Out of the blue I had a random knock at the door this week, and it was the florist from around the corner with a beautiful bouquet of mixed flowers. I’ve been admiring the outside of that floral shop for months every time I drive past it, and these flowers are probably some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen: enormous gerber daisies, tulips (my very favorite) a rose, and some delicate purple and pink flowers that I don’t really know anything about but love to look at. The very best thing are these wonderful twigs sticking out the top that are the perfect touch. I put the flowers next to the window by the piano and I have been enjoying them all week while I’m teaching.
The amazing bouquet is quite a contrast to the well-loved but a bit soggy “ditch flowers” that YaYa and I collected on a walk up the road on Saturday afternoon.
In other flower news, the rhododendron bush that we planted on the corner of our house last year is blooming! I have fallen in love with rhododendron bushes since we moved here several years ago. They are very popular around here because deer do not eat them, and we have herds and herds of urban deer in our neighborhood. Every neighborhood has them actually. Gigantic, bright purple flowers (not munched on by deer) loaded onto a bush that blooms in the very early spring? Yes, please! My little bush makes me very happy. I hope it grows lots.
Because of a dangling branch that broke off on a windy day recently, we needed to call (a very expensive) tree trimming service to do some pruning on our big ash trees next to the boulevard. I have a lot of issues pruning pretty much everything. It really makes me nauseated, even though I KNOW that the tree/bush is better for it in the long run. I just feel terrible about it every time. My husband usually sneaks around with pruning sheers when I’m not looking because I tend to get rather upset when I see him hacking away at things in the yard. It was hard to watch the tree trimmers in their little cherry bucket, but I didn’t have nearly as hard of a time as YaYa, who was extremely angered over the fact that they knocked down the crow’s nest at the top of the tree. She was so mad about the destruction of avian habitat that she stomped off to the office and took a two hour nap.
We signed papers last night for carpenters to start building our floor to ceiling bookshelves in the living room. SO. EXCITED.
We haven’t used it much until now, and some people might think it’s cheesy, but the kidlets are quite taken with the capability to FaceTime dad on his iPhone using various devices here at home. Even Mr. Trouble on Feet gets very excited.
Last night at AWANA the store was open. Twice a year there is a “store” where kids can cash in their AWANA bucks to buy prizes. YaYa got a jump rope and a stuffed animal and gave the rest of her AWANA bucks to a little girl who only had but just a few of her own. She said to me, “It made me happy that she was SO HAPPY to have them.” I was a happy Mama to hear all about it. Mr. SP used his AWANA bucks to get something that he really liked. The Banana was beyond excited to spend her AWANA bucks, and she made them reach as far as she could, picking out a small stuffed animal, a plastic ring, and then as many sugary snacks as possible. She was beyond thrilled with her stash. Oh, that Banana and her sugary snacks.
Inside a ziploc bag right here on my desk is the full skeleton of a rodent extracted from owl pellets and reconstructed and then glued to a piece of paper. I think it’s a mouse. It came home with YaYa from a field trip a few weeks ago, and it sits on my desk and stares at me, because all things precious that a kidlet doesn’t want anyone else to touch ends up on my desk, since my desk is off limits to everyone. I’m getting rather fond of the thing. Having your own personal rodent skeleton is kind of like having a lucky rotten orange: unique.
The kidlets declared 64 degrees warm enough to run through the sprinkler, and today they pulled out the “build-your-own-waterworks” box with the babysitter and had fun constructing all sorts of crazy water-spraying contractions out of PVC pipe. I love that they still enjoy that activity. Everything is better with a sprinkler running, right? Well, everything except maybe my water bill, but sometimes an additional water bill is worth the peace of kidlets playing in the sprinkler.
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