Friday and Saturday of this weekend have been spent cleaning house and cleaning the yard. I especially like the yard part.
As I was working in various "rooms" of the garden I found myself getting stuck. I got stuck here in the secret garden and listened to the birds sing.
I got stuck here under the rose covered cherry tree, thinking about how this will look and smell when the roses bloom soon. I hope we don't miss the whole show.
I came back and had lunch here, with the bees buzzing in the wisteria blossoms.
And each day I sat in the sun here with my afternoon coffee and my book.
It was wonderful to have ample time to do the work and be able to enjoy the garden too.
Tom found a few radishes.
It's columbine time here and the flowers are so amazing.
Allium are in bloom under the wisteria.
It's fun to mix the fake with the real.
All of the drip and sprinkler systems are on and tested. There will just be a few things to water when the kids come over to take care of kitty.
It's all so lovely I almost hate to leave, but I'm also excited for our trip. Today we did the laundry and then began the packing. I'm down to checking off lists.
After dinner there will be time for a walk. It's cool today, but the sun comes out now and then and I hear the birds singing through the open window.
And in the morning we fly away.
We have an old freezer out in the garage that is not frost free, so once a year it has to be defrosted and cleaned. I always do it in the spring. I decided to get it done before we leave on our trip so that it would be ready for this years crop of raspberries, which will ripen in early July.
I empty it, turn it off, and put pans of boiling water in it and let it sit until the ice has melted. While that was happening I went to the pet store to lay in a supply of food for Josy. The kids will feed her while we're gone.
It's tedious picking off the last bits of stuck ice, so I let it sit longer and helped Tom with his shelving project. He needed a holder.
Unfortunately his nail gun wasn't working well, and there was a lot of wait time, so I got the freezer finished, and Tom finally put on another nail head and we got that project done too.
We'll probably wait to finish them when we get back. We need more shelving because Tom's pop up book collection has grown so large it is displacing my pottery, some of which is now in tubs in the garage. I'll be using the shelves to display pottery upstairs.
This was all going on Wednesday, and I had one more tedious task to tackle.
Can I rant a bit? I am of average height, but I wear flat shoes. Dress slacks are made long these days to fit over those ridiculous six inch heels. So I have to shorten my new pants. It's a job I hate. Measure, cut, mark, press. I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I have a serger to finish the new cut edge, and a special foot and stitch on my sewing machine for doing blind hemming. The sewing part is actually the fast part.
So an hour or so later, I have newly hemmed slacks that don't look any different than when I started. Not my idea of fun sewing.
Today we spent a good part of the day cleaning in the garden. The rain has stopped and there is trimming and weeding to be done before we go away for 18 days. That kind of garden work can be tedious too, but I was glad to finally be back outside. Of course when we get back from our trip we'll have to do it all over again. Such is gardening.
It has been almost six months now since Josy came to live with us. I think she's finally adjusted, as much as a neurotic cat can be.
She seems to have stopped her fur mowing, and her hair is growing back in.
She has been loving the sunny, dry weather and spends lots more time outside. Therefore she has been quite annoyed that it is raining again. While she uses her cat door when we're not around, she has us trained to let her in and out of the patio door now, which is quite frequent, since she can't make up her mind if she wants to be in or out.
Within a few days of our removing the bird feeders, the bird killing stopped. She was getting the ground birds that cleaned up under the feeders. Now there are no easy pickings.
But the barfing continues. Frequently on the carpet.
Josy apparently doesn't like her domain soiled with the leavings of stomach upsets. Each morning I go downstairs, where she is confined over night, and I greet her with a hug, which she tolerates. Then I feed her dry food and a few treats and return upstairs to get my day going. Josy usually makes an appearance while I'm getting dressed, but on some days she is quite restless and me-ows until I go back downstairs with her. On those days I know that I will find something unpleasant.
Sure enough, this morning there was another pile of barf on the carpet to clean up. I have a recipe on the refrigerator for the clean up. First scoop. Then dish detergent in warm water, followed by a 1/3 vinegar water solution, followed by a water rinse.
While this clean up is in progress, Josy hides and lingers.
She skulks around until all is good again. I found her on her pedestal when I came back from getting the newspaper. But when I grabbed the camera, she obviously thought "Not that flash again", and took off upstairs.
It was time to retire to her box of sewing materials in the office closet.
She'll decide when she's ready for more contact.
It's rainy again, so like me, she may be a bit grumpy.
With one project finished, I moved on to the next. Thank you for all of your kind words about my memorial posts.
Today I finished the embroidery project I had been working on. For any new readers, I have a Brother sewing machine with computerized embroidery capability. I was working on a set of embroidered kitchen towels for a personalized wedding gift.
I'm going to show them in my blog, but not link to Facebook this time, and I will probably escape under the radar and my nieces won't find out.
I'll be sending them by mail tomorrow. I've already purchased and sent a gift off the registry.
Because all of my favorite evening TV programs are now ending for the season, I actually started a book yesterday! That's also partly because it has been raining nonstop, so my exercising has had to switch to my stationary bike, and I needed something good to read to keep me going, because I sort of hate that kind of exercise. I would much rather go for an aerobic walk. But I have dutifully done my 10 miles the last two days.
I ordered some the the Henning Mankell Kurt Wallander Mystery series a while back from Amazon. I might finally have time to read them!
The Scandinavians do love their bloody murder stories. Wallander stories are set in southern Sweden. I have been there, so my mind movie is enhanced by knowing the lay of the land.
And because someone asked, here is the recipe for rhubarb cake.
