A Tribute to Mother

Here are a few shots of one of the world's most wonderful women. Because she's traveling and I can't even CALL her today (sigh), hopefully she'll enjoy this photographic acclaim upon her return. Above, she is giving Julia a hug. I'm often told I strongly resemble my mother, and Julia, so perhaps they resemble each other too!
I like this pic - this is one of the many things my mother does well, effortlessly, joyfully, and with great pleasure. She loves flowers and has an eye for a graceful arrangement.
Ah, Tasha, my mother's devoted dog. Or perhaps I should say Mother is a devoted owner. Tasha's favorite spot is at my mother's feet.
I enjoy time with my parents. My mother is very young-at-heart, and getting younger by the day! She has amazing stamina for her age (which is NOT elderly yet, thank you!), and sometimes we family members forget, and dump more on her than we should.
And here she is with her #1 man - isn't this a lovely shot?
Happy Mother's Day, dearest. We all love you very much.

Goodness!

What a long, hot, exhausting day! Notice I did not say BAD. We got up on the early side, for a Saturday, and Adam got into the yard and started prepping the spot for the pool. This involved much shoveling, raking, leveling, reraking, releveling ... of sand. Then we had to dash to church for a put-in-the-church's-first-annual-community-garden party, complete with hot dog lunch and fun live music. We really had a crowd. We all got dirty, and some of the younger ones got wet, but we had fun. Add small doses of sun burn. Then we came back home, Adam hit the pool project again, but Anna and I headed to the mall for our annual bathing suit hunt. Well, for her it's a hunt. For me its a depressing, onerous proof of how fat I really am, as if I needed the whole fashion industry to design 27 bathing suits each year just to SHOW me this fact. Well, anyway, I did find one. It's not really cute, or flashy, or elegant. And it doesn't make me look thin. They don't make bathing suits with magical powers. But it fits, kind of, which is better than ALL the other ones I tried on.

The pool is filling with its 4000 gallons. My husband informed me that he's too tired to cook tonight, plus it's Mother's Day tomorrow. That means the kids will have hamburgers (it's handy to have a 17 year old who also is capable of burning a few patties), and Adam and I will go back to the yummy, cheap Chinese place. BTW, why do Chinese restaurants love to invert their nouns and adjectives? It sounds almost Spanish. We used to go to "Fortune Lucky" restaurant in Alabama. Now we go to "Dragon Golden." Strange. It's almost like they're advertising, "See? We're authentically Chinese! We have terrible grammar!"

Friday, at last

This weekend, Adam will put up the pool - yippee!! Of course, it'll be too cold to swim in it for a couple of weeks, I'm sure. Anyway, he and Peter are shoveling another load of sand onto the pool spot, so he can easily make it level. You don't want one of those easy-set pools to be even a LITTLE out of level. It quickly becomes an "easy-empty pool."

Here's a 'before' shot of my little ferns I transplanted a few weeks ago.
Look how much they've grown! They are happy in their new location.

Well, one week survived, 3 to go. This end-of-the-school-year business is grueling work, let me tell you. We've all been battling some odd assortment of colds/flu/allergies this week. We're doing our part to make Kleenex a thriving company.

A Wednesday miscellany

While Adam's mother was here, she and Peter worked a long, hot afternoon to clear out the dead wood and overgrown matter in this side border of our front yard. It was a ton of work, but they did a fabulous job. Hopefully some of the healthy bushes now have a chance!!
Here's another view of the same border, further along.
The 3 younger kids watched a movie last night, sitting on the couch. They're watching it on a laptop - a "play it now" movie from Netflix. In the next few years, I imagine this will become the main way we watch movies/shows - online, when we want, what we want. Makes sense.

Blah

I would be happy to post a nice photo or two for you, but then I'd have to get up off the couch. ha. I've had a cold for the past 3 days, and I just feel blah. No, perhaps worse than blah -- I think this might be "bluh." But it's not the flu, so that's something to be thankful for. Still, I've gone to work both days, and that does not allow for much recovery time.

I never vacuumed over the weekend.

The kitchen is a minor wreck.

The ants are invading the bathroom.

Did I mention the dirty floors?

This is the time during the school year when we teachers just put our heads down, refuse to look at which day of the week it is, much less which day of the month, and PLOW FORWARD TO THE END. That's my survival strategy.

And, hey, I signed my contract for next year, so I have another whole year of employment and paychecks! Yay!

I did survive

I went to my parents' church for a ladies' luncheon on Saturday, and gave my testimony to a roomful of dear ladies, many of whom are old, treasured friends. We had a lovely time, but I was very nervous, and I'm glad that it's over! The Lord was gracious, and gave me the words to say, with only a few awkward spots. I love you, Cornerstone ladies!

Adam in his garden

Our whole yard is his garden. In this shot you can see 3 different terrains: the grass he planted last summer, the earth recently overturned with compost in it, and the dark compost he just spread.
Here's a close-up of the soft fescu grass. Soon, it will all look like this!
But before it can be beautiful, he digs it all up with a shovel and overturns it, adding compost. That's hard work.
This lovely dark gold came free from the landfill. It's lovely. Adam has to dig it all in. It's no wonder his arms are so strong.
Here is another section he's working on; it stretches from our backdoor, around the azaleas toward the pool location. And speaking of the pool, it will be going up next week, Lord willing! I'm afraid we'll drag it out, and find that mice have chewed holes in it, or something. Let's hope not!