Monday Morning

I'm tired of looking at sad news.  Unfortunately I have no good news, so here's a photo of the iris in the back yard.  The columbine are also blooming and the dianthus is lush.

Tim was able to get a lot of painting done while he was here last week.  (This is the painting necessitated by the hail storm, undertaken last fall, and interrupted by bad weather.)  I've contributed to the effort by finishing some windows and second-coating a section over the weekend.  One last push today should finish it.   I guess you could call that good news...
Having seen the new house I have been able to go through some boxes of packed stuff and eliminate a few things, which probably qualifies as good news.  I can also say that so far I haven't regretted any previous eliminations - more good news.
You could also call the fact that I didn't have to mow this weekend good news.  Our realtor arranged for someone to mow - and I reallyreallyreally appreciated the gesture.

Apparently I was wrong about the dearth of good news - which has raised my spirits considerably, so I'll close with a cute story:
I took Charlie for a walk yesterday morning and let him swim in the irrigation canal at the park - he loves it!  You throw a stick, he launches from the bank and lands with a satisfying splash.  He retrieves the stick and gets ready for the next round.  We then take the long way home giving him opportunity to dry.  Unfortunately he stays damp for quite a while...
I had some inside puttering to finish before I began painting so I fastened Charlie outside to finish drying.  He has a choice of sun and shade and was just lolling about waiting for me.  At some point I saw our (elderly) next door neighbor coming toward the house (which is odd because she always just catches us over the fence for a chat) and wondered if there was a problem as I waited for her to reach the door.  She never did.  She stopped to talk to Charlie.  Petted, patted, chatted, turned around and went home.

The proverbial lull

(sorry about the eyes...)

I truly enjoyed having Naphtali and Aidan here last week.  A fast moving Minnesota snowstorm kept them here an extra day.  With Tim in for both weekends it has been a bounty of family, good conversation, and fun.

I'm so glad they were able to visit!

I'm also glad I was about a week ahead on my studies - not much got done with all the distractions - meaning that now I'm pretty much right on track again.

With travel plans for the next two weekends I'll have to make every minute count this week.  (optimistic, n'est-ce pas?) 

Valerie will be in Iowa for a quick visit next weekend so my mother is trying to get all the girls together.  I'm sure there will be laughter and some wild scrabble competition.  My mother offered to let Charlie join us (!) but Tim said they would hang out together.  

The following weekend will find Tim, Charlie and I in New Brighton for Aidan's birthday.  

Busy, busy, busy.

Aw, shucks

Well, yet another giveaway I didn't win!  But I feel like I've won the lottery because Tim will be home 2 weekends in a row!  Work takes him to Omaha for budget consultations this week, so he is bookending the trip with time here.

Yesterday we tackled a haircut for Charlie and assorted small projects.  Today will see some serious computer time for both of us as we address homework and budget details.  We're hoping for cooperative weather for a walk after while.

I have crocus peeking through in one flower bed.

I continue to sort and toss.  And dig through boxes that have been packed for an assortment of items that seemed utterly unnecessary and thus safe to pack...which means I haven't bothered to pack anything for a while.  There are empty boxes stashed waiting for their turn and one of these days I'll try again because I want to avoid the everythinghastobedonerightnow scenario.

flotsam and jetsam

We had a busy weekend.  My assignments were turned in early Friday afternoon, I didn't have to work Saturday, it was actually nice enough to work outside - and so we did.  Weeding and tending and planning and plenty more waiting to be done.  My half price - half dead hydrangea from last season is looking wonderful.  We turned the air conditioner off for a couple days - it went back on this morning.

Friday morning I rode my bike down the hill to town and ran a few errands.  When I got back about 10:30 I was hot, thirsty and surprisingly hungry.  But  I realized it had already been over 4 hours since I'd had my bowl of cereal....

Tim fixed an amazing shrimp stir fry with asparagus beans, peppers and thai basil from our garden.  Cucumbers have been doing well.

