Dear Husband is an officer in a masonry corporation. He’s risen through the ranks from a laborer to a bricklayer, learning how each job is done by doing it. He has 40 years of experience at laying bricks.
This evening we have been sitting in the living room. He has the remote for the TV and is switching between two equally detestable shows. One of them is a do-it-yourself show on how to create your own patio kitchen. He’s been fairly quiet, but as each segment ends, he points out the key piece of information that was omitted. I really hope that nobody who watches this program gets the idea that they can do this project without professional assistance. It’s a project that is WAY over the average person’s capability, and the cost to clean up the errors or starting fresh would be significant.
We were rather surprised to see them working with a saw that didn’t have a blade guard. I’d think that OSHA would require them to adhere to the current safety rules.
The “pro” didn’t mention that when you lay brick, you have to figure out how many brick will fit the space horizontally. If you blithely go about laying bricks on that first row, you are likely to get to the last two spaces and find that you can’t squeeze in both bricks. You need to know that spacing so that you keep your mortar joints the correct width as you run the row.
The “pro” also didn’t know how to “butter” the brick properly. There wasn’t enough mortar on the second brick.
When they showed the finished fire pit, they commented that they had put saw marks on a corner brick to make it look as though the pattern of laid bricks went all the way to the end of the row. What they didn’t mention was that they needed a different kind of brick to be able to create that touch.
“How-To” shows are great for getting fresh ideas, but perhaps not great when it comes to carrying out more complicated ideas. You’d think they’d want their watching audience to have success at their projects, so they’d continue to watch the shows. Maybe people are smarter than I give them credit for being. I suppose I can stop shouting “Don’t try this at home!” when I watch these things.
By the way….the other show that was disgusting was one of those nature shows that let you see all the babies being eaten by sharks and crocodiles and piranha and snakes. I know the world is a dangerous place, and that survival of the fittest is the law of the land, but I’m not watching any show that focuses on predators. I’m not watching another merkat take a hit!

My entire extended family loves flowers. They all know that I love to have fresh flowers on the tables or the island in the kitchen when they come to visit. This year they brought pots and pots of flowers with them.
We have four of the largest Easter lilies I’ve ever seen. Mother and I bought two of them, and then we lost our minds and bought a golden yellow petite lily, a fuchsia azalea, a tiny pot of something called “Get Mee,” which is a form of campanula, and two new orchids.
My oldest sister sent us the most beautiful cut flower basket that I’ve ever seen. My second sister brought us a wonderful, bright, pot of yellow tulips.
And, I have a 15 inch cobalt blue vase that is filled with fuchsia carnations, purple, lavender, pink and white chrysanthemums, eucalyptus, and heather.
We have blooms everywhere! It’s a joy to have the house filled with flowers at a time when flowers are sparse outside. We’re supposed to have warmer weather this week, so we should see plants beginning to bud, soon. I noticed that our new little red bud tree is beginning to purple up. YEA!!!

….if I can remember them all.
I saw a rufous-sided towhee yesterday. It was working it’s way down the bare branches of a shrub near the big bird feeder. We get one or two birds from several varieties as they make their way north and south. We rarely see the Rose-breasted grosbeaks which seem to be fairly common here, but we’ve seen the gold and taupe and black Evening grosbeaks, and apparently, the towhee is part of that larger family. The thrush can’t be too far behind.
Goldfinches and house finches and red-winged blackbirds are back, and we have plenty of robins. We’re still waiting on the herons and egrets, and it’s just as well, because the water is REALLY cold yet. Dear Husband said that he saw something very large flying past the house but he couldn’t tell me if it was one of the sand hill cranes or a heron.
On another subject, I hope that my sister, Nan, will blog about her experiences over Spring break. She and her two daughters went on a church-organized mission trip to help people in New Orleans who are STILL trying to put their homes in order. The story sounds fascinating. She became very fond of the homeowner, who sounds like a testament to determination. Write, on, Nan!
Our Red Hat Lady group met for lunch yesterday. The ladies are a hoot to chat with, and it was fun to see the smiles on the faces of the other patrons of the restaurant as they walked by our group. I’m always reminded of the song from The Music Man with the line “Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little, cheep, cheep, cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more…” but I’m happy to say the conversation does not include gossip. It was cute to see heads bent together as they chatted, and bobbing in agreement. The woman sitting next to me has been to China, and we talked about her trip part-way up the Yangtze. Her husband is from Scotland and as a retiree he is learning to play bagpipes. The two of them have been to the Tattoo in Edinburgh, and I’m green with envy. A woman across the table worked in Iran in the days of the Shah. It’s fascinating to hear about that period of my life from her point of view. A number of our ladies are either getting ready for surgery or are recovering. There’s been talk about re-naming us the Walking Wounded, but I doubt anything will come of it. I know a lot of people think the Red Hatters are a frivolous waste of time, but they’re wrong. This group has the most amazing experiences to call on. I learn something new every time we meet, and they are incredibly civic minded. Way to go, LADIES!
I’ve come down with the putrid throat again. In fact, I can’t make any sound. I had to hand a note to my mother about the cinnamon bread that was waiting for her breakfast, and you should have been there when I tried to pantomime that the cat had come in the kitchen window. (Sigh) She’s deaf and I can’t talk. What a pair.
Dear Husband has been working on the renovation of the timbers in the Herb Garden. I’m going to do a bigger entry on this later, complete with a couple of pictures, but I wanted to describe what took place yesterday. DH doesn’t realize that the upper branch of the garden has perennials in it, that haven’t begun to show their new growth. I saw him walk over the bed, and thought….”That’s okay, there are plenty of feverfew plants there. No problem.” Then I saw him drop a ten or twelve foot cedar timber the length of the bed. Poor feverfew. In all fairness, this is not an easy job, and he’s carrying those cedar timbers around all by himself. If I could have afforded it, I would have hired a landscaping company to do this work for me, but it would have been thousands of dollars.
We came home from luncheon yesterday, and I walked out just to touch base with DH, and let him know I was home. As I looked around, I saw the lavender (that I had been babying) lying on the ground north of the herb garden. He must have seen the dismay on my face, and he said, “It’s dead……..isn’t it?” I really tried not to look dismayed about that lavender, but I must not have been able to mask it. This is the deal. My gardens need repair and renovation. I HOPE that DH is careful as he works, but if something gets killed off, I will either replace it, or look on it as a chance to create a new garden. I am NOT nagging him, given that he is doing all the work on this on his own, when he could have been playing with his boat.
So…..does anyone have suggestions for plants for my herb garden??
I’ve missed you all. It seems that we have all taken some time off around Easter, whether to clean house or determine the direction of our lives, and the blog world has been rather quiet. I hope that we’ll find things of interest once again, and be able to find time in our busy lives to share them. Happy Spring to you all. You have my hopes for warm sunshine, bird song, and the joy of another day.