Well hello dear friends!

I haven’t written a blog post in ages… I miss you.

I’ve been busy trying to keep my job. I have a temporary position and have been offered a full-time position teaching 6th grade Language Arts and Creative Writing next year. But I recently found out that they offered it to me prematurely and I now have to jump through the proper HR hoops to ensure that I have a job next year.

The unknown has got me a bit stressed out. I’ve also come to the conclusion that the blog is always going to suffer near the end of the school year simply because I’m just too busy to frolic around.

Plus, the weather around here has been awful. I’m pretty sure I went two weeks without seeing the sun. It actually even snowed on Mother’s Day.

    

When the sun did decide to make an appearance while I wasn’t working the last thing I wanted to do was sit down inside and write a blog post. Sorry but it’s true. Instead, during those short snippets of time when the sun would peak out through the clouds I felt compelled to hunt for puddles with Penelope…

    

Then slowly but surely the clouds would roll back around and we would be stuck inside again. And that made me want nothing more than to cuddle up with a blanket with a hot cup of earl grey and get lost in a book.

My current obsession is Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon, which takes place in the Highlands of Scotland.

You would think that I would have chosen to escape to a place where it never rained but reading it with the rain pelting the window made it all that much better.  Besides, it’s not too shabby when you have this guy to keep you company…

You know, when you aren’t too busy looking admiringly at your husband as he obsesses over Cardinals baseball 🙂

Apparently, this is a TV show on Starz but I haven’t been able to watch it. Good thing too or I definitely would not find myself in a rehireable position.

However, when the sun did come out I took full advantage and planted seeds for the garden before the rain came pelting down again.

Penelope is quite the garden helper these days…

    

    

    

In addition to mammoth sunflowers and wildflowers, I’ve planted pumpkins and two types of kale. My rainbow carrots from last year took it upon themselves to reseed and take over the garden. While the potatoes I never picked last year have popped up ready for a second chance. Brent also weed whacked my raspberry bush last year (no that’s not a euphemism) and it has come back thriving along with my strawberry patch and herbs. It appears that my years as a failed gardener are paying off!

The other day I found a lot of little green bugs in my strawberries and took photos to show the professionals at the nursery. It turns out that they are aphids, the lady bugs meal of choice. He gave me two choices 1.) Spray the shit out of the strawberries to try to knock them down. 2.) Buy lady bugs and release them in the wild so that they can consume the vagrants.

We chose option number 2 simply because lady bugs are cute…

    

    

This was clearly the best choice. Penelope has observed several of them giving each other “piggy back rides” hopefully that means that they’ll multiply and be around to take care of the spider mites that usually attack my tomatoes.

All of these garden preparations have made me so ready for warm weather and summer fun! I can’t wait for the freedom that it will allow me. I need to get back in touch with myself and reconnect with the balance of health and work.