Phew....

I'll begin with "hello, again."  It's been a long time I know.  What can I say, this has been a longer process than I had anticipated.  Or... perhaps I'm just getting old.  Who knows.  All I'm sure of at this point is that life is moving way too fast for me and I feel as if I just can't catch up.  

There are so many things that I have to do, should do and want to do... there are times when I stand in one place and feel horridly overwhelmed by it all.  And then there are other times when I just feel so at peace with what is going on in my life that I am wonderfully overwhelmed by it all!

So first thing first!

The house, for the most part is settled.  We still have boxes, mostly in the basement and those 8 boxes in my honey's office that are boxes of crystal and china that I STILL can't unpack because I have not found my shelves for the china hutch.  And at this time I am considering giving up the search and just getting glass shelves put in place so I can get those boxes unpacked!   

We've already got a garden semi-planted.  I am sharing a garden spot with a friend of mine at her house.  She has a whole property lot that is dedicated as a garden, so most of our vegetables will be gotten through that space.  Our little garden plot here at the house is dedicated to leafy vegetable and tomatoes and herbs, for now.  We have a little tomato on one plant so far and the lettuces are going strong!  We've already begun the thinning process and have enjoyed "gourmet" salads through that.  And one of my friends gave me several strawberry runners which I am keeping picked.  She told me not to let them bloom and to pluck the blooms off this season and then next year they will be healthy and prolific.  So, that is what I'm doing.  We also have a thornless blackberry vine that was planted by a previous owner about 6 years ago.  Unfortunately, the last owner didn't do much to keep it going so it was in sad shape by the time we moved in.  But another friend of ours told us how to take care of the plant and now we have a boat load of new growth AND a bloom!  So if we're lucky, maybe we'll get at least one berry out of the plant this year!  

We had some excitement this weekend!  First... our daughter and her boyfriend came up on Sunday and spent the day with us (that was the first bit of excitement!).   They spent the night but left far too early for my liking.  But, Sunday evening, as the boyfriend and we were sitting around in the living room (baby girl was upstairs sewing up some things), my honey noticed something flying in our dining room.  Suddenly, he shouts "IT'S A BAT!" Seriously, we had a bat flying around in the house!  I instinctively grab a blanket and toss it to my honey, then I run into my sitting room and grab another throw I had in there and toss it to the boyfriend and yell at them to "GET IT!!!!!!!".  Then I scream up the stairs (as I'm squealing every now and then because the bat is flying in my direction) to my baby girl to warn her that there is a bat flying around down here!  She, promptly slams the sewing room door closed so the thing won't fly in, in the event that it decided to fly up the stairs where she was.  The guy's chased the thing into the basement and after several minutes of scuffling sounds and shouts, all became quiet.  They eventually came back upstairs but no bat was caught.  THEY LOST IT DOWN THERE SOMEWHERE!  Amongst all the boxes and "stuff" we have down there, they lost it....  So, we all sit down and talk about what we're gonna do when...... Ethan (the cat) suddenly goes to the basement door and is sniffing around.  That's when we hear the soft sound of something bumping into the door.  The guy's take their blankets and go back down.  And, again, nothing.  So my honey and I decide we're going to go to bed.  The kids stay downstairs (baby girl is feeling somewhat safe since we closed the basement door and all the vents).  After about an hour I hear a squeal and a shout and some more squealing and then baby girl is screaming up the stairs "it's going upstairs"!!!!!  My honey jumps out of bed and heads down the stairs and after a bit more squealing, scuffling and yelling.  The bat is trapped in the studio!  The studio is off the kitchen and it has it's own door leading out to the deck.  The door leading to the deck is open and the bat can smell the air coming through the screen door so it is trying to fly out that way but can't.  So boyfriend bravely offers to go into the room and open the screen door to let the thing out.  Which he does and the bat heads off into the night!  Phew!  Of course, we still don't know how that thing got into the house to begin with.  We did find out that it crawled it's way into the house from the basement through the intake vent in the hallway.  So, closing the vents everywhere else did no good what so ever!

We've not had another bat incident since.  But then again, it's only been two days....

So, how's that for a story?  

Oh, the peonies... they came from our yard!  We have peonies growing!  Hurray!