Flowers

Amy and I did get to the new greenhouse this afternoon. It’s called Plant and Grow and is a smaller mom and pop type of place. They still had plenty of greenhouses to look through. The plan was to not do any extra pots this year in an effort to save some water and I had written down what I wanted : 2-4 coleus and enough colorful flowers to fill the rest of my little space, allowing for 1 impulse item. 

How did I do? Well…. I did ok. I got Shasta daisies as my impulse buy and they went into a pot. I bought 2 new perennial shade plants that I put towards the back and then probably 1 six pack too many. There are A LOT of flowers in there. Of course, they don’t all survive or thrive. As for the coleus…I ended up with 6 of them. So 3 went in the flower bed where I was planning to put them and 3 in a pot. I just love them so much. They are probably my favorite plant, so bright and colorful. 

Seeing the flowers in my little garden makes me so happy. I love flowers! 

May!

I can't believe how fast the year is going. Month five already? 

I am ready to plant flowers. We had some good rain Sunday and Monday and my flower garden soil was so nice and wet. I got in there this week with a shovel and dug out the vine/plant that keeps growing. Hopefully, I got a lot more of the roots. Now it wants flowers. So probably a trip to a greenhouse this weekend. My sister knows of a new one we've never been to. I also want to do a little spring cleaning and clean my windows. The goal is to get up tomorrow and not be so lazy in the morning. 

Last night as I was driving home from water aerobics, it started to rain on my car. It was one of those weird, spotty rains that comes down in one particular place and only lasts a few minutes. Because of the clouds and the sun and the rain, I saw the most beautiful rainbow. It was so vibrant and pretty. I do love this time of year. 

Indie Book Day

Saturday was Indie Bookstore Day. I went with my sister and the twins. Even if I had gone by myself, I knew I wouldn't get that many stores in, so I did not print the map for the book crawl. And that's ok and we totally had fun. I got a couple books for the twins and a couple books for myself. I had a list of books that I wanted to purchase, hoping that would make me not impulse buy a bunch of books, but I didn't need to worry. It was too crowded and I was distracted with the kids so I didn't do a lot of browsing on my own.

Our first stop was The King's English in SLC. I only get there about once a year or less and it's just so much fun. Lots of people there and the space is small so we spent most of the time in the kids section. I did find a book on my list and got a few things for my sister-in-law's birthday. 

Then we went to Weller Bookworks in the old Trolley Square Mall. Even if there's not many retail shops in there any longer, it's still a fun, old building. I did not find anything I wanted to buy in there, but my sister got a few books. I did find a store with stationary and fancy soaps so I finished my sister-in-law's gift shopping. 

We took a break and ate lunch at Liberty Park. It was such a nice day to be outside. 

After lunch and playing around outside, we started for home and made our last stops. The first was the Bountiful D.I. because the kids love going there and getting cheap toys. Then our final bookstore was The Book Garden. It's actually one of my favorites. Again it was busy and I didn't get to browse a lot, but I did get one more book and a candle. I want to go back there soon with a bunch of books I've purged from my library and see if they will buy them. You get store credit and I do like to shop there. 

And then we came home. It was after 5 when I got home so a very full day, and we didn't even get to the indies in our own city. It's ok and they are on my list and I will get to them eventually. 

And today I stayed home to work. I didn't sleep well, but also its raining and I'm loving sitting where I can see and hear the rain. Even if it got warm really fast a couple weeks ago, we've had a few cold days as well. Spring is really glorious. Maybe this coming weekend, I can finally plant flowers!

Today

So I spent this evening doing something out of my comfort zone. It’s no surprise the work makes me a bit grumpy at this stage of my life. I’m not trying to be mean on purpose, but sometimes I can come across that way, evidently. Well, someone at another division thought I was very helpful and has been very nice over Teams. She came to my state for a training and asked if I was able to meet up for dinner. 

Meeting people I don’t know for dinner is absolutely not something I want to do. But I gave myself a talking to and said yes. We don’t live close enough to have to become good friends or anything like that, but it is really nice to know someone in person and to be friendly with them when you have to work with them. A guy from an Arizona division was also at the meetings and needed someone to eat with so it turned out to be the 3 of us. I drove up to Logan and we went to a hibachi grill. 

The food was good, and we shared our table with a family with 2 young kids and it was a nice time. I didn’t feel like the conversation was too awkward and I ended up having a good time. Much better than I had hoped. So a lesson to me to try a little harder to be friendly and that it is ok to sometimes get out and do things I don’t want to do. 

The drive to Logan was stunning. It rained today and snowed in the canyon. The green and white contrast and the moody, cloudy sky was just amazing. I’m glad I went. 

Nice Weekend

It’s been a really nice weekend, after a kind of stressful week. I worked from home all last week since I had a bunch of training meetings at a bunch of different times. On Wednesday night I went to Barnes & Noble and bought some books I didn’t need. It was just nice to get out. For the first time since I started going to water aerobics, I decided not to go on Thursday only because I was tired. Turns out that was a good decision, since they called and said it was canceled. And by Friday afternoon, I walked to the gas station and bought a Dr. Pepper because I was stressed. I’m not going down that road again, so I told myself to enjoy it. But it was a really long week. 

