A Busy Day, a Pleasant Evening

I'm not the only one who planted flowers this weekend. I came to work today to see the flower beds around our office planted with begonias and vinca. Those daylilies behind this bed of begonias will be in bloom in another few days. Someday I won't work at this office again, but I'll always remember how attractive the whole complex is. New flowers in the beds every season. In nice weather, I park outside this courtyard and walk past this fountain and under trees into our office. At lunchtime, sometimes I walk through the courtyard and around two buildings, just to get a little fresh air and a stretch in the middle of the day.

Today I really needed it. I went from one e-mail to the next literally all day long and got through a long list of assignments, correspondence, and recruiting. Much of it was stuff that needed to be done several weeks ago; this is the situation in which I always move mountains. There's a theory about two styles of getting work done: there's the marathon runner (that's Evelyn and Jennifer) and the sprinter (that's me). Today I sprinted.

This evening was relaxing. Piddled around outside: trimmed a bush, sprayed Round-Up on weeds, transplanted a miniature rose from Valentine's Day into a planter for the patio. Swept off the deck. Stood in the driveway and savored dusk, my favorite time of the day.

Evelyn and I watched one of her favorite TV shows, "Bones." We recorded it at 8:00 and started watching it before 9:00. Since we zoomed through the commercials, it was finished by 9:45, and after channel surfing I came across the last 10 minutes of "Father of the Bride." It's a sentimental, nostalgic, warm movie which I've seen at least twice before. I wasn't ready for the way it made me puddle up. Oh boy, it's going to be a great six weeks! :-)

What Did You Do for Mother's Day?

Here's what WE did:
Went to church.
Ate breakfast for lunch. (Even Marie's Scrambler was packed with a Mother's Day crowd. I sometimes cook for Mother's Day lunch to avoid the lines and the wait, but this weekend there just wasn't time to shop and prepare.)
Cleaned the garage amid a steady rain outside, which required moving stuff from one side of the garage to the other or taking the stuff outside to sit in the rain while we cleaned the inside.
Used the neighbor's power-washing machine to hose off the floor. ("Power" and "washing" are two words that, when put together make Evelyn weak in the knees.) The contraption made me weak in the arm. (I had forgotten that you have to turn the fuel knob from "off" to "on" before pulling the cord to get the motor running. I had worked up quite a sweat and stripped off my rain slicker before I read the fine print on the little sticker on the engine and remembered the neighbor had told me about the red knob.)
Batted at a small bird that had enough sense to fly into the garage out of the rain, but not enough sense to fly back out through the open garage door or windows we opened to entice him with the wet wonders of the great outdoors. It was a little entertaining to see him ride the chain on the electric garage door opener pulley from the front of the garage to the opener, the first couple of times he did it. We madly opened and shut the door hoping he'd get flustered enough to fly out. But he just perched on the garage door rigging or fluttered around at the white walls and ceiling or sat on the open garage door in the small space it created beneath the ceiling.
Left the garage door open, hoping he'd fly out.
Went to the grocery store to get tomato soup for supper and spaghetti sauce for Monday's dinner. Picked up some bird seed while I was there.
Put away groceries while Evelyn talked to Jennifer on the phone. Shut and opened garage door to see if bird was still there. He fluttered around the ceiling but didn't bother to ride the door-opener pulley.

Snapped these pictures of Mother's Day helium balloons
crowded at the ceiling above the floral department
at Kroger's. Even at 3:00 in in the afternoon, confused
fathers and grade school daughters were mulling through
a bounty of flowers (and balloons!) trying to redeem the
day. I didn't buy a flower or a balloon.

Rigged up the bird feeder on a shepherd's crook (usually used for a hanging basket) at the edge of the driveway straight in front of the open garage door. Figured our visitor must be getting tired and maybe a little hungry.
Heard Evelyn's report from her Internet research. "Just leave the garage door open for two or three hours. The bird doesn't want to be in the garage any more than you want him there." Didn't bother to ask how this web poster knows that.
Retreated to the inside in frustration. Tried to concentrate on the Christian Standard proof I was reading while wondering if we'd need to re-clean the garage floor after a nervous, frustrated bird had been roosting in the rafters for the whole afternoon.
Talked with Geoff on the phone.
Checked outside, after two or three hours. The bird had either left or found a place to hide from us overnight.
Did some Christian Standard editing with a clear mind.
Apologized to Evelyn for being grumpy much of the afternoon.
Made little crostini to eat with our tomato soup.
Enjoyed "Sixty Minutes," supper, and the knowledge that this is a Mother's Day we probably won't forget.

