Shabbat Shalom

Spent the day at the V.A. with my sister.  The hospital is very large and it's easy to get turned around and there's not enough chairs at the lab.  Translation = owwwww

Afterwards we hit a Kroger store in the area and we were amazed! A huge kosher area - meat/chicken/fish, deli, bakery, Shabbat area with candles and more. A huge Passover section and several kinds of challah for Shabbat.  Butchers on scene with rabbi inspectors.  Seeing people with Jewish necklaces and men with kippahs/yarmulkes on felt good.  Here in the South they are serious about their churches and one can get a little overwhelmed with all the crosses and urgings to attend someone's choice church. I've seen quite a few look at me oddly when they spot my Magen David (Star of David) necklace.

Next Friday I'll be going to a first night seder for Passover and I'm a bit excited to check out this group.

So, hear it is Shabbat: candles are burning in the encloed lanterns (I have the ceiling fan on, putting the candles in the lanterns protect them from the window.  I've had my share of bread and grape juice and have read trom the Torah and from Proverbs.

I had help with the reading material (old picture - same position today)

Cats and more Cats!

Grady

Gabby

Annie

Deacon

Yard Work!

Been doing yard work this week.  We've got the front lawn and one flower bed done.

we have the other flower bed and the digging out around the pavers yet to do and then we have the side yard, the back yard, the weed whacking, the tree trimming, planting sprouts...................

then starting back at the beginning...................

Outdoors and Pollen = ack!

Everything grows VERY quickly here.  It'll be a weekly thing to mow the darn lawn.  We're turning over the dirt in the flower beds once again.  We expected it since the last tenants let them go to seed.  We've got two rose bushes planted, some lavender, a flower, rosemary and an azalea bush.  We've got two geraniums to go in after I turn over the dirt today and tomorrow.

We're also digging out around the walk pavers.  We'll be putting bricks around the pavers to increase the walking room and decrease the slippery grass on the pavers.  Ma and I both took a fall last week.  We're going to paint the pavers with a texture added to decrease the danger.

That one shows how hard it is to get some work done around here!  LOL

Cherry Blossom Time!

We went on an outing over to Conyers, Ga for a regionally famous cherry blossom festival, this year celebrating 100 year anniversary of the gift of cherry trees from Japan.  The weather was great and the festival was wonderful.

We watched cloggers, line dancers and traditional Japanese and island dancing.  Wonderful craft booths, art, photos and plants.  We got some pralines, fudge, some craft things and plants.  Aside from being a little tired, we had a grand time

Unseasonably Warm Weather Enjoyment

We're going to a cherry blossom festival tomorrow and have enjoyed the warm weather.  Things are blooming and growing. The basil, tomato, squash, lavender, roses and flowers are growing. 

So is the pollen - we racked up the highest numbers ever.  About 3x the norm and we've been suffering with it.  There's a green haze in the air and green pollen everywhere.

Our friends in CA got snow, we got green haze but it's good.

Oh for the Life of Our Cats

Hallway

the hallway without carpet.  We'll do a temp treatment until we get flooring

Springtime in the South

Unseasonably warm weather the last couple of weeks so we've been busy gardening and ripping up thrashed carpet in the house.

the warm weather also means the pollen is incredibly high

Note: my Bronco is normally BLACK

Looking out our front door and back doors

Entry Way

The carpet at the front door was thrashed when we moved in.  We can't replace the massive amount of carpet in the living room/family room - the rooms are huge.

What we've done is pull up the carpet in the corner and checked out what was underneath.  We found plywood, lino-tiles and pressboard and a good chunk of that was rotting away from water coming in over the threshold in really heavy side-ways rain and pet damage.

We have an interesting idea of the entryway that we will tackle next month.

For now, we got a piece of plywood, cut out the rotting pieces, patched and put the plywood over that after cutting out a square of the carpet.  We got playful with the plywood and painted the thing, tacked down the carpet, put edging on the carpet and then worked to replace the threshold which was split and not usable once we got it up.

Thresholds at Home Depot and Lowes at the size we needed were running $45-$65. Ack

We looked for different options.  Jackie and I took pieces of molding with a small square of wood in between and made our own threshold for the main door and the molding together (without the wood inbetween) for the closet.

 You can see the damage we uncovered.

Okay, here's the playful part.  You'll notice dragons, the Hebrew word "Chai" - Life and turtles.  Some symmetry, some randomness.  This will be covered next month with our next step for the entryway.

we filled in the screws and painted those - that is the closet threshold

That is the front door threshold - note that we will now have to strip the paint and redo the front door jam.  Go figure.

The idea for next month is to put our pennies to work.  Literally.  Some pennies, light glue, epoxy - interesting flooring

We'll post more when we start laying the pennies

Gardening!

We finished clearing the flowerbeds of weeds, planted three rose bushes and laid out a carpet of flower seeds.  We've started putting in a border of bricks as well.