We Have This Moment: Spring Sprang

I'm having a difficult time sticking to my blogging goals. What was once supposed to be biweekly went to weekly, bimonthly, and now I will be lucky to even get it in once a month, it appears. My apologies.

The last time I posted, we were in the middle of a mid-winter depression. Life went on, I found motivation in the anticipation of spring, and now there is more than enough to keep me busy during the days. So much, in fact, that I seem to get nothing done during the day.

In March, my urge for spring's expedited arrival drove me to create an in-home greenhouse in our office, which has since been affectionately renamed the "project room".

The plants are now pretty much taking over half of the room. Who knew all of those tiny, innocent-looking seeds would turn into these ever-growing-out-of-control plants?

So here you have it:

$1 PLANT STARTERS- WHILE SUPPLIES LAST:

30 Rutgers tomatoes

15+ Green bell peppers

5+ Jalepeno peppers

9+ Mystery peppers (either green or jalepenos)

3 Watermelon

15 Snapdragons

15 Zinnias

12 Dahlias

12 Morning Glories

6 Moonflowers

AVAILABILITY SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

Anyway, back to our life story.

The project room is also so named because it is the location of a few other ongoing decor projects that may not be finished for awhile on account of the excitement of spring in the air. More on those when they get completed.

He just started staking power lines again for the spring and summer, this time around home near Ft. Madison. We are both thankful he is able to come home in the evenings, rather than being in a hotel a couple hours away. He will be gone from 6 to 6 every day and have every other Friday off now, probably until the end of July. I had the day off on Monday so I went out with him to watch him work and see what he does.

This is what he looks like when he is working hard! :)

I work every weekday from eight to noon at Champion (Federal Mogul) in Burlington, which is a spark plug factory. I help out in the scheduling department where a few very busy people schedule the components running on the machines. My routine is full and I am enjoying it there as well as learning a lot about the manufacturing of spark plugs!

There it is!

After work I eat lunch with Jenni, who works in the accounting department at the same place, and then either run errands in town or go home and find work to do around there. We are often busy in the evenings, but this week has been empty thus far and we are thankful to have some calm evenings to ourselves.

Just a few of the more exciting parts of my life after work...

I made a candy bouquet for my brother after his surgery last month. :) He appreciated the thought in bringing him a bouquet of candy rather than flowers.

I finally started using the clothesline in the basement toward the end of the winter when we had the wood stove going. It works almost faster than our dryer! :) Maybe...

Cinnamon rolls-a first for this gal! They turned out swell.

Frugality at its extreme.

Invited myself to this girl's surprise birthday party in March.

And this little cutie was having a splendid time celebrating as well!

As spring warms up...

On the way to an evening gathering, we made a pit stop in the driveway to dig small trenches going from the driveway into the grass due to a lot of unwanted water from melted snow.

He must have done something right.

We got our grill (belated wedding gift!) and have been getting some use of it.

Philip picked up our chicken house because they are going to start raising chickens. Loading this up was an impressive feat!

Matt was excited to bring home a new string trimmer/leaf blower combo yesterday. Now he is itching to get some use of it!

ALICE came to visit again, this time to our home in the country! We broke her in by having her help us get our garden started, and then we went for a boat ride and fished on the pond. She met Matt's family Saturday evening and spent Sunday evening at my family's home with the Bible Class. We must have done something right because she is planning to come again next weekend. So exciting to introduce a bit of off-campus culture to her! :)

For those who may not know Alice, she is a friend from China I met last year at the University of Iowa while I was studying there. We were both in the same program at the time and enjoyed each other's company in and out of class. She came home with me to meet my family last May, came to my wedding, and then visited a few weeks ago at my new home. So glad to keep in touch!