Peace

I am totally into these baby chicks. Look at them sleeping

Rhubarb muffins

Because its Sunday morning,  the coffee is ready and every time I copy this recipe I forget an ingredient (yes, Audrey, it does call for an egg)  and one of these life-altering-too-delicious-to-just-be-called-a-muffin awaits me, I attempting to post a photo of the recipe

OK, that seems to have worked. I do not add nuts. I started leaving them out of baked goods because Zac didn't like them and eventually realized that I agreed with him. Our grocery stores carry the half pint cartons of buttermilk and I try to keep a couple on hand at all times. Mom often used the dried buttermilk. I haven't tried it. For me this recipe makes about 20 muffins.

Helpers

For the love of all that is good and holy, I cannot get these photos in order. I've entered a dark place, a very dark place.
Of apps
and google plus
Instagram
published posts
lost posts.
So before these children are taking their SATs I am going to post these pictures.
Hopefully with captions.
If not,
Well, let's not go there

Harrison is helping Opee put fresh water in Bea's pond. If there's water involved, count Harrison in

Olivia offered to help clean the duck poop off the deck. There was a hose, a spray nozzle, Harrison and a dinosaur

Harrison thought Ms. Bea's pond needed some ambiance--like sticks, rocks and a dinosaur

Ms Bea trying to be patient and wait her turn for the pond

Ready

Sam cleaned all the grass from the north fence. Curt ran through with the disk. Of course, Sam had to make a call to Blackie who worked his magic on the tiller and he began the tedious process of  breaking up all the clods to get everything ready for planting.

Doesn't it look inviting? It's so much bigger after "reclaiming" the edges that had filled in with grass. Sam also burned off the asparagus and the rhubarb is up.

 

These two

Should have their own reality show

 Share well with others

Make me smile every day

Want me to learn how to correctly upload and edit photos from my phone

Thoughts

 

I snapped this photo at the beach house because after 5 years staying in the same house, I finally noticed that  the toaster had a "Pop Tart" setting. 

Great blogging material, I thought.

Or no.

That was about 4 weeks ago.

Excuses for my neglect of the blog abound: Too busy, too sad, too tired, can't sleep, too hungry, too full, too nice, too wet, too dry, too much to write about, not enough to write about, no laptop,

You get the picture.

A year ago yesterday, we found out Mom had cancer. Her brief illness,death and the emotional intensity of the experience has forever changed me--fortunately in positive ways.Most of the time, when I think of her I am happy. Then sadness comes during the happy times when I cannot help but wish she were there with her arms open to hold a baby,  her hands to peel potatoes and her quick wit to make me laugh.

However, it is enough to have had her close to me in body and in heart.  

My way-too-fragile writer's ego was dealt a near fatal blow after learning recently (just before we left for the beach) that I would no longer be writing or editing for Womeninc magazine. It wasn't totally unexpected, I guess I saw it coming and I'm not sure if it's permanent or not.

I have been on the verge of giving up this blog, but decided to give it another try. Perhaps it's the smell of the sweet spring rains and the sight of trillium blossoms working their way up through the piles of dead leaves that are giving me strength and determination to not give up.

For now.

 

A word of warning about upcoming blog posts, there is a 99.9 % certainty that they will rely heavily on a certain cute duck for content.

Watcher

He is so patient