What a crazy year coming up... I feel like a pack mule. I'm busy helping my son prep to move out this next week (hoorah, he finally managed to get a place! Or part of one. A room in a shared house anyway). It's just me and him to move stuff and the room is upstairs so hopefully that will go without too many mishaps.

I'm hosting not one but TWO bridal showers in Feb (one for relatives and then a tea for friends the following week) followed by...

The Wedding in March for my daughter and new son-in-law! With the three bridesmaids being a)in Japan b)working and super busy and c)incommunicado and living far away it means pretty much all of it lands on me. Again. Oogh.

The new couple then need to move from the coast back to the city area to be nearer to his base. Guess who's the main person available with a car to help out? Present!

On top of that, we finished all our loan approval stuff and are actively seeking a single-level house so I'll be moving and selling this house as well (please God, not during the wedding).

I'm looking forward to Autumn already because by then most of this stuff will over. :-p

Carpet! What a nice morning, hot tea in a cup and the rhythmic banging and shuffling of workmen downstairs finishing up with the new carpet there. I'm delighted to have that done, though it does mean lots of crawling around on the floor for me later as I have to reattach all the baseboards once they're finished and then get all the furniture back in place. It really makes me realize how bad the old carpet was, that's for sure! Aaaaaah.

Church! My goodbye party at my "old" church went well (so weird to think of it as the "old" church now), only half as many people as said they would come actually showed up so we had WAY too much food but otherwise a good time had by all. Lots of dancing and dress-up and eating too much. Thankfully you can freeze both hummus and curry perfectly well, no need to make dinners for a while. I'm really enjoying being able to use my Sundays to visit other churches, it's been a lot of fun and there's so many great people out there in the world.

Costumes! I finished working on a set of hair falls to go with my purple and coral costume and just in time as my first performance for this piece is tomorrow. I'm in with a troupe that dances at rest-homes, it'll be a good dry-run for an actual dance show coming up in April that I'm signed up for. I got a gorgeous skirt to go with it that has yellow chiffon panels over a tropical orange underlayer so the result is coral but it flares out if I spin. Goes well with the coral-and-purple hydrangea hip-scarf. Yay. Just have to go find coral nail-polish for my toes this afternoon.

Crocuses! Looking forward to spring already, they have arrived along with the snowdrops, so pretty.

Spring brings me a learning curve adventure I'm kind of enjoying - My little greenhouse has been pretty neglected, I've used it but really done very little in the way of maintenance in the past 12+ years so I'm rolling up my sleeves and giving fixing it a whirl.   Pulled off big mats of moss (inside and out), scrubbed moss off windows (inside and out), scraped lichen off (the kind that looks like it has miniature Shrek ears), scraped old paint off, chipped away old caulking and ripped out whole pieces of spongy wood that were too rotten to clean up.   Whew!

Now I get to re-caulk the loose and/or broken windows before figuring out how to fix the rotten siding - most of it is okay, but the shadiest side is beyond help, it was at the point I could poke holes right through it and if I pulled it up there were literally earthworms having a party in there because the inside of the boards had composted.  Whoo-hoo, wormies!  But not IN the wall of the greenhouse, thanks!  I'm going to try piecing a couple of the cracked windows together with some clear caulking, hope it works.

Habitat for Humanity yielded super cheap paint for the door, a can of wood preservative for when I find the new siding and some pieces of wood that fit a couple of the needs for only a couple bucks more.  Love that place.  This is going to take a while, but it'll be SO nice when it's done.

It must be spring! I washed my car yesterday but I still had to turn around and go back to the house this morning to hose off the windshield so I could see something other than a huge yellow blur (my windshield squirties haven't worked for years).

Yellow poofs of pollen coming off the plants every time the breeze puffs past. It would be pretty if it weren't such a misery to allergic people and if it didn't set up like cement in the cracks everywhere. My condolences to everyone who must sneeze.

Just came in from quite some time grubbing around in my muddy yard in between rain clouds. There is a nice sense of accomplishment seeing the mounds I built from the roots of my fallen enemies outside.  I like how you can yank the entire root out, schlorping them like pale, twisted carrots from the muck at this time of year, and I finally conquered one of the Grandfather of Grandfather Dandelions whose root was too big and deep to get in previous years.