It Happens Just Once Each Year

Christmas comes but once a year, and generally we anticipate it from one December till the next. It's an annual happening to look forward to.
I look forward to planning and planting the garden each year too. But not so much with one annual task that always comes in the spring: mulching the flower beds.
This year I'm not doing as much as some years. But nevertheless, this weekend I've bought 19 bags of Scott's Nature Scape black mulch, and last night and today, I opened and spread 18 of 'em. My back is sore. My hands are stained black. The front flower beds look pretty nice, and the side one by the air conditioner too.
We ate dinner with Bill and Verna Weber at Bronte Bistro at Joseph-Beth this evening; they wanted to get together before Verna leaves for New Zealand tomorrow for a 17-day trip. (This is to make up for the trip she aborted earlier this year when her mom went to the hospital while Verna was en route to LAX on the first leg of her journey.) So I was racing against the clock to reach my goals today, and I did pretty well. Even got the pots on the patio planted. I'll see what I think of them when I look again in the morning.
It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but Evelyn borrowed the neighbor's power washer for us to use to clean the garage. Happy Mother's Day!

I bought this beautiful caladium this week when I was Garden Galloping with the group from church. (Read all about it here.) I've put it in a hanging basket outside our dining room window under the birch clump in the front of the house. We'll enjoy watching it grow in the shade.

60 and Counting

Friday's the perfect day for a party, and today at work we celebrated publishing 60 editions of Standard Lesson Commentary. We gathered in our conference room, Inspiration Station, for trivia questions, prizes, "Happy Birthday," and cake (above), cupcakes, and other snacks. Standard Lesson Commentary is the most popular annual Bible commentary in the world; it's continued success is really something to celebrate!

Before we cut the cake, the current staff producing our Standard Lesson Commentary materials posed for a picture: Jon Underwood, Margaret Williams, and Ron Nickelson.

After work, I stopped by Home Depot and bought mulch and compost. Then this evening, I spaded, tilled, planted, and mulched the front flower bed at the left of the front door. Evelyn was at Seminary graduation at CCU. Tomorrow she'll be at graduation for the college, and I'll be doing more digging, mulching, planting, and trimming. I've got about a week's worth of yard work to do. We'll see how much I get done during the day tomorrow! Watch for pictures.

Catching the Vibe

Something different for lunch today. A healthy shake at Vibe Nutrition in Loveland. Robb Faust took us after Sarah Mitchell had invited him to have the Vibe experience several weeks ago. The shakes are good--available in about 10 or 12 different flavors, full of protein, and only  225--or is it 250?--calories. It was tasty and filling. And it was a great day to stand in the sun on the Loveland Bike Trail and sip our shakes.

Robb took me, Sheryl Overstreet, and Abby Haynes (a new employee at CFM), and as you can see, we had fun!

Garden Gallop

Garden Gallop. That's what our seniors minister, Dave Lautzenheiser, calls the annual event I enjoyed with about 14 others today. It's simple. The church provides two vans and drivers and hauls seniors from the church to various garden centers in the area. The backs of the vans hold all the plants and other garden goodies the seniors buy. They get to see several places, some of which they might not have been to before. They don't have to drive. And they have fellowship along the way.
We visited at least 5 different spots today, maybe more. Stopped for lunch at a wonderful restaurant, Parker's Blue Ash Grill and Tavern, and ended the day at Graeter's in Mason.
I've gone with the group before because
a) I love to go to garden centers in the spring,
b) Dave's a buddy, and it's fun to go with him (and he likes me to come along in a largely female crowd), and
c) after all, I AM a senior citizen!  :-)
Usually, though, I look and look and don't do much buying. But I'm feeling the pressure of time this year, with some May travel and a June wedding in the future (accompanied by a LOT of company around that time), so I decided to buy as much as I could today. I came home with many plants. Interestingly, I stopped by Meijer on the way home to pick up something we needed, and I couldn't resist their garden center. I found several things to augment what I'd already bought--they had the same quality and much lower prices than several places we had visited.

Here's everything I bought, huddled on the back of the deck, ready to be planted in the next several days.

And here's the empty pots on my deck that will hold SOME of this blooming bounty. I'll certainly be showing this scene again, once the deck garden is complete.

While I was at it, I couldn't resist taking this picture of my lettuce garden, sprouting in a planter on the deck. Evelyn laughs at me every year when I try this. It's not like this will ever make a meal. But it IS fun to grow something we can eat!

I Never Had an English Teacher . . .

I never had an English teacher who brought peanut butter/peanut-butter-cup cookies on the last day of class, but my wife's students are a lot luckier than I was! 'Course, I'm pretty lucky, too, because a) she made extras for us (for me!), and b) she has more dough in the fridge to make another batch soon. Maybe you could call me the teacher's pet! (These are especially yummy, because there's a miniature peanut butter cup melted in the center of each one.)

Tomorrow is the final for Evelyn's 8:00 English class. Maybe the goodies will help them remember the good things of the whole semester.