This morning I woke up feeling ambitious, and a little repentant too, so I called my sister Iris just to see how she is doing, say "Hi - I love you", and to get the call into action before my day got away from me again. I had been meaning to call her for the past 2 weeks, but life crowded that out with the plumber and construction stuff going on and the guys coming and going whenever they pleased with no set schedule - kinda puts a kabash on your days and forces you to put everything else on a back burner while you sit around twiddling your thumbs hoping they show: sometimes they do, more often than not, they don't. But what are you gonna do? You wait. And wait; and wait some more before they finally show and do the jobs they were hired weeks ago to do.
And most currently I intended to call her Wednesday, but my ex-SIL, who is still a close friend, and her cousin Pam, who is also an old friend, schemed to get me out of the house and back into the social world ... and that ate up Wednesday. But it was necessary, and it was a fun time.
Yesterday, as soon as I woke up and poured my 1st cup of coffee, I set to work plotting my garden bed plantings, and that literally took all day. I do rotation gardening because I do organic gardening - no pesticides, no 'extra' anythings ... just garden soil, seeds and/or organic transplants, and soil building practices. I have gardened this way for 40 years, and it works for me. I also do companion planting, so my garden beds are planned very carefully and charted every year. It is time consuming, but having a healthy and productive garden is worth it. This is what I charted for this season; the seeds and transplants have been ordered, and as soon as they start arriving the plans will be set in motion.
And our grave stones arrived yesterday - Bob's being set in place in August. So yesterday was not a good day to call anyone; I was on shaky ground most of yesterday anticipating the emotional upheaval of the stones' arrival ...
But this morning, before I even got out of bed, I reached for the phone and called Iris. I like Iris - I have known about her most of my life, but it wasn't until recently that I have been able to actually talk to her and get to know her: this would make Bob happy for me because I have talked about her and wondered about her our entire married life. If Bob were here, he would be happy that we are finally connecting. And it goes without mentioning, that I am extremely happy :-D My youngest sister did a 23andme DNA test this winter and Iris popped up as sister ... so Carla immediately called me and said, "Are you sitting down?" And I said, "Should I be?" Then she said, "I found her! I found Iris." And one thing led to another, and now we are communicating. I have never had an older sister before - I have always been the oldest sister in my immediate family, so this is kinda exciting for me as well as an answer to prayer ;-)
After Iris and I were finished shooting the breeze, I heard the birds happily chirping and noticed the bright sunshine streaming in through the livingroom windows as I came down the hallway, so I put coffee on while I dressed. Then grabbing a cup of coffee and heading outdoors, I got busy cleaning up the breezeway under the carport so that when the guys come to paint the exterior of the house in a few weeks I will not be running around like a chicken with it's head cut off trying to get it done in a few hours; this morning I took my time neatly moving stuff into the shed ... another thing I didn't get to this Fall because I refused to leave Bob in the hospitals alone - he took precedence over home maintenance as far as I am concerned. And Candy can be damned.
Anyway.
Today the breezeway got cleaned, stuff got put away, and/or rearranged - like the garden cages that will be put to use before the house painting gets under way, so they stayed where they were and will be out of the way in a week or so.
And while I was puttering around, I repotted my miniature rose bushes that I didn't get to the last 2 years because the year 1 flew by with interior remodeling eating up the time; we weren't home a a lot due to the dust which played hell with my asthma - we spent most of that year holed up in a hotel waiting for the house to get done. And anyone reading my Blog knows what happened last summer - which ended with my husband's death.
But the Mini Roses got repotted this morning - with returning geese honking and winging their way home across the sky overhead; as well as the yellow Parrot Tulips; and the Chrysanthemums I thought were truly dead (aside from being set out last Fall before Bob went into hospitals, they got NO attention at all - not even a quick watering) delighted me with unexpected new growth that was hidden under the thick leaf mulch - so they got cleaned up too instead of being trashed.
The yellow mini rose that Bob gave me needed severe pruning back, so I pray I did not kill it! That would kill me, I'm sure ...
Those tasks done, I pulled my over-wintered Geraniums from under the front porch (where they normally line the stairs and porch railing Spring & Summer) and started cleaning those up by pulling dead leaves, clipping dead growth, and refreshing the potting soil:
But when it was time to water everything repotted and refreshed, the water faucet started freaking out! So I shot a brief video of it and zipped it off to Alex to see if we can fix it ourselves - or do I need to call plumber Bob again.
Getting this house up to speed is gonna bankrupt me ...
Well, I had to use the faucet; leaking like a breached Dam or not, to water my over-wintered plants, so a LOT of water was wasted - but what's a gal to do? The plants needed water ...
And not even 20 minutes later thunderbumpers showed up:
And hail followed.