*insert triumphant cackling as lightning flashes behind a silhouetted hand, clutching helpless roots as the mud drips from the tip of the trowel*

For those who wondered how I could possibly want to kill something as pretty as bluebells.....This is how they show up in my yard -



Thick as grass - they choke all the other plants in a tide of Pretty, like some kind of crazy Fluffy Unicorn Invasion -



Though at least they aren't spiny, stinky or sticky, I'll grant them that. I can go mow them down and their only way of exacting revenge on me is simply to keep coming back. Forever.

Phoo! I'm tired, must be time for bed.  Tomorrow is our big church picnic for Easter and I'm up to my ears in fixings for a huge green salad, glorified rice and two big pans of peach cobbler. Yay!  Plus I'll be doing the face-painting on the side. Makes for a busy but good event. I just have to finish one salad and I can hit the hay.

I'm attending two churches, my main one and the one that rents space in the main one, so I get to help with two Easter picnics, one this weekend and one next weekend, complete with two rounds of face-painting and two rounds of kiddie egg-hunts, probably going to walk my feet off but it's always such a cheery time with visitors that only come out of the woodwork for major holidays as well.  Thankfully, it looks like a clear day, it's been pretty rainy here, so we may be blowing in the breeze but at least we'll be dry.

Have a lovely Palm Sunday weekend, all!

I love St. Pat's Day even though my only connection genetically is via a half-Irish grandpa - I would still enjoy it even if that weren't the case.  You see, my favorite color is green and there are stores who have "anything green is on sale!" events (woo!) plus there's this marvelous excuse to make corned beef and cabbage, which I love but it's expensive so I can't normally rationalize it.  Yes, I know they don't really even eat that in Ireland itself, but hey, I'm not pretending to be authentic I'm just having fun.   Breakfast for my kids was porridge colored with green food coloring, and as I couldn't find any Irish Breakfast tea, we had Jasmine Green.   Oh well, why not toss in some Chinese?  It has the word "green" in it, right?

And yes, I know Protestants wear orange and Catholics wear green in some places, but that's not here where I am and I like green, so I wear green in honor of Patrick, who was obviously not a Protestant - it's all good.  I'm off to make Irish Soda Bread with lots of brandy-soaked currants and sultanas in it as a treat for our preschool teachers now. 

Have a great day, everyone!

The bluebells, muscari, tulips and assorted daffs had a wild, raucous Spring Party out in my yard, but now the hour is late and summer is jangling her keys in the stairwell.   Out I go again to crawl over my property, cleaning up masses of blown petals, naked stems and yellowing explosions of wilting leaves dribbled over the ground.  Even the cherry trees and firs got into it, sprinkling dry brown bits of old blossom and tree-noodles hither and thither until they mound on the benches.

What a mess!

Still....it is very peaceful, on my knees among the irises grubbing out old bluebell stalks and the dry lace of expired forget-me-nots. The wind is in the poplars, a robin oversees my work before going to the birdbath for a drink.  The cotoneaster arches over my baby fothergilla, who is so proud of his very first springtime puffballs.  Nearby, the angelica has leapt from the height of my knees to being taller than the fence, graceful and crisp and lovely.  Everything is fragrant, or pungent, or sweet, each in its own way.

I suppose it's worth it after all.

(grumble) Ever had times where you wake up and think of all the things you have to accomplish that day before you're allowed to sleep again and just groan? Ah, life. Lunging from errand to errand to cleaning to weeding to errand to job to laundry to....

Not that I'm alone in that boat, not by far, of that I am certain, but I sure miss my free time right now.
(/grumble)

All that aside - I did score a lovely haul of groceries today from a neighborhood grocery store that is (sadly) going out of business. I feel sorry for all the folks there who are out a job, but it really was kind of fun going about through a part-emptied store rummaging for anything that I thought my family might eat. Most of it was 50-80% off, so we got things like Plum Pudding, glaceed pineapple (I am officially intending to make fruitcake this next winter), soy "chicken" nuggets, interesting lotions and soaps, chia seeds to eat, asian crackers, blueberry dipped pretzels, black sesame custard, jalapeno jelly, etc. etc... anything still left on the shelves was fair game, and I often was taking the very last one of whatever it was. Must be a bit what a locust feels like going through the countryside and leaving nothing behind.

Oh, and PINWHEELS! I love them in my yard, they're so cheery and if something happens to them (like when the raccoons drag them around) it doesn't really matter because they're cheap. I got a big fat bouquet of them and planted them all over my yard in my still-sleepy planters. Yay!

Hope all is well with everyone - I haven't had much time to even lurk so I feel out of touch but I'll catch up eventually. Now go eat something that isn't what you usually eat.