April...Right?

It was gusty and windy the other day and I kept saying "Doesn't it sound like March outside?"  Usually it's just the day I've got wrong but this time it was the month.  For whatever reason, that day I was sure it was April and it's taken me nearly all week long to realize that it's still March.  I think my thoughts just rushed ahead of the end of March to start planning April and stayed there!

All my planning thus far has been mental.  Now it's time to get my thoughts down in writing and make my goals for the month.

The Week Ahead: Nobody's April Fool

I know full well that I work best with a list of goals and a series of projects.  I finished my March list up rather quickly since I couldn't get outdoors.  The pollen has not decreased any but apparently the particular pollen producer that really hits me has stopped producing so I'm finding I can spend some time outdoors without feeling my head is packed with cotton and my ears are imploded.  I'm planning to be outdoors at least a little this week, weather permitting.  I have one more flower bed to finish weeding and a lot of digging and pruning and clearing to be done.

The Week Behind: One Day At A Time

Saturday:  John off to work.  I barely kissed him.  Truth told, this lady was dead tired, slapped off the alarm and went back to sleep so hard I never heard John shower or leave the room, nor did I make him breakfast, etc.   Bless the man he meant for me not to wake but it isn't in him to NOT say goodbye.  It was his whispered "See you later" that shook me awake and I got up long enough to inspect the lunch bag he'd packed.  The lunch basket in the fridge is such a blessing to us!  I used to have his lunch scattered all over, a bit here and a bit there, wherever it would fit.  Designating a basket for John's lunch items and nothing but his lunch items means he can pack his bag as easily as I can.  I kissed him goodbye and was sent promptly back to bed.  I doubt I was awake long enough for him to make it to the end of the first drive.

Up about 10am and on a fast run.  I'd planned and meant  to have Taylor this weekend.  Katie had meant to pick her up but under the circumstances it wasn't happening, so I got ready to go pick her up and together we drove to meet up with M and get Taylor.

The Week Ahead: One Day Only

Just arrived to discover that not only am I behind times posting this post, but I apparently never sent out last Friday's post.  And what a lot went on from Friday through today!

So literally this week, I am not really planning anything except to take each day as it comes.  Here's what I know to be facts this week:

The Week Behind: In Which I Wait

Saturday:  John must work tomorrow so I put a corned beef into the crockpot last night before we went to bed and turned it off this morning when I got up.  I let it cook all night long from about 11p until 7a on low.  It turned out so tender and lovely!  I seldom cook meat that long even though that is what the crock pot/slow cooker is meant to do. I'm certainly going to consider doing more of this low and slow cooking in the future.  I was able to cut it by simply pressing the knife against the grain of the meat.  I steamed cabbage wedges atop the potatoes I was cooking.  And that was our  Irish dinner today.  I kept it very simple.  It was delicious.

Coffee Chat: Almost Spring

Hello all.  We shall not sit outdoors with our coffee.  It's a little cool yet, though I dare say you northern girls would feel it was downright balmy.  Never mind, the pollen is thick yet outdoors and John's mowing will only make me sneeze twice as hard.  Grass smells so very good to me but...ACHOO!  

I was outdoors this morning, very early, well before 9am because John had called to say he was running later than usual in coming home.  I figured while the air was heavy with dew I'd just go right on outdoors to pull some weeds.  I got the bulk of the ones from the back flower bed and pots pulled up.  I'm calling myself done with those though you can see a few very tiny weeds here and there.  I need to put out fresh mulch.  It is looking rather thin.  And so the list of outdoors jobs for the coming months is growing and growing.  Just so is it each Spring.

The Week Ahead : It's All Up Hill From Here

There is so much to do outdoors that I am itching to get at it.  Mind you, if I did, I'd be itching for sure!  The pollen counts have been in the HIGH range for the past few days.  But oh how my spirit says "Get outdoors and get things painted, planted, spruced up..."  Well I might do the weeding and the planting but painting is futile until pollen is done.  And I can only do what I say I might if I shower immediately after.  

