Easter

Happy Easter!

Wishing you a joyous Easter day full of love and the beauties of spring and new beginnings.

Our 55th Anniversary

 

That was a fast five years. I doesn't seem that long ago that we celebrated our 50th with fanfare.

No fanfare this year. We'll share a little cake with our friends at breakfast, do our regular Friday shopping, and then take our guys, Jake and Isaac, out to dinner with us. Jill just few away to Fiji and Irene will be transitioning from South Carolina back to Bellingham and school. We'll see Jan on Sunday. We're skipping Easter celebrations. Change happens.

You may remember we had daffodils at our wedding.

And chocolate cake!

We're still best friends. hanging out together. 

 

Taking a Walk

 After our garden club hosting we have slowed down. 

Sunday I made a big pot of beef stew which we then ate for three days. Cooking was easy. :-)

Monday I did the laundry while Tom did the bathrooms, changed the bed, and vacuumed. I skipped my part of the housework. It'll keep. I know, I have a great guy. I did six miles on the stationary bike.

Tuesday morning we took advantage of the mostly sunny weather to go for our walk in the neighborhood.

We walked about 1.3 miles, a bit more than I have done previously. We took time to appreciate spring happening. 

Day lilies and spirea emerging in the parking strip. These guys are tough, receiving little to no watering or care.

Magnificent magnolias blooming in yards.

Dandelions and Henbit blooming in ditches and untended yards, 

Naturalized Muscari - Grape Hyachinth - in several neighbor's yards. 

Today it is gray and rainy. Spring needs rain too. I'll ride my bike in the garage and read my book.

BTW, I'm reading The Women by Kristin Hannah. It's very compelling.

Celebrating Spring

This was my latest quilt patch. I call it Spring Emerging.

That was the theme of our garden club outing on Saturday morning.

Yes, it rained, but there were about 14 of us on the tour of the nearby Highline Seatac Botanical Garden.

We found lots of wonderful things emerging, including these very special red Trilliums, which is why we were all pausing in the path. Lots of photos were taken, just only these two by me. I was busy being the leader and "knowledgable person". 

Back at our house we were prepared for wet jackets and umbrellas in the garage and muddy shoes in the laundry room. We gathered for cake and coffee and tea and lots of talking.

Then we were back outside to tour our garden, and the rain stopped! It was a good event, we had lots of good questions, and lots of compliments. I felt pleased with how it all turned out, and appreciated the many lovely compliments. 

We have had some decent weather in the last few days since I last posted. Charlie Cat came to visit, on the patio and on the deck.

He's still very fluffy.

We did a little shopping on Wednesday, at Cosco and at Home Depot. I finally realized it was time to replace our very old, very broken down laundry baskets. I think the old ones must be about 45 years old. :-) I wish I had a "laugh" emogi. 

Granddaughter Irene came to lunch on Friday. She is still very happy with her Grandma's house lunch: Campbells Chicken Noodle soup and saltine crackers. And then an ice cream drumstick. She's easy that way. I wish is was easier to get her to be conversant, but I think we'll have to wait a few more years for that. She's on spring break from college, and off to South Carolina today to see her father and stepmother. 

Today we are taking it slow. We just returned from our  1.20 mile walk in the neighborhood. It's such a lovely time of the year now, with cherry, plum, and pear trees blooming, daffodils and Forsythia glowing, and when the sky is blue, it's just wonderful.

Happy Spring!

 

Over at the park there are blooming things that I don't have,

After getting all of our house work and laundry done Monday we drove over to the park for a short walk, because I knew the cherry trees would be blooming. 

There were lots of dogs in the dog  park too, frolicking in the sunshine. 

We walked around several loops, including the one that would take us past the Red Flowering Currant, just at its prime. 

The native dogwood flower bracts are starting to open too.

We have one more day of warm sunny weather today, and then tomorrow the clouds return, and by the end of the week the high temperature will only be 50F and there will be rain, or showers, just in time for our garden club outing. 

I'm hoping for showers. Light showers. After all, April showers bring May flowers, or so they say. 

Happy Spring.!

A Beautiful Saturday

 ...and I need to rest. 

We have a garden club meeting here next Saturday, the theme of which is "Emerging: Signs of Spring". 

These last few days are certainly spring like and have given us the opportunity to get lots of work done in the garden. After all, if we are going to show off our garden, it needs to look spiffy. 

March is not our ideal month to host but it was left over and no one would claim it so we volunteered. We have a few more days of good weather to work, but then the forecast is for rain next weekend. We have warned our garden club members to be prepared for whatever the weather brings.

We have edged and mowed and raked and picked up bins full of yard waste, and cleaned garden beds and surfaces. We have more to do, but we have slowed down today.

Yes, things are emerging, and some early plants and bulbs are blooming.

Edges are trimmed, cleaned up, and straight.

The deck and furniture have been scrubbed, rid of their winter scuzz. 

 Today Tom and Jill are at an afternoon Sounders match, and after I came in from more garden work, I watched on TV. It was a draw. :-(

Now I'm going to back outside and take some time to sit on the cleaned up patio and finally read the paper. Maybe Charlie will return for another visit. I think he's excited for spring too.

Busy Days Full of ...What?

 I know I've been busy since I last posted, but I had to look at my planning calendar to try to figure out exactly busy doing what?

I have been trying to either walk or bike each day. I had a physical therapy appointment Friday and now I have some new exercises that I had to spend some time trying to figure out how to do here at home, and then make new chart checklists. I use checklists to keep myself honest. 

We were all prepared to watch the Sounders on Saturday, now that our Apple TV is working, but, alas, the game in Philadelphia was rained out! Now, soccer gaimes don't get rained out, but it was raining so hard that the field was so saturated that the ball wouldn't even bounce or roll.  It will be resumed at some later date.

Sunday we got our walk in in the morning and I worked on cutting the pieces for my next quilt square, which I hope to get back to today. Then it was time for the Academy Awards. We have seen seven of the ten nominated movies, all at home on our TV, most of them free. I watched the whole program, enjoying the fashions and most of Jimmy Kimmel's banter, and especially Ryan Gosling's performance of the Ken song. 

I was surprised that "Killers of the Flower Moon" was pretty much shut out of the awards, but we didn't really have favorites to root for. All in all, it was a good production. 

Monday was house work and laundry day, and when that was done, I decorated. Saint Patrick's Day and Easter are too close together this year.

Keep the shamrocks but put out the bunnies and chicks and ducks and eggs. 

Looks a lot like all the previous years, but here is part of it.

I have stopped collecting, but I still want to see all of my decorations and remember their history. I'll leave them up for much of April, as spring decorations. 

It has been a rainy morning. We had our Zoom meet up, with good conversation. Jill stopped by. Now I think I finally have all the photos found and edited and it is time to get moving on something else. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Marching Along

 We've had snow and we've had rain. We've had sun and we've had fun.

Celebrating Jill's birthday on Monday at a steak house was fun. Then it snowed on the way home, so Tuesday's walk at the park was a bit snowy, but sunny. 

I  finished two more quilt squares using fabric from my scrap box.

Tom has been working outside a little every day, weather permitting. Today we were both out there. I pruned the roses and cleaned up the bed.

Tom pruned the juniper hedge along the driveway..

Now we are both tired and ready to settle in. I have some left overs to make into a meal. We'll watch the State of the Union Address.

We spent some time this morning with Apple TV tech support. It's nice to finally get a real person to talk to and we think we have our problen solved so we should be able to watch our soccer games on our big TV again. Tech issues are annoying. 

The sun is still shining bright at 4:30. Spring is on the way.