Have a lovely Friday!

 

What's for dinner?

 A certain boychild worked for roughly an hour on homework, wonder of all wonders, and declared himself hungry for pizza. I get out the wraps, the spaghetti sauce, the shredded cheddar that he prefers to the mozzarella and begin making him a personal pizza that I'll heat in the toaster oven. I'm adding the cheese when I realize:

Didn't you have pizza for lunch?

Him: What? Oh yeah. I did. Hahaha!

Me: What fruit or veggie did you have?

Him: Uh, raisins.

Me: You. Had. Raisins. (This child has revealed that raisins are despised in middle school except as ammunition to be launched at one other. Plus he doesn't even like oatmeal raisin cookies. Ain't no way he'll be eating raisins.)

Him: Uh huh. And oranges! Oh wait, no, I mean applesauce. Not oranges.

Me: You did not have raisins. Maybe to throw them, and there's no lunch lady anywhere who should ever have to clean up raisins from an almost thirteen-year-old.

Him: You KNOW that story!? Yeah, uh, maybe I lied about the raisins...

Aaaaand it’s snowing

 

What've we been up to?

I, for one, have been putzing about outside as much as possible. As we have no shortage of sticks to pick up or spring blossoms to coo over, this is no problem. I dug my summer clothes out of the various places they'd been stashed, popped into my tank tops, and out I went! Now my arms and shoulders have a nice base going forward and I look like a living person again instead of a pasty vampire.

I was delighted to find mulleins along our bank. Yay!

I believe this is the encyclopedia picture for "dilapidated"; this is the old trellis I talked about a few posts ago. I tore it out and we've added it to the "sticket" pile of brush beside our fire pit.

Perhaps the springs are a bit ghetto but the morning glories will be happy to climb up and take over. I can't wait. I've given up on trying peas here because the bunnies eat all the bottoms and then there are no peas. Only sadness.

My lupine, above right, is ready to go, and there is a bunny nest just to the left of it. It's probably a foot and a half away from where I found a nest last year which I had to return the scurrying baby bunnies to when they all took off in different directions, including into the garage.

These are Virginia Springbeauties and they are just lovely!

I think perhaps the dog is broken.

Thing One Oot and Aboot

Nothing to see here. Move along. And no, I don't make these. We get these from a local coffee shop who gets them from someone else a little further away than local, haha. Dada might be is 100% addicted.

And I found our friend Stevie, the Sticket Snek! I don't know why he likes it in there- looks super prickly and uncomfy to me, but I suppose there's something to be said for camouflage. 

Whilst picking up sticks on Saturday, I reached to grab one and realized, "that's green and squiggly" so I'd been pranked by Stevie again. I occasionally am fooled by him as I collect our myriad of twigs. Then I saw a smaller brown one IN A TREE but of course then I didn't have my phone so I didn't get to snap his picture. I was reminded of the Peppa Pig episode about Tiddles the Turtle climbing trees, so I stole the name and christened the small brown snek Tiddles. Who knows if I'll ever find him again. I dragged Damon out to see both snakes and couldn't find either. Figures. 

This week everyone is back to their regularly scheduled programming. Just as well as Spring remembered, "oh wait. I'm SPRING, not Summer. My bad. I take it back." So here we are in two pairs of pants and winter coats and gazing sadly outside at the clouds. BUT it is GREEN and gorgeous out there and the sun will be back. 

Then we'll have to mow.

 

"Peeps are marshmallows, right?"

*HURK*

Safe to say this is not my drink, but Liam decided to try a peep in his hot cocoa since it's back down in the 30s after a beautiful spring break week in the 70s. I'll admit that it looks cheerful! I'll be way over here with my hot mug of... not that.

Here you go, Mom =)

Y'all can thank my mother for the prompt of spring family pictures. She's full of good ideas!

Without scrolling through the rest of the photos, can you guess who's who?

 

There's a completely ridiculous board game called Munchkin that our kids and Dada very much enjoy. I don't have the attention span for the ridiculousness, though I get a kick out of the art. It has cards like "Boots of Buttkicking" and "The Gazebo". Whenever our crew sees a gazebo, they murmur, "you must face the gazebo ALONE." I'd asked Damon to pose in front of it with his dukes up but he thought that was dumb and therefore declined. I got a picture of him with the Gazebo anyway; I win!

Aww, reinforcements to face the Gazebo!

Dada and I found a flowerful tree!

Artsy Thing One above and all 3 wild Thingz below

Liam and his yellow hoodie by some of his favorites. That kid has always loved yellow. He used to enthusiastically screech, "FOR-SIFF-I-A" anytime we drove past a forsythia bush. Daffodils make him happy. 

 It was either be in the shade and squinting into the sun or shadowed out with the sun behind us. Alas, somewhere there's gotta be benches situated in a more photo-friendly positioning!

I’m so excited…

 It’s that time of year again. I go a little crazy and a lot overboard when it comes to seeds. Dada says, “none of those are food!” But I maintain that we gotta take care of our pollinators, so the plan this year is to use the back garden for our bee and butterfly friends, especially as the bunnies who are born in that garden eat all my pea vines anyway. There’s a crappy old trellis that has been falling apart for years that I’m tired of repositioning so I’m going to tear it out. We have an old box spring I plan to erect in its place so the morning glories can have full run of climbing areas. I’ll keep you posted!

April showers

April showers are a true thing around here. We've had some wet! This is our "leak" as the kids call it, extending back toward the house. To the left of these bushes is the neighbors' pond. We joke that we have one, too.

From "Into the Woods": "the path has strayed from you!"

A heron peeked at me on the way home from my walk. I said, "I see you" and he hunkered down a little more, but he didn't take off. Usually he sees us coming and skedaddles, so it's progress. I love when he hides in the culvert, out of the wind, under our street!

And this is the spot where I take the "Dead Marshes" pictures. We are past marsh and into small pond now.

Unrelated to the weather, Dada is home safe from his trip to Colombia, and Hin & Muggin got to go to Puerto Vallarta, so I painted my toenails a beachy, summery blue and joined them in spirit. Somebody's gotta hold down the fort, I guess!

 

Springtime snapshot

 

Our tiny daffodils are up and they make me smile! 

We are having our usual ridiculous wind. I went for a walk the other day and made it home just before another squall blew through. You can tell from the Easter windsock that the wind was crazy. It was about 23 mph while I was out!

Mondays be like...

Hair In His Face doesn't do Mondays, so it was a little harder to prod him out of bed to get him ready for school...

I am loving that April means air temps that don't hurt my face!

Poor Damonater caught whatever is going around with the terrible cough. Covid test was negative, but he's been napping which he usually resists. He went to school Monday morning but needed picked up after telling the nurse his head hurt behind his eyes and ears and he couldn't concentrate. He didn't have a fever, so I was surprised she let him go. He did run a fever that evening, but didn't have one yesterday so I was hopeful he'd make it to school today and tomorrow because they have Friday off for spring break. He told me that he hardly slept last night so he's still home. Poor kid.

 

Before the rain

It's supposed to storm all day today, so poor Honey will be beside herself. It hasn't started yet, so I've been out on the front porch swing, listening to the crazy birds' racket, enjoying the breeze, and loving the colors of the soft morning light. A furry friend stopped by, too!