At Christmas this was a huge baseball size bulb given to me as a gift by a cousin. I planted it and left it in the garage. Mom told me the garage was too cold and I should move it inside. I did and this is what it turned in to. Absolutely gorgeous Amaryllis!
According to my work schedule today, spring is officially here. Mom cooked collard greens, hot water cornbread, sweet potatoes and white perch for lunch. Of course, I wasn't going to miss that. After lunch and a brief rest, I tackled mowing the thick winter grass in my yard. It is so hard to mow, but it was very high and thick. As soon as I finished mowing, two of my friends dropped by to visit while I was sitting outside enjoying a rest and some sunshine. I planted some more plugs of zoysia grass in some places that grass won't grow. Also, planted some hostas that a friend shared with me. She is building a house right behind me and is digging up hostas from her old house. This has been my kind of day!
In the past month, two of my former teacher friends have died. Both of them were slightly younger than I am. Weird things are going on. I don't believe either of them were completely retired. They retired from our school district, but took jobs in other places. It's a shame to work your entire life....then die! I am loving my retirement!
We went to Cirque du Soleil Saltimbanco today at the CenturyTel Center. It was an awesome show well worth the $80 tickets. Afterwards, we had dinner reservations at Four Winds, an Asian restaurant. That was also awesome, but we ordered way too much food. There were 5 of us and we all ordered an entre.....big mistake! We should have ordered 3 entres. Overall, good night!
It has snowed nonstop since about 9 this morning, but now it is melting as fast as it is falling. It has been fun and pretty all day, but it's heavy, wet snow that it not very conducive to playing. All the schools got out early. Why? I have no idea. The roads are fine, but I'm sure it was impossible to do school stuff. These kids have mostly never seen snow, so I'm sure it was mostly to just let them enjoy the snow.
I never even got past my flannels and a t shirt today. There was no reason due to inclement weather, so I just stayed around in bed mostly...completely worthless! For several days the weather forecasters have been harping on bad weather coming on Monday. All it did was rain. My new drainage system sort of worked. I think I need to lower it a tiny bit. It still has some water standing in front of the pipe.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have no tolerance for incompetence. Today I had a craving for strawberry pie, so I took a little road trip to Shreveport to a place that I know has awesome strawberry pie. I ordered a piece of strawberry and a piece of coconut. When I got home....30 miles away...I was all set for my strawberry pie. The damn bag had chocolate and coconut in it....NO STRAWBERRY! I was pissed....in fact, I'm still pissed! 
I have spent the better part of the last two days working in my yard trying to get caught up before I have to devote all my time to gardening at Dad's. All the old mulch has been cleaned out and replaced with new pine straw. The rains were coming, so I had to get in gear and get it done. There is not much left to do...just wait for the new growth to come on all the established plants and make a drain through my rose bed in the back. I damed up the natural water flow of the back when I made that bed, so I am digging some of it out and putting a 4 inch PVC pipe down. It will then be covered with mulch and hardly noticeable. I also have ordered 200 zoysia grass plugs and the tool to plant them with. It sounds like a hardy grass that will spread and inhibit weed growth.
and hired the professionals to come 6 times a year and do the stuff that I am, apparently, failing at. Last weekend I went to a Home and Garden Show and signed up to win a free year of taking care of my yard. I didn't win, but, of course, they came and looked at my yard and told me about all the weeds that are in it. They even lowered their lowest price for me because my yard is so small. They came today for the first treatment. I think I did the right thing!
I got a text message on my phone today that my rebate check had been mailed. Now there is no way in hell that they received the envelope contaning all that rebate stuff that I sent to them again just a couple of days ago.
Thank Goodness! CBC came back looking good. I thought it was one of those tests that included cholesteral, liver panels, kidney numbers, etc., but it wasn't.....just BLOOD!
I have Medicare Part B and private insurance, so why would I owe my doctor $121???? Anyone??? Insurance types???? Liz?????
I dread March if the winds are going to blow like this all month. Working outside is out of the question, so I have managed to get the house quite clean and actually get some Christmas and Mardi Gras stuff stored in the attic. My guest room is actually a guest room again and not covered in Mardi Gras, so come on and let's have a visit!!
I can feel spring in the air today even though the ground is so saturated. My morning started in clean house mode, but got sidetracked. Mom did not get her paper delivered this morning....new incompetent carrier, so I stopped everything and took her a newspaper. Her day doesn't go well if she doesn't get to do the crossword everyday. While I was there, Dad asked me to take him to look for a gopher trap. We went to a couple of places he wanted to go to, so that pretty much killed my clean house mode!! I did manage to re-ignite it later and got a lot done including cleaning the garage, which really bothers me if it is not clean because that's where most people enter the house. It MUST be neat and clean! I am always agreeable to taking Dad wherever he wants to go because I know he gets so tired of staying home. I also know he will not be around much longer! My sister-in-law had already offered to take him with her to Bossier City, but he declined. It won't take him long to forget that and he'll think they never take him anywhere....but they do! They take him lots of places.
I bought a new Motorola RAZR phone when I switched to AT&T in early January. A $50 rebate was part of the deal, so the salesperson did all the paperwork (which is ridiculous) for me and put it in an envelope for me. I made copies of it all and sent it off. Today I got a letter that they couldn't process my rebate because it didn't have the receipts and the barcodes in it. I KNOW it did. I was livid and I called to let them know I was livid. They don't much care. I'm sure they hope everyone will just give up and not re-send the rebate info. WRONG! I will NOT stop until I get my slimy, little, stupid rebate in my greedy little paws!
Once again I am helping my doctor to retire early. His staff told me they all need new cars and I should just keep on coming in. Infection showed up in the urinalysis, so I had a shot of rocephin and now am on cipro for 10 days. I am so tired of medicine. I also had a CBC that I have a feeling will not be normal. Usually, I am very upbeat and not at all negative about my health because I always think I am fine and in relative good health, but I don't have a good feeling about this blood test. I hope I'm wrong!
Tonight I still have a slight temp, but not enough to make me miss going my favorite place to pig out on catfish. Trust me...I ate it all. I order a child's plate, but there is no child that can eat that much. I don't eat the fries or the hush puppies, but I do some damage on some catfish. We have a favorite waitress there that always treats us so nice. She always brings us "to die for" onion rings even though we don't order them. She is an avid Mudbugs (local ice hockey) fan. She takes her daughter and her 9 year old niece who has cancer. My dad asked her how much it costs for them to all go the hockey games. He was going to pay for their tickets, but she told him the team gives them free tickets because the little girl with cancer is such a fan. 
