I Couldn't Wait One More Minute...

... for it to get warmer so this morning I took myself to the garden center to buy plants to plant in the bales... and some flowers for a few pots... and a couple hen and chicks for Dad's old work boots that sit on the front porch... oh, and one hanging basket, but that was all.  Really.  I bought a Sweet 100 tomato plant, a patty pan (summer) squash plant, a butternut (winter) squash plant, 2 heirloom purple kohlrabi plants, a cilantro plant, and a 6-pack of romaine lettuce plants.  I hurried home, put them on the patio and went off to the Y for my session with T-the-trainer where I spent a lovely, sweaty half-hour pushing and pulling and lifting and squatting.  I also bought 10 more sessions because working out with a trainer makes me feel great and I'm willing to keep paying for it.

Just across the street from the garden center is a very nice shoe store and my knitting friend KW told me a couple weeks ago that next door to the very nice shoe store is a clearance outlet for that store.  Sooo, I might have stopped in for just a few minutes between the garden center and home this morning.  I also might have bought a pair of red leather Birkenstocks.  I love red shoes.  I also looked at a pair of Klogs in black patent with red starbursts on them that I might have to go back to try on.  On. Sale.  Those are two very powerful words.  Red. Shoes. Are pretty powerful too.



The surprise hanging plant that I bought is a Mosquito Plant.  I carefully read the tag to make sure that the plant repelled skeeters, not attracted them.  It does.  It's a kind of citrus-smelling geranium (maybe also called citronella) so I dug out some metal gutter hooks that I got from Mom ages ago (that Durwood wouldn't let me use) and hung it right by the patio table.  Here's hoping it works because if it ever gets warm enough I'd like to spend time on the patio eating meals, reading the paper, that sort of thing.

I was sitting knitting at around 6 o'clock when it occurred to me that I might as well plant my garden.  So I did.  I even dug out an old length of chicken wire and fixed it around the lettuce plants so they have a fighting chance of not being immediately eaten by marauding rodents and certain fuzzy, long-eared, hopping mammals.  And by the way, I do not recommend wearing socks in your garden clogs because when you're watering in your new plants you'll also water your socks and that's uncomfortable.  Just sayin'.



The May Preemie Hat #2 that I started last night got finished tonight and I also ripped out the three rounds of Fake Isle Hat I'd done so that I could go up a needle size and start again, catching the yarn floats more often which the teacher said will help keep them from being too tight.  I need that.


Once again I didn't write a prompt so I'm going to go back to my first novel, Horizon, to yoink out a paragraph or two for your entertainment.  This main character is Gail who lives in the Green Bay area on my Indiana grandparents' farm.  She's another widow but this time with three children.  Who says I can't change things up?

23 May--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 
I kept my eyes focused on the horizon, watching the sun sink lower on its daily path.  I had ended so many days on that farmhouse porch I realized I could predict where it would touch the railing as it set.  I decided to start a sunset record, a sort of diary of my days spent there.  A quick trip to the shed and I had a little can of black paint and a narrow brush to start immediately.  I painted a thin stripe on the porch railing at the exact spot the setting sun touched the wood.  On the slat beneath the stripe I painted “September 2.”  Next to the date in tiny letters I painted “Esther the chicken died.”  Not to imply that Esther’s death had been from natural causes; Esther was at that moment in the pot becoming soup, but it seemed important to somehow mark the day.  Later that evening, eating a steaming bowl of Esther soup, I thought about my life.  All of the roles I’d played in my adult life were finished.  No longer a wife, no longer involved in the day-to-day routine of motherhood, done being Mrs. Logan-in-the-office to generations of local kids and their parents.  Now what was I supposed to do?

Ah, the age old question--now what?  The other day a friend shared an article on FB entitled "10 Ways to be a Rebel after 80" and another friend commented that she liked the idea of a tattoo but without the needles, which reminded me that I have an envelope of temporary tattoos that I should be wearing.  So I pulled one out and slapped it on the other day.  I like it.  Now I'm going to put some pictures on here, make sure everything's spelled correctly, listen to a little more of my audiobook, then hit the hay.  Nighty-night.
--Barbara