So I pulled my tender-shoot-rejuvenating geraniums back from the slashing ice balls ...
The hail viciously pelted everything for about half an hour before it stopped and rain began.
With the steady falling rain, this would be a good time to have my rain barrels hooked back up, but that is not going to happen until the house is painted the end of April/first of May :-(
And most currently I intended to call her Wednesday, but my ex-SIL, who is still a close friend, and her cousin Pam, who is also an old friend, schemed to get me out of the house and back into the social world ... and that ate up Wednesday. But it was necessary, and it was a fun time.
Yesterday, as soon as I woke up and poured my 1st cup of coffee, I set to work plotting my garden bed plantings, and that literally took all day. I do rotation gardening because I do organic gardening - no pesticides, no 'extra' anythings ... just garden soil, seeds and/or organic transplants, and soil building practices. I have gardened this way for 40 years, and it works for me. I also do companion planting, so my garden beds are planned very carefully and charted every year. It is time consuming, but having a healthy and productive garden is worth it. This is what I charted for this season; the seeds and transplants have been ordered, and as soon as they start arriving the plans will be set in motion.
And our grave stones arrived yesterday - Bob's being set in place in August. So yesterday was not a good day to call anyone; I was on shaky ground most of yesterday anticipating the emotional upheaval of the stones' arrival ...
But this morning, before I even got out of bed, I reached for the phone and called Iris. I like Iris - I have known about her most of my life, but it wasn't until recently that I have been able to actually talk to her and get to know her: this would make Bob happy for me because I have talked about her and wondered about her our entire married life. If Bob were here, he would be happy that we are finally connecting. And it goes without mentioning, that I am extremely happy :-D My youngest sister did a 23andme DNA test this winter and Iris popped up as sister ... so Carla immediately called me and said, "Are you sitting down?" And I said, "Should I be?" Then she said, "I found her! I found Iris." And one thing led to another, and now we are communicating. I have never had an older sister before - I have always been the oldest sister in my immediate family, so this is kinda exciting for me as well as an answer to prayer ;-)
After Iris and I were finished shooting the breeze, I heard the birds happily chirping and noticed the bright sunshine streaming in through the livingroom windows as I came down the hallway, so I put coffee on while I dressed. Then grabbing a cup of coffee and heading outdoors, I got busy cleaning up the breezeway under the carport so that when the guys come to paint the exterior of the house in a few weeks I will not be running around like a chicken with it's head cut off trying to get it done in a few hours; this morning I took my time neatly moving stuff into the shed ... another thing I didn't get to this Fall because I refused to leave Bob in the hospitals alone - he took precedence over home maintenance as far as I am concerned. And Candy can be damned.
Anyway.
Today the breezeway got cleaned, stuff got put away, and/or rearranged - like the garden cages that will be put to use before the house painting gets under way, so they stayed where they were and will be out of the way in a week or so.
And while I was puttering around, I repotted my miniature rose bushes that I didn't get to the last 2 years because the year 1 flew by with interior remodeling eating up the time; we weren't home a a lot due to the dust which played hell with my asthma - we spent most of that year holed up in a hotel waiting for the house to get done. And anyone reading my Blog knows what happened last summer - which ended with my husband's death.
But the Mini Roses got repotted this morning - with returning geese honking and winging their way home across the sky overhead; as well as the yellow Parrot Tulips; and the Chrysanthemums I thought were truly dead (aside from being set out last Fall before Bob went into hospitals, they got NO attention at all - not even a quick watering) delighted me with unexpected new growth that was hidden under the thick leaf mulch - so they got cleaned up too instead of being trashed.
The yellow mini rose that Bob gave me needed severe pruning back, so I pray I did not kill it! That would kill me, I'm sure ...
Those tasks done, I pulled my over-wintered Geraniums from under the front porch (where they normally line the stairs and porch railing Spring & Summer) and started cleaning those up by pulling dead leaves, clipping dead growth, and refreshing the potting soil:
But when it was time to water everything repotted and refreshed, the water faucet started freaking out! So I shot a brief video of it and zipped it off to Alex to see if we can fix it ourselves - or do I need to call plumber Bob again.
Getting this house up to speed is gonna bankrupt me ...
Well, I had to use the faucet; leaking like a breached Dam or not, to water my over-wintered plants, so a LOT of water was wasted - but what's a gal to do? The plants needed water ...
And not even 20 minutes later thunderbumpers showed up:
And hail followed.
So I pulled my tender-shoot-rejuvenating geraniums back from the slashing ice balls ...
The hail viciously pelted everything for about half an hour before it stopped and rain began.
With the steady falling rain, this would be a good time to have my rain barrels hooked back up, but that is not going to happen until the house is painted the end of April/first of May :-(