There are 2 weeks of classes left in this session.  I will be writing a paper over the next few days, rough draft to be submitted on Friday.  In preparation I've been reading Theodore Roszak's "The making of an Elder Culture," which I have found fascinating.  Roszak first applied the term counter culture to the baby boomers and this book looks at how they (we) have handled aging.  It's given me much to think about....

let's just say

that this has been a good weekend.  I did work yesterday morning, but I had my assignments turned in early and treated myself to the night off on Friday.  I did housework, as usual, yesterday, with ironing still ahead later today.  The sounds of golf coverage are floating up from the basement and I will probably join Tim there shortly.  Yesterday I hemmed and stenciled some dish towels.  This morning I baked muffins - savory muffins, to go with salads and grilled chicken....
Zuchinni from someone's garden, and fresh rosemary from our garden provided the inspiration.  They are tasty. And healthy. Unfortunately the only definite measurements I can provide are:
2 eggs and 1 Tbsp baking powder. 
grated zuchinni
corn meal
whole wheat flour
white flour
wheat germ
buttermilk powder
2 eggs
sugar
salt
1 Tbsp olive oil
rosemary
grated cheddar cheese
water

mix and bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

My next assignments are due Friday, and I have been working at them. English is multi-parted so I plan to build up to the big, saving it for Friday.   I'm enjoying my subject but have to admit that the tenetative thesis submitted several weeks ago is just not pulling together for me, so I'm reading and jotting and hoping for inspiration, hopefully early in the week. 

Catching up

 We had hail over the weekend.  Both Saturday and Sunday nights.  These pictures are from the damage on Saturday night.  We had egg-sized hail.  There are broken windows, which my pictures failed to catch, so you'll just have to take my word for it, but you can see several of the holes  punched in the "shutters" and the mess it made of the siding. There were branches down, leaf debris everywhere. The weather service reported 94 mph winds on Sunday.  Less debris, (due in part to the fact that it all came down the day before?) but we lost the robin nest in the maple tree in the backyard.  The hail on Sunday was probably about the size of those glass pebbles you get for flower arrangements.  This window has broken panes on both the inside and outside.

This window is broken just on the outside pane.  Tim has a few dings on his car, mine was safely in the garage.  We had just been talking about how spoiled I've been with an attatched garage.  One of our daydreams includes a generous double stall, attached garage, with a drain in the floor. 

The insurance people were called Monday morning, we are in the queue for assessment. 

I am writing from the library because the new wireless system that Tim worked so hard to get in place for me, refuses to play nice with my Norton 360, or maybe it's the other way around, either way I have no wireless, have been managing fine with a combination of my laptop and Tim's PC, but last night the electricity was out for an undetermined amount of time and this morning there was no wireless to be had.  Anyway...

getting a start

There is no 'theme" today -- rather a good reflection of how I feel -- just an attempt to catch up, start a new week, organize random thoughts, and satisfy that nagging at the back of mind that I should get a new post done.
Naphtali has referenced the upcoming art fair at Aidan's school. It sounds like a lot of work but she tends to thrive in busy situations and will no doubt have another successful venture.
We had snow again over the weekend. I hope to have my winter boot problem solved in the next few days. What winter boot problem, you ask, breathlessly? Gotta love LLBeans policy of keeping customers happy. For whatever reason at whatever time send it back.
For the past 5 years I have worn a pair of "stormchaser slip-ons" and hated the way I had to force my foot past the cuff to put them on. Everything else was fine - good product - I just didn't like the entry process. Their catalog says I can return anything - anytime. So I did. Finally. A couple weeks ago, thinking we had a lull in our snowfall, I sent them back. Ordered a different boot, which will start its trip back to Maine on the UPS truck today. Passing my latest replacement, on its way to me, somewhere along the road. There should still be snow to greet them when they arrive.


This was the spot I was going to show you the orchid Tim gave me for valentines day but I just realized I haven't loaded it from my camera and I'm not going to take the time to mess with it now so you'll just have to check back to see if I get it together.......

And that will be all for this morning.....