Flowers

I've been holding on to these pictures thinking that I'll sit down and actually write something sometime, but it just isn't happening. Too much going on, yet nothing worth writing about, really. But in any event, more pictures of the poppies:

And buds getting ready to bloom (and which may already have bloomed, by now):

A lone strawberry plant that I think must have been planted by a bird:

And a little deutzia bush that my mom sent me home with last summer, and which never got planted, and is now blooming in its pot:

Oh, and the Gerbera daisy on my desk. Kristi bought a cute, tall, skinny vase for her desk with a daisy in it, and said she'd pick one up for me if I wanted. So I gave her the money, and she came back with a lovely hot pink glass vase and this cool pink daisy (now beginning to wilt).

I went to the nursery Sunday afternoon and bought a couple of Gerbera daisies (decided to try to grow my own!), three geranium plants for the front porch, some ground cover with tiny white flowers that I can't now remember the name of, and a peony! I've wanted a peony forever, and my mother has said that she'll give me a start of one, but we've just never done it. They were fairly inexpensive for once ($19.99), and there was a wonderful pale pink one that I couldn't resist. It has two big blooms on it now, and one bud, so hopefully it will continue blooming over the summer.

Of course, as soon as I bought the flowers (and Sunday it was hot!), it turned cold and rainy, and it's been like winter again this week. So the flowers are in the garage, waiting for a warm weekend to do the planting. Just as well, really, since by the time I get home in the evenings, it's too late to do much of anything. Hopefully next weekend will be nice and I can get them in the ground or in larger containers.

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Windows

To an indoor cat, windows must seem strange. There's a whole other world out there that they are seldom allowed out in -- they only get out when they have to go to the vet, or when they slip out through the open door if we aren't vigilant enough. So it must seem so strange to them to see the squirrels and birds and rabbits and other cats, and to smell the outside air, and maybe not really understand it.

It's turned into Spring here, and we have the windows open as often as possible. And if the windows are open, the cats are sitting in front of them, night and day. In the daytime, there's the added benefit of a shaft of sunlight to stretch in.

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The birds

I took these pictures last weekend, through the living room window, so they're not very sharp, but I wanted to see if I could get a picture of the finches at the birdfeeder. Seeing the little finches makes me very happy. I have two finch feeders, and when I took the picture, both feeders had birds at all four of the perches. This one had three goldfinches and one purple one. I mostly get the gold ones; my mother says she gets almost all purple ones. I love them.

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Rules

I just got in from using the leafblower in the backyard. Bob had raked and picked up leaves several times this fall, but there were still a lot up against the fence, and since things are starting to come up, I figured I'd better get rid of them. We're supposed to have a big thunderstorm tonight, and I didn't think it would be nice to run the leafblower on Easter Sunday, so I decided to do it tonight.

Bob saw me struggling with it (I hadn't used it since the Fall, and it's kind of awkward and hard to remember how to put it all together), and came out with the rake and raked up a couple of bags of leaves while I vacuumed. Then he got out the ladder cleaned out the gutter, and we came in to wait for the storm. He's going to fry fish tonight--he went fishing yesterday and came home with a bag of fillets. He always cleans it before he comes home--that was one of our rules when we got married: he can bring home all the fish he wants, but I don't clean it, or cook it.

We don't have a lot of rules. Don't go to bed mad is a big one. I'm supposed to never run out of toilet paper, lightbulbs, trash bags or . . . there's something else, I think, but I can't remember now what it is.

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Security blanket

I read in some knitting blog or other the other day how the writer always took her knitting with her to work, but she never knit on it at all, it was just her security blanket, so to speak. I wondered at the time whether the "I never knit on it at all at work" thing was the kind of thing we write to cover ourselves when we do non-work things at work (not that I ever do, of course!), but she was probably being honest.