As for the weekend, Friday night I went swimming with my sister and the twins. Then we walked down 25th street to get boba’s and stopped in a local chocolate store that I knew was there, but had never been in. I tried an orange caramel and then bought a couple of them dipped in chocolate. The dark chocolate dipped was my favorite. And now I think I need to get some orange flavoring since I love making raspberry caramels. Orange would be fun to try too. 

Then on Saturday we went to the library for their Earth Day activities. I got a packet of marigold seeds and a packet of ladybugs, which I took home and put on my outside plants. I haven’t planted flowers yet, but my few perennials are growing and I put them on those. Half of the ladybugs always die, but it’s fun anyway. For a few days, I can see ladybugs outside. It will be a few weeks still until I plant flowers. I mean, we got snow last week. I think the cold snaps are probably about gone, but I’ll wait just a little longer. I’m going to scale back even from last year, I think. I just don’t want to be using water on a lot of extra plants since we didn’t get much this winter. I could argue they are necessary for my mental health, but just filling in my flower bed gives me enough joy there. 

Saturday afternoon, I took my sister and the twins to the movie. I texted my brother too and he dropped off  my 9 year old nephew and a friend and I took them as well. We went to the Mario Galaxy movie, whatever it was actually called. I didn’t think it was great, but the kids had fun. Alex’s little friend can put away the popcorn. 😆 And after that, in the evening, my 21 year old nephew came over and made me watch The Amazing Digital Circus so that I can go to the movie with him when it comes out. Or comes out  again? Anyway, it was actually a lot better than I thought it would be. 

And today after church I made tacos for lunch/dinner and then a cinnamon loaf. I went up to my library and did a little purge project and dusted all the shelves. I have a nice pile to donate and I have some gaps in my shelves again. I’m sure they will fill up fast. This coming Saturday is indie bookstore day so my sister and I are doing a book crawl. It will be fun. I may give myself a budget though. Ha ha 

Ug, Adulting

I got up early this morning to get some stuff done. I got some of it done. Now I’m tired and I just spent almost $200 on gas and groceries. That’s so crazy. I paid tithing too so there went my paycheck. It’s fine. I have money and I’m blessed in a lot of ways by paying tithes and other offerings. I don’t mind that at all. But man, crap is expensive. I feel like I need to make another donation to the food bank or something because I shouldn't complain. At least my paycheck covers my expenses. It’s just horrible how many people struggle to get by. 

We’re getting a little rain today, which is really nice. And there’s a local indie bookstore doing a “re-opening” because they moved locations that I may stop by. I didn’t know they existed before this location so it could be fun to check it out. Or I can go sit in my library and read. Ha ha that will for sure be something I do today at some point. I did finally make it through the library books causing me anxiety and now I have a new stack to read. This year has been different from recent years in that I’m reading a bunch more library books (I even browsed the stacks for a bit the other day). Over half of my books read have come from the library. It’s early in the year, but still…

Yeah, maybe I’ll get some lunch and then go check out the bookstore. Then I can come home and get cozy, whether it keeps raining or not. I’m going to cook dinner and do some baking sometime this weekend. I’ve got buttermilk to use up. Baking does sound nice right about now.

Spring Break

Woke up this morning to thunder and lightening. And hail. It's been raining but now it's snowing. I'm sick so I guess its a good day to stay home. 

I got back last night from a trip with my sister and the twins. I will say it was a good trip in some ways, but it was also difficult. My nephew has autism with another disorder called PDA. He's such a cute little kid but he goes Jekyll/Hide all the time. He's in therapy and she's doing all she can for him, but that doesn't make it easy to deal with. So yeah, we had some hard times. But there were also good times. I don't want to stop doing stuff with them just because it's difficult at times. 

We flew into Seattle and stayed by the airport at first. We took the train into the city and explored Pike's Market the first day. Then we drove to the peninsula. One day we spent at a state park climbing over rocks and looking in tide pools. I love being on the water like that. It's one of my favorite places. I'm not a sit on the beach type of person, but I love walking and exploring along the water. 

Another day we spent some time in Olympic National Park. It was so beautiful and I want to go back one day.  Took a little walk along Crescent Lake. 

And also did the hike to Marymere Falls. 

It was about 1.5 round trip so not long and not hard. Perfect for kids. I loved just being in a green forest with pine, moss, and ferns. We also explored Port Townsend and Port Angeles. We would have liked to include a ferry ride, but just couldn't fit it in this trip. That's ok. We'll just have to go back!

I felt fine the entire trip, although did get a bit stuffy one night, but I didn't feel sick. Yesterday my nose started running a bit on the flight home but I still didn't feel bad. By the time I went to bed last night, I knew I was getting something. So now I'll just stay home til I feel like leaving. I did pick up a few groceries on the way home so I'm fine and happy to be home in my own bed.