EARLY GARDENING

We did just a little bit of gardening today. Early hardy pansies and a couple of heather bushes against the new deck leading to the addition to the house. My mother in law had three ceramic gnomes made for me oh about 20 years ago. We use to put them in the front landscape mound but a couple of them escaped. My husband says they go out drinking at night and over the years only one has made it back safely. Every morning we find at least one or two fallen over. We only have one left and it is so faded you can't even tell what color his shirt is. I think I may have to buy some ceramic paint and get to work getting him back to his original colors.

It is such a nice day today. I actually wore sandals to work this week.

I had to just laugh to myself this week.

It's St. Patrick's day and I have a corn (corned) beef cooking int he crock pot. I didn't get a chance to pick one up until late morning today so we may have to wait until tomorrow to eat it. I love the smell, we have it simmering in two bottles of beer.

CARS

Today the daughter's car had to go in for service, regular maintenance, but they found a very small leak in the transmission. They said it didn't need to be fixed immediately. She has an extended warrant that is good for another 10,000 miles so she hopes to be able to get it fixed right before the warranty runs out and she doesn't want to do it right now because there is a $100 deductible. Fortunately for her they gave her a loaner.
My husband's old jeep is in for service too, apparently it needs hubs, whatever that means.
My husband saw an orthopaedic doctor today (why do they spell orthopaedic that way). He had to have cortisone shots put in each knee. I hope that helps with the pain. The doctor said he is bone on bone in his knees but not bad enough for knee replacements. Thank God. That would be one hell of an ordeal.
My daughter is into couponing. I had the experience of shopping with her today. Holy Cow! It takes forever. She has a binder with clear plastic inserts that would normally hold baseball cards, but in this case hold coupons and she has a section for each product line.......GEEZ! It took us for ever to get through the market. She usually does this shopping thing with her best friend on Sunday nights but was not able to go this past Sunday so I got stuck doing it with her on her day off.
I just baked three banana breads. I try to look for ripe bananas at the market every week and if they have some I try to bake a bread or two. I will probably bring one to work tomorrow.

60 DEGREES

It got to almost 60 degrees today but it felt a lot warmer. The sky was clear all day and so blue not a cloud in the sky.
We washed all the windows in the back room today. The room faces due south so you can really see how dirty they are at this time of the year when the sun is so bright. We took the screens off the windows and washed them with soapy water and a brush and even hooked the hose up. I can't believe it is only March 11th.
The wandering jew plant hanging in the windows in the back room really had a rough winter. Not that it was too cold because that room was a lot warmer than we thought it would be we we completed the additional last year. I think that room is probably better insulated then the rest of the house. The plant just didn't get water consistently enough and I think it just got too big. There were no leaves on the top and I think it was just to heavy to support itself. I gave it a good haircut and maybe it will come back but in the meantime I went to HD to get just a small hanging ivy. That will do until the weather gets warmer and there are more house plants in the garden centers, because there was not much to pick from in HD.

TREADCLIMBER UPDATE: We got the new treadclimber on Friday March 2. I got on it on Friday night and could not eve do one minute. On Saturday I tried again and again not one minute but that was with trying to work the timer. I forced myself to do two minutes on Sunday with a lot of huffing and puffing. I did two minutes every night this week and today I got on and was able to do three minutes with a 50% reduction in the huffing and puffing. I am a little more encouraged by this progress. I will do three minutes all week and see what happens on Sunday next week.

Daffodils

The weather here has been awesome. Very warm for this time of the year. Today will be a bit nippy, only around 30. The house across the street from us has Daffodils coming up already. I have never been able to plant any kind of Spring flower in my front gardens. My house faces due north. The sun never gets around far enough to hit the front of the house until right at June 21st and then it is time for it to start going back to it's winter position. I think the farthest right side of my house in the fron tnever sees the sun. I don't complain in the summer though when it is always shady on the front porch.