Mama and I were out the other day and drove through a great cloud of yellow pollen that stretched across the roadway.   Shortly after, Mama complained that her eyes and nose itched.  I got rather snuffly myself and had a slight headache.  

The Week Behind: Blooms!

Saturday:  I rolled out of bed this morning at 6:45.  It was daylight enough to clearly see that morning had broken.  I don't typically get up quite that early but I knew that this was my last daylit morning for a few weeks to come, so I got up and enjoyed it.   I tell you truly that my most favorite hour of the day is the early hours of daylight, sitting near the window in the kitchen with my Bible and first cup of coffee.   It's not half so appealing when it's dark out the window and that's fact.

Sweet Violets

So many of you have commented on the new wallpaper I put up last week.  It makes me smile.

I've always loved violets for as long as I can remember.  I think I first read of them in one of Louisa May Alcott's books.  Was it in Little Women or An Old Fashioned Girl?  I'll lay odds it was the latter book, as I loved it long before I grew to appreciate the virtues of Little Women.

The Week Ahead: Spring Songs

The birds are chirping, the peepers continue to peep and soon the frogs will be booming and the crickets humming.  Typically, this week marks the last frost of our year.  According to the weather app on my phone, our frosty mornings are over.    I won't be rushing right outdoors to plant (pollen is too high for that anyway) because the soil must begin to warm, but it's definitely the time to start thinking of our summer pots and any other flowers I'd care to plant.

The Week Behind: A Prudential Home

Saturday:  Sent John off to work in the usual manner.  He was surely not happy about this constant cycle of work, come home to lethargy, cram in everything into 14 waking hours and then going back to work...and who can blame him.  He must feel a great deal as though he's got on the hamster wheel and can't get off.

A Few of My Most Favorite Purchases - January/February

I thought I'd share another of my posts for favorite purchases. I honestly thought I'd bought a great deal more over the last two months but my credit card history and my Amazon orders list tell me differently.  Here are the few items I think are worth mentioning for the past two months:

Marcelle Micellar Water

Coffee Chat: In Between

Hello dears.  Come in and let us have a chat.  Have some coffee.  It's certainly a little brisk outdoors and coffee would be good.  Not cold as my more northern neighbors judge it,  but our weather is cold for us, despite the sunshine.  It's that brisk wind that is the undoing of the sun's warmth.

But just look out the window at how high the weeds have grown and how they are dancing in that wind!   John did say on Monday that it was getting time to mow.  I just hate to even think on it because of his time at home on his two days off, that means that 1/4 of his day off will be spent mowing if it continues to rain regularly through the coming warm months.  Last year he had to cut lawn twice a week.  One neighbor was mowing this morning when I stepped out to feed the dogs and I can hear a mower humming somewhere near even now.  Yes, it's the season for it in our area.

The Week Ahead: Prudence

 

“As we have been continuously counseled for more than 60 years, let us have some food set aside that would sustain us for a time in case of need. But let us not panic nor go to extremes. Let us be prudent in every respect.”
Gordon B. Hinckley

I found the above quote on Frugal Measures blog for last week.  It's the last part of the little blurb that really hit me had "But let us not panic nor go to extremes.  Let us be prudent in every respect."  There are times when I worry about what I'm not doing with my pantry/freezer storage, and there are times when I feel very much that I am okay where I am, that much more would feel like hoarding, something which I very much do not want to do.  I want to be able to reasonably use my food storage to carry us over tight spots and rough patches, or to carry a family member over such spots, but I confess that in watching those extreme couponing shows I shy away hard at the number of items people with small families stockpile.

The Week Behind: Marching On

Saturday:  A very easy day at home.  It was cooler than it was on Friday and we sort of shivered a bit, but we did not turn the heat a bit higher.  It wasn't deeply cold indoors (nor out) and we found a jacket or throw over our legs soon warmed us nicely.  I am too well aware of that extra on the electric bill to want to turn up heat and besides, just yesterday the AC ran off and on from morning to evening and likely will run at some point next week as well.  This is the in-between season for us.