Beat: 1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
Beat in: 1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
Stir together: 1 tsp soda
1 cup butter milk ( I use 1 Tblesp. lemon juice in 1 c milk)
Add immediately to butter mixture, alternating with:
2 cups flour
Stir in: 2 generous cups chopped rhubarb
Spread in a greased 9X13 pan
Combine: 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tablespoon melted butter
Sprinkle over batter.
Bake 350 for 40 minutes.
This morning, as a light rain fell, I went out into the garden to pick a few flowers to arrange, and some rhubarb to put in a rhubarb cake.
Then I set the dining room table for afternoon tea.
My Aunt Evelyn and my cousins, Kris and Dan Freeman, were coming to see the memorial that my aunt had asked me to place in our garden.
The rain did not deter. As the drops fell, so did my aunt's tears. She was so pleased with what I had done. My mother was her older sister and the first of her siblings to depart. As my Uncle Bill nears the end of his long struggle with Alzheimer's, my aunt still loves her "Willie" so.
We strolled through the garden, and down to the deck where the wisteria blooms hang heavy and heady with fragrance. And then Aunt Evelyn paused once again before the memorial to speak to her Willie.
Then we all went in to tea and lovely conversation. It was all good.
Shortly after Corey brought the kids over this morning ( it's "data day" at school, teachers work, kids are off), a package I had been expecting arrived.
It was the memorial plaque I had ordered to mark the Wind Spinner. It was nice to have a delegation help in planting the marker in the garden.
I am now arranging to have my aunt and hopefully my cousins over for tea so they can see the memorial. That may happen soon.
Yesterday I spent the day working on a new wardrobe.
I shopped all morning and into the afternoon. Then after lunch at home, I showed Tom all of my purchases, including a few for him. With everything spread out over the bed, I worked on putting outfits together, with the few new clothes I already had, and the ones I had just purchased: jeans, one pair with sparkles on the rear, pedal pushers, or what ever they call them now, khakis, and even a pair of shorts! I bought a tee shirt dress and a pair of linen slacks and a dressy top, clothes to wear to a wedding in Boston June 2nd, the reason we will be traveling to New England at the end of May.
I bought new bras, and a few more new briefs. I had to figure out what size I am now. I am still slowly losing weight and am nearing my goal. I am down about 55 pounds in all since a year ago January. It has been slow going this year, but at least I know I can maintain my weight loss.
During the past months I studied travel books and slowly mapped out our road trip. We will fly to Boston, pick up a rental car and drive into Vermont, where we will spend the first four days touring. Back in Chelmsford, north of Boston, we'll spend three nights, see family and attend the wedding of my niece.
After that we will spend the next 10 days touring western Massachusetts and Upstate New York. These are all places I have not been before. It will be a whirlwind road trip with so much to see. I have booked all of the hotels, we'll take our GPS, and just follow our maps. I love road trips!
Today I have been working on a sewing/embroidery project that is part of a wedding gift. It has been one frustration after another, but it too will come together.
I might have to take tomorrow off. The grand kids are coming again!
We have been enjoying unusually prolonged warm weather. After all of the rushing about the last few weeks, I've slowed down to enjoy it.
I had my breakfast here, with the morning sun streaming through the new greens.
My lunch hour is spent here, starting in the shade, coming into the sun, as I read the editorial page and work the puzzles in the newspaper, and then linger over a garden magazine.
In the afternoon I set up my lap top here in the shade to read blogs and comment.
Today I just got back from the dentist and I'm going to make time to go here on the deck to smell the wisteria that is coming into bloom.
We've got almost everything planted now, including the glass flowers.
Tom did a lot of watering and pruning today. I was much lazier, but I did get my walk in, in the mornings now, or the evening, instead of the afternoon.
Life is very good.
I picked the kids up from school yesterday afternoon for Early Release Friday, and they stayed overnight. It's Jill's Mother's Day gift, and mine, too, actually.
Tom and I have been very busy in the yard this week, and Friday morning we emptied most of the greenhouse, and were able to move stuff out of the shed and get it cleaned in preparation for converting it back into a playhouse.
Everything was ready when the kids arrived, including letters for them in the playhouse mailbox from their Fairy Godmother.
After reading their letters, they got to work setting up the playhouse. Irene washed the windows. Isaac carried furniture and set up the kitchen. Then I brought in my free roadside find, which I had cleaned up that morning. It's that wooden, mirrored piece you can see on the right. The bottom shelf lifts up for storage. They moved their dress up accessories into it. And then it was time for "tea", which included ice cream sandwiches.
Isaac drifted off to help Tom with a project, and Irene and I made play-doh pies.
Isaac played with my camera after taking our photo. It's amazing how fast kids can figure things out. Here he used the timer for a self portrait.
He took this photo of the single enormous bloom opening on our tree peony.
Later Irene and I went around the yard and picked a few flowers for the playhouse, and then Irene turned the playhouse into a flower shop and set her business. Isaac set up a mechanics shop in the old VW camper bus that Tom has been working on.
We managed just barely to get them into the house for dinner. Bedtime was set back by ice cream sundaes when I got back from my exercise walk. Did I really need that? The walk, that is. The ice cream, certainly! And then we watched a session of the Planet Earth video before finally getting them to bed about 9:30.
Tom and I were beat.
This morning Jill was here bright and early and just before 9:00 they all left to get to Isaac's Little League game. We passed on that so we could get the house work and laundry done, and a few more garden jobs.
Tomorrow morning the immediate family will be here for Mother's Day brunch. Jill and I are not supposed to be doing the cooking. I already did the part I like best, picking and arranging flowers and creating a beautiful table.
The table is set, everything is ready.
Now I have a few hours to rest up, relax, and read a magazine. Tonight we'll be heading for the stadium for a BIG Sounders soccer match.
Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers, past, present, future, or just honoring your own mother. I hope the sun shines on you as it will be here on us.
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