April 14, 2015
I love spring, and I love flowers. Growing up, our yard was choc’ full of roses, flowering bushes, flowering trees, flowers, flowers, flowers. The lady who had built the house with her husband in the 1930’s became a good friend of ours, and she would show us around the yard naming variety after variety that she had carefully planted and tended for decades.
I always loved taking a big ol’ basket and some scissors and going around the yard picking and then arranging vases full of the beauties and setting them around the house. Unfortunately, I don’t do a whole lot of that these days. For one thing, our little bungalow doesn’t have many flowers. I’m working on it, but it takes a while to grow a yard full of flowers. And second, I just don’t really take the time.
Well, until a couple weeks ago. On Easter, mom asked me to go around the yard to pick some flowers for the table. ‘Twas glorious. Glorious to pick handfuls of flowers and still have plenty left.
A couple days later, I visited Lowes and loaded my cart with flowers and plants for the porch. Because, while I love and plant perennials, they just take too long to get established sometimes. A bungalow porch needs some annuals and geraniums and ferns, even though they won’t last until next year.
And then I visited Lowes again because I needed some of the hyacinths that filled the room with their smell. And fill the room they did. I did everything with those hyacinths while they lasted. I took them to work, I took them back home. I put them in the library, then the dining room. I included them in most of my Etsy shop photos that week. *sigh* They just smell so doggone good. Christy came over at that time and just held the pot of hyacinths and declared she wasn’t going to put them down.
But the hyacinths died, and I wasn’t at my parents’ to pick their great bounty of flowers. So, one night as The Man and I were out walking, I sneaked through the alley behind our neighbor’s house and grabbed a couple branches of lilacs.
She’s a nice lady, I’m sure she didn’t mind.
They smell just as good as the hyacinths.
And a girl’s gotta have her flowers, after all.
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April 10, 2015
Yesterday, I was on my way home from work. It had been cloudy earlier, but the sun was shining then, and the sky was SO BLUE, and the clouds were SO FLUFFY! It was beautimous. I had to stop and traipse through a field in high heels just to capture the moment.
That evening, The Man and I were going to go for a walk. We set out and made it about 1/2 block, but the wind was, well, it was Kansas wind. And it was a bit nippy, so I wimped out and said, “Let’s go for a drive in the country.” So we did.
Now, one might think, “Ack! Gas is so expensive! You can’t just drive aimlessly around for an hour. What a waste!” Well, we did, and it wasn’t. We drove and looked and talked and talked and talked. We drove until it was too dark to see anything. And, I figure that we spent about $5.00 in gas. Tell me a cheaper date than that.
People (including My Man) knock Kansas. Sure, it isn’t as impressive as other places, but when you have a chance to stop by the side of the road for beautiful sky pictures or to take a pointless drive in the country, you realize, “Eh, not such a bad place after all.”
January 26, 2015
The Man-of-My-Dreams and I celebrated our second anniversary yesterday. We both agreed that it has been the best two years of our lives, and, yes, I’m sure that most mushy, gushy couples say that. It just happens to be true.
Now, I sometimes wonder if I should worry that we’ve never done anything big for our anniversaries (all two of them). We travel and do exciting stuff other times, but when January 25 rolls around, it’s just kind of “Eh.” I see pictures of people going to Mexico or Hawaii and stuff for their anniversary. I told Caleb that I don’t want to never doing anything, but I say “I sometimes wonder if I should worry…” because it doesn’t bother me at all.
This month just happened to be also when we did our “no-spend month” (more on that later). But we did make an exception (gifts were already budgeted months ago, so that didn’t count). Our exception was $15 set aside so we could splurge on…Taco Bell. Hey, when you haven’t eaten out all month, Taco Bell is quite the treat.
I’m serious!
Since it was Sunday, we went to practice with our little Cherub Choir in the evening and then went to our much anticipated supper. Then we went to my (deserted) work to watch the last four episodes of The Amazing Race that we had missed. Yes, not only did we eat Taco Bell for our anniversary supper but we spent a free evening watching stuff on the internet at my work ’cause we’re too cheap to buy our own internet. (And, yes, my work allows it, no prob.) And for dessert, we ate Greek yogurt we brought from home. ‘Twas good!
Some might laugh, but I say it was one of the best dates we’ve had. Me ‘n’ My Man doing what we love…together.
January 16, 2015
So, currently we don’t have internet at home except for our phones. Actually, we’ve never really had internet at home. (Dark ages, I know.) I am at work all day, everyday, so most of the stuff that I need to do on the internet, I can do there. (And, yes, I have an awesome cool job that allows me to do stuff like that.) When Caleb needs the internet, which is rarely, he goes to the library or takes his laptop to work. (Yes, he has an awesome cool job where he can do that too.)
There is one exception, one tragic exception. For reasons unknown, my work has blocked Pinterest access. And adding pins from your phone is just plain, silly and annoying. So, whenever I come across something pin-worthy, I add it to a very long list in an email draft. It’s been quite a few months this has been going on, and it’s a very.long.list.
So, last night, My Man was out with some friends, so I decided to go to the library and Pinterest away. I grabbed some coffee from Starbucks (yes, our library is very bring-your-coffee-and-sit). Aaaaaaah, it was heaven. Seeing all those pretty pictures. I actually call Pinterest “work” because it’s ideas, recipes and generally good advice that we actually use day to day for remodeling, cooking, switching to natural beauty products and such. But it is anything but work.
Photo credit: Starbucks
And that brings me to the people watching part of the title. Have you been to the library computer lab lately? Maybe it’s just people in general, and I should get out more, but MAN, people are WEIRD. I mean W.E.I.R.D. It didn’t bother me, no, not by a long shot. It amused me greatly as I sipped my coffee and pinned on Pinterest. Listening to conversations between people and conversations of people to themselves. It’s almost as good as people watching at Walmart!
Needless, to say, I enjoyed my time very much. I think this library computer thing might become a habit.
January 12, 2015
OneDailyBlessing 