Welcome Back

Let's see if I can remember how this blog machine works.

I did something new last week: got poison oak.  I do not recommend it.  I will post a photo so you can avoid the same fate.  Leaves of three, let it be.  I mean it.

Last night I watched 3 episodes of Madmen with my friend Winfree.  She has the netflix.  I think netflix is a wonderful idea, but I am sure the Woody's would find a way to lose money and DVDs and probably never watch anything.  But I digress from Madmen.  Which is a good thing in my opinion.  I can think of 3 words for this show:  awful, awful, awful.  It fails as a comedy; it fails as a drama.  It fails as a documentary.  Sheesh, it even fails as a mockumentary. Fail, fail, fail.  So that's one less thing for us to order if we ever get the netflix.

I have been enjoying the republican presidential candidate parade of fail.  Are they joking?  Someone could make a great TV show about these clowns and their "advisors" and all the drama that must go on each day as they prepare to go out on the world stage and make total idiots of themselves.  Do they practice?  Or does asinine behavior come naturally?  I think it would be marvelous if they just never settled on a candidate and we avoided the whole tedious and exhausting ordeal of a presidential campaign.  Think how pleasant that would be.  Maybe all the money normally spent of the presidential race could be donated to Planned Parenthood.  That would be my vote.

On the gardening front, my yard looks pretty good.  I have been paying Lawn Doctor to make my grass look decent and that's paying off.  I hate like heck to spend money on grass but it looked so awful last year it pained me to see it.  All of my various flower beds look nice.  My nectarine tree is drooping with a heavy load of what look like peaches to me.  I am going to have to time the harvest very carefully if we are to keep the squirrels and birds from stripping the tree.  I may have to call in sick to work for several days while I maintain a nectarine vigil.  I'll post a photo of the tree.

And, you'll be happy to know that we continue to clean up our frightening collection of crap.  I'm afraid we will end up on that show Hoarders if we don't do something about it.  I visit the Goodwill nearly every weekend.  If you were to come into our house right now and look around, you'd think I was lying about removing stuff.  So don't come in and look around, OK?  Just go right in the kitchen.  Stay there.  Get something to eat or drink.  Read the paper.  

And avoid the poison oak over at the dead-end.  Trust me on this.

 Don't touch it.  Don't mow it.  Don't make eye contact.  Back away from the poison oak and no one gets hurt.

Mother's Day Musings

Happy mother's day to all mothers, past, present, and future.

It's early here at the nest, and I'm enjoying the bird sounds, and the lush green of my yard after a night of rain.  The washer is washing, doing its duty just as I told it to, so that's a good thing.  Later the dryer will dry, also following my instructions.

Later I am going over to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and strip leaves off of trees.  This will be a fun outdoor activity, and after I'll be able to tell people that I stripped on mother's day.

I'm feeling kind of melancholy and need to shake that off.  I am blessed with 3 excellent sons so melancholy on mother's day is pretty ridiculous.  Maybe I feel unneeded.  Maybe I miss my mother.  And Paul's mother too.  Raising children is a 24 hour job for 18 years, then they all take off (thank goodness) for their own lives.  And that's what we want, independent, self-sufficient off-spring.

I think the solution to my melancholy problem is that I need to think more like a man.  

I'll get right to work on that.