar to my uncle norm in size, shape, haircut, and demeanor....that i sat listening for him to say the magic word(s)....kind alike groucho marx who was always delighted when the magic word dropped from the ceiling in the mouth of a pretend bird.....and what would the magic word(s) today have been?......million dollar houses, of course...i'd have rolled on the floor laughing if he'd said that....thankfully he kept that string of words to himself, as i was with the new board chair, and was trying my best to appear poised not preposterous....ah well....

anne taintor....

ok, so this was on crooks and liars in response to a washington post blog about hilary and how long it takes her to get dressed in the morning.....the idiot part appears to refer to the male post writer.....but it could easily extend to dub-ya......

rain, rain.....

ok, so.....the storms seem to have soaked the grass seed....a good thing....but the storms today may keep me from working on the last of my expanded flower beds....i fully intend to finish the job this weekend so that i can start planting perennials, but this intention could be hampered by thunder storms.....in that event i am fully prepared to take long restorative naps.....

losing my touch.....

ok, so.....i used to be adequate at scramble, but it appears that the words have all taken the week off....ah well.....and the applications and notifications are all baffling to me just this minute.....i get notifications about some porcelain vampire who is gonna do some whompin' bad things to the friends of my youngest....what is up with that, notifications about how somebody has a match for me....i click ignore for those.......and the news that i can get blockbuster movies for $3.99.....luckily i have been much too distracted by work to worry too much about what it all means.....especially since i do not believe that porcelain vampires are gonna whomp on me any time soon....i am coming up on doing my new job for 2 full months, and no clue when the actual hiring process for the permanent position will happen, and so it is easy to get a bit downhearted and wonder if i could be going to a lot of trouble only to end up disappointed.....keeping the faith, in myself as well as in the system is not easy....and i must but that smile back on my face and make the best of the chance i have....enough of this...back to scramble......

dream screen

ok, so in my dream i was at a p.c., and on the screen was a place to check yes or no as to teleflowers.....this directive in large bold letters, and i checked no.....i have no recollection of what led up to this part of the dream, or what came after.....other than i wasn't having any of it.....

the lay of the land.....

ok, so.....i came home from picking up the youngest child and sat in my yet-to-be-finished expanded flower bed....and added up just how many rose bushes could be gracefully planted without over-crowding.....and contemplated clusters of perennials planted amongst those roses......and went so far as to imagine patches of lettuces and other vegetables.....this plot of ground has the best sun exposure of any in our front yard.....and given that the back yard drops off into a cliff-like landscape.....i am confined to the front/side yard....i amuse myself with daily emails from jackson and perkins and wayside gardens and parks....all who wish to fill in these empty spaces....for a price.....but i must plan carefully and allow room for the hospice plant sale and the like for most of my plantings......so many options.....but these opportunities keep me hopeful.....and this is a good thing....

waiting for pasta water to boil.....

ok, so.....my life has its mundane moments.....and the waiting on the pasta water is one of those.....can't stray too far from the kitchen.....and because pasta salad tastes better when it has had a chance to sit a bit......i plan to go out and dig up another couple of courses of nearly dead grass.....

a silent memorial

ok, so...this from the huffington post.....a mosaic of all 4000 war dead....too tragic for words.....

promising day in store....

ok, so....my pains, though numerous, appear to have passed....and i am planning to return to the garden after work....still have 2/3 of the expanded bed to clear, and then i can begin to accumulate plants to fill up the space....i have a few roses in mind...some own-root varieties that are harder to kill in bad weather.....and i am looking into some other perennials that have not done well in shadier beds......i am invigorated by the promise of spring.....

pain....

ok, so......i am in pain, as predicted.......the push to finish yard projects on sunday afternoon often results in pain.....for me, the pitiable state of my wrists and forearms is such that typing this blog is a real effort.....we did manage to seed and straw the front yard.....and i did manage to dig up 1/3 of my expanded flower bed...yeah, i may have blogged about this before...but the pain brings it all back.....i am going to work to rest up.....

a daylily-free zone

ok, so....the 12 by 12 foot section of planting bed i am creating from dead lawn will be a certified daylily-free zone......a distinction hard to come by in my little section of eden.....even the beds i painstakingly cleared of daylilies last fall are again matted with sprouts......and while i have taken to plucking them like som many dandelions....the truth is this.....daylilies are like cockroaches.....they will likely survive the nuclear option......but my new bed is an extension of a lily-free bed....and i am confident that any and all plants located there will be safe from the muscling- charms of the day lilies......

melissa etheridge on faith

ok, so...i borrowed this from the washingtonpost.....i hope melissa can forgive me.....

Melissa Etheridge
Awakening at Easter

Easter.

The word brings up so many different memories. I am a child of the Midwest and I was raised with a little help from the United Methodist Church. My parents felt it was important to indoctrinate their children into some church even though it had long ago stopped being a place for worship for them on a personal level. I think they felt that they had better bring their kids to a church just in case all that heaven and hell stuff might be true. So, at the very least, on Christmas and Easter we would get out of bed early, get dressed up and go to church. There I would hear “Jesus was crucified on the cross and put into the tomb and rose from the dead three days later, now go find some eggs that a bunny left in the yard.” I never thought to question or even try to figure it out. Everyone was doing it and having so much fun, I thought that it must make sense to someone.

I am all grown up now with children of my own. My spiritual path has been an amazing and rewarding one for me. I have opened my heart and mind to the thought that we create our reality. I believe we are on a beautiful heavenly planet that is spinning in perfect balance with the rest of the universe. I believe we all have the capacity to open the Christ consciousness within each of us. I believe that the cancer inside my body reflected the cancer outside of my body, and I believe everyday I heal not only my body but also everything I see. I believe in choice. I believe as above so below. And I believe in the Easter bunny.

Yes, my children and my wife and I will be decorating eggs. See, I believe in traditions; and the tradition of the vernal equinox is the celebration of the earth coming into the newness and everlasting life of spring. It has been celebrated every year by every culture of people who have ever walked this earth. We seemed to have somehow lost sight of that. We have lost sight of our relationship to the earth. We need to be in contact with the earth and it’s seasons. I know that the Romans in the 4th century, grappling with how to control the masses, decided to make the Christian celebrations mirror the pagan ones. Then they hunted down, killed, tortured and burned any who tried to practice those seasonal celebrations of our most ancient ancestors. I know that the winter equinox is when the sun stands still on the horizon for three days and then is “resurrected” on the third. I also know that we are coming to the end of this Piscean age and rolling into the next one, the Aquarian. And I believe that we will all come together in our beautiful differences to discover we are all one. All of us gently spinning in this beautiful space, creating peace within ourselves and experiencing peace in our world. We will soon know that love is all there is.

So I am going to decorate a few eggs (I especially like the blue egg dye), and I will hide them in the yard. I will eat a little chocolate, and I will celebrate once again the earth coming back to life and bringing the warmth of the sun and the promise of salvation.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Melissa Etheridge is an Academy Award-winning and two-time Grammy Award-winning American rock singer, songwriter and musician.

egg salad

ok, so.....i had a hankering for deviled eggs....so i bought the eggs, and the paprika to sprinkle on top....and took time to boil the eggs yesterday so they would be easy to peel today....or so i thought......seems that really fresh eggs resist and easy peel, and none of the conundrum eggs were salvageable.....ah well......so i went ahead and made egg salad.....with capers rather than pickle relish for the salty edge......and i while this is no substitute for the object of my craving....it will do just fine for a few lunches this week.....if i can remember to stop for some good dark rye.....the only bread for egg salad.....