Yesterday I baked Banana Nut Bread and Boston Brown Bread. I can say that the Boston Brown Bread certainly comes out better baked int he coffee can like my mother use to do it. However we have gone from coffee cans to coffee sold in bags to single serve pods, no coffee cans found in this house. I don't think there even any left in my husbands shed, especially since most of the jun in the old garage was demolished and put in a dumpster with the falling down garage. Now the new shed doesn't have any junk in it


So anyway my four best friends are getting together for the birthday of one of them. She specifically asked for no gifts, I hate it when people do that. I got some beautiful gifts from them when it was my birthday. I know her and her husband enjoy my homemade breads so I baked the banana and brown bread for her.


I never ever dream about my parents, who have both passed. My dream last night included both of them. The dream itself was very vague, all I know is that they were both in it. A little upsetting for me, what are they trying to tell me


W got a B0flex Treadclimber. A very small piece of workout equipment. It is self propelled, not electric. Two seperate treadmills, one for each foot and as you are walking the individual treadmills go up and down to mimic stair climbing. It was very difficult for me to at first. My brain could not wrap itself around the motion. I finally got it after a couple of days of just practicing. Yesterday I did an entire two minutes. The directions said to start out at 5 minutes, I am that much more behind the curve. I will try to do three today, if not I will stick to two minutes for a couple of days.


Today I am going to try to be better about my sugar/carb intake.


A bowl of oatmeal with a few raisins for breakfast.

SNOW

It finally snowed!!!! The bad thing is that it snowed, the good thing is that it is March and this pile of snow is not going to stick around very long. The bird feeder has so much snow on the roof that the shepard's hook is bending.
I had two invites today to go out. One with my daughter and one with a good friend that I consider my second daughter. I don't know who will want to venture out in the snow first.
I got called from my old job yesterday. They call occassionally to ask me to fill in for a sick person or to help out with my old job. I worked from 1-4:30.
The snow is fally in large flakes right now, really beautiful. It is also sticking nicely to the trees and bushes. I guess it is nice to have things looking white instead of the ugly brown for a while.

SNOW?????

I had dinner last night with my good friend/my daughter's godmother. We don't see each other as much as we did when our children were little. Her daughter just got married so she shared some pictures. We didn't attend it was a very small wedding in Virginia. Her daughter's second marriage...........the first was a disaster, with him leaving her for another women early into their marriage. Devastating........I don't know how my friend did it...........her daugher lived hundreds of miles away from her at the time. I would have been besides myself with worry and pain for my daughter. Her daughter had a good job and good friends where she lived so she got through it fairly well.
It's going to snow today..........so they say.......another threat, same as all winter, we will see about this one.

LAZY CATS

These are my two lazy good for nothing cats basking in the sun. Buddy on the left and Bella on the right. Or Belly and Budda.

A beautiful sunny day today but a bit cool. They are calling for snow tomorrow into Thursday but I will believe it when I see it.

I think I need to get a job. I never though I would be saying those words. The entire time from age 15 until age 55 I have been saying I can't wait to retire. Now I am retired.

Teenage years..........I don't want to work I want to be able to hang with my friends.

Twenty's........I don't want to work I want to stay out late and sleep late.

Thirty's........I don't want to work I want to be a stay at home mom.

Forty's.........I don't want to work I want to be home when my child gets home from school.

Fifty's.........I don't have time to work I am taking care of a family and two sick parents and emptying the home I grew up in after my mother died........emptying out my father's smaller apartment when he died and then emptying out my brother's apartment and taking care of his estate after he died.

I didn't have time to work all those years but I did and I don't know how I did it. Now I have time to work and I am retired...........there is something wrong with this picture. Now I am not a teenager, a young adult, a mother to an infant, a mother to a teenager, a care giver to sick parents and a brother. I am a person with a lot of time on my hands. I want a job where I can get up early and get to work by 7......work for about four hours and be home by noon. I reason to get up and dressed in the morning, Where does one find a job like that.

Also, I have always been employed in a job that was "a good choice"; a job with good benefits, a job where I could work only when my daughter was in school; a job in a nursing home where my father was a resident. Now I want a job that I love and have fun at. Since money is not an issue this should be easy......right?