Good Things Happened: home, sweet, home

It's been days and days since I posted.  There was a minor medical issue that kept me at home for a few days - all better now.  Being at home with nothing much to do gave me a renewed appreciation of it, as seen below.

On the first day, niece Amanda and her family sent me flowers.  I can't think of the last time I got flowers!  It was thrilling.  I'm still enjoying them.  The delivery man seemed to enjoy my reaction, "I got flowers!!!"

I was looking for something else in a kitchen cabinet and found these two forgotten items.  The one on the left is a handy thing in which you can pull tarragon through the holes to strip the leaves. Stripping tarragon is kind of annoying, so I guess that's why I bought this.  It doesn't come up that often, but when it does, I'm set.  :)

There was clean out the refrigerator cooking.  Do you ever buy stuff for recipes you end up not making?  I made roasted vegetables, using carrots, fennel and the red onion that is in the bowl in the first photo.  (Yum.)  And yesterday, there was still a bunch of unused flat-leaf parsley, so I made pesto out of it.  That's it pictured above.  Parsley, olive oil, toasted walnuts and Parmesan cheese in the food processor.  I'm having some of it on penne pasta for lunch today.

And I enjoyed breakfast on the back porch yesterday.  There has been so much rain in Georgia, that the trees are nicely leafed out now.  It was cool and lovely.  And a hummingbird whizzed by a couple of times, probably to remind me about putting that feeder up.

I'll be playing a little blog catch up in the next few days.  Hope you have a good week!

Good Things Happened - Saturday in the park

Friend Laura and I had just finished our walk at Mountain Park Park last Saturday, when her friend who fosters dogs stopped to chat.  I looked down and one of them was standing at attention on his hind legs, without moving.  "He wants to be petted." she said.  And so we did.

A little boy was hanging out with his father, waiting for the ball field to open.  I smiled at the wee one on my first pass by.  On our second pass, he approached and said he had picked this bloom for me. 

It's been gloomy here for days (and strangely warm), so that's why this photo from the drive thru at Starbucks isn't more bright than it is.  The cherry trees are blooming already!

Here's something not to be gloomy about - it's Friday!  Yay.  I hope your weekend is amazing, my friends.

Spring forward, lovely read and beauties

The sky never seems to disappoint at this little corner of the world in northwest Atlanta.  The week after daylight savings time sprang to be, I left for work in the darkness and arrived to work to these pink puffed beauties.

Leonora wrote about her latest good reads in a recent blog post.  I'm listening to this one during my commute.  I told a friend at work this morning that I'm smiling during the drive and not obsessing about traffic.  It's a  lovely story about a widower who finds a charm bracelet that belonged to his late wife and embarks on a journey to find out more about her past and even more about himself. 

It was a chilly morning last Saturday when friend Laura and I walked in the park and caught up with life.  She never questions why I stop to snap photos with my phone and encouraged me to get this close up of the buds of this flowering tree.  We dropped into the 20s (f) this week - so cold.  I hope these lovelies survived.

Spring is around the corner.  Sigh.

Waiting for visitors, new digs and signs of spring

- A definite sign of spring:  the hummingbird feeder is filled and waiting for visitors.  The nice lady at my local bird feeder store, The Garden Enthusiast, told me another customer reported seeing scouts about already.

- I went there on Saturday to buy yet more Nyjer seed - the finches are going through it like mad, but half of it ends up on the back porch floor.  So I bought this new feeder with smaller holes.  They were hesitant at first, but took to it eventually.  Love that guy waiting his turn at the top.  Click to enlarge.

- And nothing says spring to me like Vidalia onion bulbs.  My late father used to plant these in his backyard garden.  I love putting them in salads and that's where these have gone this week.

There was a lovely spring rain last night.  I ran the plants from the back porch out front, so they could feel the rain and the pollen on their leaves could wash away.  Everybody's happy this morning, including me.  :)

Survivors, leafing out and at it again

- I titled this photo "Survivors" - since these outdoor plants weathered the winter temps this year.  I managed to get them inside every time the temps dipped below 32 degrees f.  And the begonia never stopped blooming. 

- Last evening, as I drove toward the condos, the street I live on looked glorious in the late afternoon sunshine - trees blooming, trees leafing out.  This is the view from the side of my back porch - nothing remarkable, except it's just so wonderful to see the green, after all the drabness. 

- The "ladybug garden club" that maintains the plantings in the weekend walking park have been at it again.  Loved the neckerchief on the stone turtle.  Click to enlarge.

Getting it down, what I'll miss about winter and morning sky

 - Why do I have six rubber bands around my water bottle?  Because of this article.  I need to drink six 20-oz bottles of water every day, so the article says to put six rubber bands on the bottle in the morning and take one off every time you complete a bottle.  I'm so forgetful that this seemed like a good idea to me.

- But I'm averaging three bottles per day.  And they also said to put the rubber bands around your wrist as you remove them from the bottle.  Too painful, that - I just put them aside.  I'm thinking three bottles per day is good.

 - So many people dislike winter, but I'm not one of them.  I enjoy the sky darkening in the early evening, which helps me wind down from my day.  Plus the fireplace, sweaters, fun patterned knee socks that I wear underneath pants and no one ever sees, eastern standard time and comfort food.  But spring is surely on the way and the pink blossom trees blooming around Atlanta right now are so pretty.  These are next to the drive-thru at Starbucks (last Saturday a.m.)

- And the sunrise sky was spectacular this morning.  They were talking about it on the local morning news, so I went outside to look and snapped this with my cellphone camera.  Just lovely.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, my friends!

Gone too soon, so pretty and jelly bird eggs

- One of my favorite authors of all time, Pat Conroy, passed away last Friday.  Three of his books are displayed here on my bookshelf that features authors from the south.  The first book I ever read, written by him, was The Water is Wide, a memoir of the time he spent teaching children on Yamacraw Island, South Carolina.  I've ordered a used copy to add to this shelf - I loved it so much.  How I will miss his presence in the world.

- When I was leaving for church on Sunday, I got out of my car to snap a photo of neighbor Rhonda's pansies.  They have weathered all manner of cold weather and ice and still look so pretty.

- My late mother loved black jelly beans and I used to pick up a bag for her when I'd spot them.  They had them at Publix this week, so I picked up a couple of bags.  I kept one bag for my desk at work and shared the other bag with the printing plant manager, who likes them, too.