April Showers

bring May Flowers

and my Lily of the Valley plants are up and waiting.  The showers are here, can't wait for the flowers.

Today I was feeling like I needed an Irish Blessing.  So here is one for you.

"May you always have work for your hands to do.

  May your pockets hold always a coin or two.

  May the sun shine bright on your windowpane.

  May the rainbow be certain to follow each rain.

  May the hand of friend always be near you.

  And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

Opportunity Knocks

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Thomas A. Edison

  

Friday my favorite day of the week.  The weather is beautiful, but may get a little warmer than I like at this time of the year.  I am not complaining 

however,  I am enjoying the sunshine.

I have a beautifully tilled very large piece of my backyard just waiting to be planted.  Thanks to Steve my garden spot is ready and waiting.

Regena planted some seeds in peat pots and has been nurturing them for several weeks now.

The peppers are sprouted and hopefully are ready for the outdoors. She planted some watermelon seeds and some herbs also.  The watermelon look ready.   I gave all the seedlings a little taste of outdoors yesterday.  They spent the day in the garage, but I carried them out to the sunshine for a few minutes as I transplanted some Irises and finished putting the rock in my rock garden.

The call to grab the trowel was too strong for me yesterday. I have some new rose bushes ready to plant and a couple of very pretty border plants to put in.  We have lots of flower seeds to sow in our newly tilled flower garden.  

We have strawberry plants and onions; star gazer lilies and peonies; radish and zucchini seeds, along with green bean and carrot and yellow squash; three tomato vines are ready and waiting.

Hooray for Friday and I am anxious and ready to plant (I don't however have a pair of overalls!, but Steve does and I hope he dons them to help me plant my garden.

86 days left

" I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me." Harry Potter

Only 86 days until the film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes to a theater near me!

I can hardly wait.   I am longing for a good film with my favorite Wizard.

Since there are no more books to look forward to, the movie just has to do.

I think i will revisit the books.  I may just read them all again.  I am going to watch all the films too.  I am thinking full HP immersion!

Glorious Day

"Oh how this spring of love resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April Day! 

William Shakespeare The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 1 Scene 3

Oh what a glorious morning to be sure.  Spring is in the air. Life is good.

Driving to work this morning, I realized how light the morning has become.  Now I love driving to work in the dark, still, coolness of the morning,  but I was struck with the beauty of the day on my drive in this morning.

I looked up to see the third quarter moon in the sky, and watched the sun glinting off the stadium as I passed it. There were more cars on the street than usual.  I sometimes see one or two when I drive in at 6:15am but there were 6 cars this morning.

The love quote of the day "Love is the beauty of the soul" seems to just encompass how I feel this morning.

The love I feel for my son and daughters, my dad and my brothers and sister and their families and for Steve fills my soul with beauty and joy.  I was thrilled and excited to greet the day.

On my way to St. Charles this Saturday to share in the love my nephew feels for his fiancee as they unite in holy matrimony.

Love and Spring are in the air!

Easter

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."  C. S. Lewis

When I was a little girl, Easter was a marvelous holiday.  I always got a new dress and new shoes and a purse and white gloves and a hat!  I loved dressing up and going to church.

Of course, the Easter bunny always made a grand appearance.  The eggs we had colored the night before were hidden around the yard.  We had a grand time hunting for those eggs.  To top it off there was a basket full of goodies, a chocolate bunny, jelly beans and those ever beloved Peeps.  Then there was a delicious dinner which included ham.

Easter is probably my very favorite of all holidays. Not only do I still love the Easter Bunny, the mass on Holy Thursday, is one of my favorites of the year.  Good Friday service is very special and then a glorius mass on Easter Sunday morning, brings with it the sound of trumpets, everyone dressed in their Easter Sunday clothes and a general feeling of well being.

This Easter sunday morning, Regena and I will attend mass then the Easter bunny will hide some plastic candy filled eggs (usually indoors now) for Regena to gather. Of course a wonderful array of Easter goodies will be found in her Easter Basket.  I will be making Ham and au gratin potatoes, green bean casserole, bunny bread, deviled eggs (of course) and Chocolate Pie and Lemon Meringue Pie.

Steve and his mom will be joining us this year.  How special for me to spend Easter with the people I love. Some of my loved ones will be absent, my family are doing their own things, haven't heard from Ryan yet, but he is probably working and Janet is off in Scotland enjoying Easter with some friends.  We miss her but know she is having a fantastic Easter too.( Don't worry, I mailed her Easter Basket early.)

Happy Easter!

A Book for the Weeks End

"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.

Henry David Thoreau

Hooray for Friday!  I am so glad that the weeks end has arrived.  It has been a lovely week, I am very happy.  I have had a productive week of work,  but oh how I am looking forward to Saturday.   Sleeping in, then getting up for a trip to the gym, back home for a day of sipping coffee surrounded by my delightful animals, curled up with a good book!  I just want to relax. This Saturday there is nowhere I have to be and nothing I have to get done. Relaxation, here I come!

 Let me tell you I have stacks of books to read.  I have been choosing a book, from my large stack, to read while I workout on the elliptical jogger, books that I have been putting off, oh they are in my stack, but I haven’t had the desire to pick them up.  But, hey when you are stuck on the jogger, what better time to pick up those books. I have finished two from the stack. I got around to reading The Poisonwood Bible, a book I thought I would enjoy, but I didn’t. I was compelled to finish it, just to see where it would take the characters, but I truly didn’t enjoy the book.  My next jogger adventure was Katerskill Falls which I did enjoy reading.  I am on to a stack of Tony Hillerman mysteries that I picked up from a table of give away books at work.  I like fluff and I like classics, I just love to read.  I highly recommend it for a day to relax ( oh and for those boring times on the elliptical!)

 So here are a few delightful quotations from some of my favorite authors: 

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library." Jane Austen from Pride and Prejudice (one of my favorite authors and favorite books)

"In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once know its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When I read a good book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me." W. Somerset Maughm from Of Human Bondage

"Knowing I lov'd my books he furnish'd me

from mine own library with volumes that

I prize above my dukedom.

William Shakespeare from The Tempest Act 1 Scene 2 ( I may pick this one from my shelf to read this weekend)