I’ve been focused on getting the herbies settled, and getting the gardens in shape this spring, and realized that I had forgotten to do the Spring organization INSIDE the house.
It used to be, in times before air conditioning, and when houses were huge and had staff to manage them, that curtains and rugs were changed for the hot months, and the furniture might be covered with lighter weight slip covers. They used lighter colors and lighter fabrics in an effort to cool the house down. I don’t go that far, but we do change to a different set of table linens, and the curtains and throw rugs are washed.
I’d like to point out that I’m done with most of that, but what I haven’t gotten to is the change of wardrobe. I store off season clothes in huge plastic bins in the basement. Last night, DH schlepped the bins upstairs for me, so one of my chores in the next couple of days is the changing of the guard…..er wardrobe.
I take my mother to an exercise class three mornings a week. I had on long jersey pants and a long sleeved T-shirt yesterday, and I thought I was going to melt! Of course, tomorrow, the high for the day is supposed to be 63, so I’ll have to leave a few warm things in the closet.
And….I’m testing the air conditioning today! So, maybe I need to keep a sweater, too.

A number of years ago, as my siblings and I began to age, it became apparent that they had a problem. We now have four generations of family who range from new born (April 26) to 87. THere are mothers in three of those generations, and it won’t be too many years before there is likely to be a mother in the fourth generation.
At some point my sisters announced that THEY were mothers, and they were planning on staying home and let their families celebrate their Motherness.
So, time passes and their daughters grow up and have families, and somewhere along the line THEY announce they are mothers, and THEY are going to stay home and let their families celebrate their Motherness. (Sound familiar??) Where we had one generation miffed because they were being ignored, now we have two.
I’d like to have a little sympathy, but it’s hard to dredge up. I’m not sure where we got the idea that because one is a mother, one can ignore the fact they they HAVE a mother. Since I am the one who has never had children of my own, I’m the one who always celebrates Mother’s Day with my mother. We have a standing date now to go to the brunch at Pappadeaux’s for Cajun food. My step-children spend the day with their mother, and DH, my mother and I go out to brunch.
I have no idea how other families handle this little problem. It seems to me that they could all go out to dinner. Or….they could sleep in late, gather later in the day and let the men cook a casual meal. Or, they could spread the celebration out over a couple of weekends or days. There must be some rational way to celebrate the day without leaving anyone out. Right??
If you know how, share it with us!
Happy Mother’s Day, all!

I received a Mother’s Day gift today. I was lured out to the kitchen by DH to see a beautiful basket, wrapped up with shiny paper and a big gold bow. He told me it was a Mother’s Day gift from Ed and Defer.
Ed and Defer are the cat and dog.
Each year, I get sweet notes from them with paw prints and a bit of doggerel (what else??). Frequently I get flowers, but this year they filled a beautiful basket with things their mother would enjoy: unusual cheeses, flat breads from Trader Joe’s, English Toffee, and WINE!!! They managed to find a full-sized bottle of Frog’s Leap Vinyard Zinfandel! What sweethearts!
It isn’t every Mom who’s furry kids treat her so well. *S*
I hope all of you who are celebrating Mother’s Day this weekend are as fortunate, and that you have a great day!

I’m pooped!
I moderate a YahooGroup for herb growers, and this week the editors at YahooGroups have featured us as one of their weekly picks. We’ve been inundated. Before the deluge, we had 498 members. I’m not sure of the count at the moment, but we’ve easily added another 200 members in two days.
Last year we were overrun with spammers and we’ve had to put restrictions in place to protect the membership. Every member now has to be approved, and they are on moderated posting for a period, so we have to approve each post. Let me tell you, this is a group that likes to SHARE!
So, I’ve been doing housekeeping duties at the Group rather than blogging. But, if I was blogging, I’d just be talking about my gardens, so you might not have missed anything.
I just wanted you to know that I miss visiting your blogs, and I’ll be back soon.

Dear Husband and I have been watching a program called “Inside the Actor’s Studio.” It’s shown on the Bravo cable channel, and we tend to catch it on Sunday evening. Last week the host, James Lipton, interviewed Russel Crowe. I was surprised to find that I liked him better than I would have guessed. At the end of the evening they announced that they would be interviewing Hugh Jackman tonight.

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Requiem
UNDER the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850

Billy…..I’m ADDICTED!
The new computer has a game called “Spider Solitare.” You know, I just hate it when we get a new computer. Each time they send more games. Each time I spend an inordinate amount of time playing games on the new computer, until I manage to get it out of my system.
My niece was here last night, and she saw the new computer. I blushed and said I was playing games, and her eyes lit up. “Spider Solitare, right??” She already knew about it. She has a new computer, too. “Wait until you start playing with more than one suit.” That sent a shudder through me.
This all reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation. Do you remember the “Parisi Squares”? I figure the writers of that episode must have seen the office workers sitting around playing games, and saw how insidious it was.
If you don’t see me for the next month or so, I’ll just be over here playing Spider Solitare….

Okay, Billy has given me good advice. He says to install a firewall BEFORE we hook up to the Internet. So that brings me to several questions.
I’m using Norton Antivirus 2004. Can anyone suggest a firewall that is compatible with that?
If I download a firewall on my present computer, can I copy the software to a CD and then install it on the new computer before we hook up to the cable modem?
I’m going to look into Mozilla as a browser for the new computer. Does Mozilla come with a firewall? I know…I know….I can go look this one up. I was just hoping someone would save me the time. *G*
Is there any other advice I need from you more experienced computer people before we go LIVE!?

Normally I like my weather a little on the cooler side. But this is ridiculous! It’s an absolutely gorgeous Spring day. The sun is beautiful, and has been all day long. There’s almost no breeze. Everything is lushly green after last week’s rain.
The problem is, it’s only 47 degrees outside!
My winter hardy perennials are all doing well. They don’t seem to mind the cold. But it’s clear we won’t be rushing planting season with weather like this.
Tomorrow at this time it should be 75 degrees and windy. Jumps like that are hard on the plants, and hard on me. Whatever happened to those wonderful Springs I remember where the weather GRADUALLY warmed up?
Today I’m wearing a fairly heavy ribbed turtleneck top. Tomorrow I’ll be looking for short sleeves, but most mornings it’s a crap shoot as to what to wear and I end up changing clothes partway through the day. I’m ready for more even temps!

Yep, we went and did it. We made Dell happy! We bought a new personal computer. We mulled over it for weeks. The original plan was that we would get the computer as our gift to each other for Christmas. DH was pleased because he didn’t have to worry about what to get me and he was FINALLY going to be able to compute when he pleased rather than the few piddly minutes I allow him. I was pleased because I would be getting a computer that could handle all my surfing, that was minus AOL and plus a cable modem.
Well, the computer came yesterday. YES!!!

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