I take my knitting to work, too, and almost never knit while I'm there, so the "security blanket" thing really hit home. That's exactly what it is for me. It's also my talisman against boredom. That's why I used to carry a book with me at all times--I've kind of gotten away from that, although I never go anywhere to eat by myself without one, or anywhere that I might have to wait. But back to the knitting--I will occasionally knit a couple of rows on my lunch time, but usually what I end up doing is reading blogs or answering email or something while I eat my lunch at my desk. So it's obviously kind of dumb to carry it back and forth, and I've been trying not to do it. So I didn't bring it yesterday, and I felt very light and free just carrying my purse into work yesterday morning.

But then Bob called around noon and said that we were expecting the mother of all thunderstorms in the afternoon, with possibly baseball-sized hail and tornadoes, and my first thought was, damn, what if we get stuck here and have to hole up for awhile or go to the basement--I didn't bring my knitting!

Nothing happened, though. By mid-afternoon, the weather forecasters were saying that the storm would hit in the evening, so Bob asked me to come right home and then follow him over to the mall, where he wanted to park his van in the covered parking area in anticipation of the hail (only one car fits in our garage, and while I suppose we could put his in it, and leave mine outside since I have full coverage insurance, I still don't want to risk getting it damaged), then I could bring him home. I got home quickly, and when I came into the house, he was ready to go. I grabbed my knitting, though. When he looked at me oddly, I said it was just in case the storm hit while we were out and I ended up having to sit it out in the parking lot. At least I would have something to do.

But that storm failed to materialize, too. Around 9:00 they took the storm out of the forecast, so we drove over and retrieved his car. I didn't take my knitting this time.

And honestly, the thing about not carrying a book with me anymore? I may not have an actual book with me at all times, but I always have my Palm Pilot, loaded up with a couple of ebooks and several short stories. So I'm set.

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Levitation

When I went up to the bedroom to get dressed to go to work this morning, Dinah was working in my drawer again. I so wished that I had had the camera with me--the wide-eyed guilty look was just priceless! I kind of wanted to see her finish what she was going, though, so I didn't yell at her, and I stopped and watched. She was standing on top of my dresser, reaching into my underwear drawer, pulling out underwear and flinging it everywhere. There was a pile of underwear on the floor, and several individual items hanging off the corners of the drawer.

She worked, and worked, and worked, and when she had enough of it out, she squeezed herself into the drawer and disappeared down the back of the dresser behind the drawer into the drawer beneath. Which explains why the bottom of that drawer was broken. Bob told me I was overloading the drawers, and while I admited that was probably true, that particular one wasn't. However, I hadn't taken into account the eleven pound cat.

Bob was taking a shower, and I went in and made him open the door and look at what she was doing, and he admitted that he had left the drawer open an inch or so to see what she would do--he must have left it slightly open the other morning, too, after he had put the laundry away. He said he watched her notice that the drawer was open, and jump straight up from the floor to the top of the dresser--about a five foor vertical leap. Then she pushed the drawer open and started digging things out and throwing them to the floor.

Once she accomplished her goal of clearing out enough space to get into the drawer, I was curious to see how she was going to get out. I stood there for a few minutes, and pretty soon, she stuck her head out, looked around, and popped out. In this case, I suppose the end result wasn't as exciting as she had hoped.

I didn't accomplish much this weekend, but I did go to Kohl's and try on about a hundred pairs of jeans. Or maybe it was about ten, but it seemed like a hundred. I bought one pair of jeans, and one pair of capris, and I'll probably go back and get another pair of jeans. They're lighter denim than I'm used to, but consequently they're more comfortable, and I could use some lighter ones for summer anyway.

I don't know why jeans are so difficult. I have absolutely no idea what size to even try on anymore. These are smaller than the last ones I bought, but larger than the ones before that, and they all still fit. Of course, they're all different brands. And once I find a brand/size that fits perfectly, of course they stop making them. Which is why I'd probably better go back and get one more pair before they're discontinued.

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