Let there be light.

Not too long ago, our neighbor's tree came the rest of the way down.

It took our power line down with it. And damaged the entrance cable. And other stuff that I don't understand.

This happened on a Tuesday. We were without power from about 2pm on Tuesday to about 5:30pm on Wednesday. And hosted a party at 8pm on Wednesday. It was CRAZY, but everything came together just in time. I am awfully grateful for electricity. I really take it for granted, but laundry, cooking, keeping food fresh, having light in the bathroom, cooling the house ... all these things are pretty essential to my everyday life.

I don't have much to report these days. Nothing new to the house, except the new electrical service. But I've been taking pictures of my garden, so that's what you get today.

That's a carrot.

A black-eyed Susan, transplanted from my sister's front garden in PA.

Begonias. (Still waiting to be planted.)

Lettuce. I like it.

Mother's Day rose. Still lovin' it.

A tomato blossom.

An eager cucumber vine.

If I can just keep Lily from destroying any more plants (current count: one bean plant, one squash plant, one leek), I'll be in good shape. The rope fence is not entirely reliable at keeping her out. We're looking into other options.

Spring weather makes me happy ... and productive.

This time of year, I just can't get enough time outside, and the kids are perfectly happy with that. We inherited some horseshoe pits in the yard, and Bob took the wooden frames of the pits out, but we left the sand. Good thing we did! The girls dig and dig and dig in that sand. It's by far their favorite thing about the yard.

My favorite things? The size of the yard, the amount of sunlight, the fact that we have big trees (though I would change the kind of trees if I could), the fact that it's fenced (though it's a chain link fence in disrepair).

Since 2010 is the year of the garden for us, I've started digging the beds. Following the instructions of the books my dad gave me, I've been double-digging. I've been pleased with it, so far, but it is back-breaking work. As in, this morning, I found getting out of bed to be a bit of a challenge. That's okay, though. I can use the exercise.

Before:
The newly christened gardening gloves (a Christmas gift for Bob from my sister). (And, yes, I used them first. I feel a little bad about that.)

Digging out the first layer of soil.

My four-legged helper. I love this dog so much.

First layer out, second layer turned. Next: compost, then topsoil back in.

It was at this point that my neighbor said, "That's a pretty small garden!" And I thought, YOU go turn over 40 square feet of soil by hand, and then we'll compare notes. Especially since I've got another 80 square feet to go.

A Boy and his Dog

So Will discovered Lily, our dog, about a month ago. She provides him with endless entertainment. Just seeing her walk by makes him smile.

Lily doesn't mind being loved so much, either.

When she's looking for some lovin', she will bring you her stuffed duck so that you'll play with her. We don't throw it for her (inside), but we know what she's looking for, so we give her lots of good rub-downs. It makes her happy. Last night, Bob and I were busy cleaning up the kitchen, so she took her duck to Will. Put it in his lap, in his bouncy seat. And he gave the biggest belly laugh ever when she took it back.

I tried to recreate it for you, but of course, it wasn't as sweet as the first time.

Be warned: if this looks the slightest bit dangerous or violent, I promise you it wasn't.



Also, in case you're wondering, I couldn't get the duck away from Lily at one point. I think it was stuck in her teeth. We finally got it out.

Security System

When we were getting ready to close on this house, I called one of the utility companies (I don't remember - gas? electric? phone?) to set up service. I couldn't just transfer service from our old house to our new one because there was a period of about three weeks when we didn't need service. In other words, we had sold and moved out of the old one, but not yet into the new one. We camped out at my mother-in-law's for that period of time, and it was crazy to start heating a house that we didn't own yet. (And weren't totally sure we were going to. It was pretty stressful.)

Anyway, so I called the gas company (my brain works! I remember now!), and they offered, as a free service, to go ahead and get our other utilities set up for us. I remember feeling skeptical, but I agreed. Then they pitched all these other products and services that I didn't want. Like cable. No, I don't want cable. I understand it's cheap, but no, I don't want it. Yes, I understand that a security system discourages crime, but no, I don't want it. No, I do not want to be transferred to a security company to talk about a security system. No, I'm not interested. No, thank you. Okay, yes, they can call me at a later date. No, I need to go. Thank you. Bye.

And then I forgot about it. Until the calls started coming from this security company. I took a couple of the calls, in which I assured them that I was not interested, but I guess they didn't believe me. Then, because we now have caller ID (shh, don't tell!), I just stopped answering the phone. And it was so annoying. They would call a couple times a day for a long time, like maybe a month or so? Good grief.

Ok. Moving on. So, people sometimes speed on our street. (Not me!) And we live between two curves, so policemen can be kind of sneaky and catch people in our stretch of the street. Lately, I've noticed that probably 3-4 days a week, there's a police car that spends a lot of time parked in front of my house. He sits there, then zooms off (I assume, to catch a speeding car), then comes back. I like having him out there, and when I've been baking, I contemplate, should I run out there and offer him a muffin, or some homemade bread, or a cookie? I haven't done it yet, and finally ran the idea by Bob. He voted against it, reasoning that some psychos would probably try to poison a cop by doing something like that, so the guy might think it was fishy. I confess, I'd thought of that, and didn't want to weird him out. Bummer.

But Mr. Policeman, if you're reading this, please know that I appreciate your presence. And I like to think that you counterbalance my choice to not install a security system in my home.

Well, that and my dog. I think she helps, too.