Spring has arrived. Soon, the plants my sister and brother are sending me for my birthday will start arriving and I'll be able to put the compost to good use. They are sending me 3 butterfly bushes, 3 red latham raspberry bushes, and 6 oriental poppies. I'm very excited about gardening this year.

I haven't done any gardening since I rented the house in Columbia, Missouri and grew carrots out back. It was a very small house with a small yard, but it was a house with a yard and it was $185/month. Wow, that price seems great now, I couldn't rent a room for that around here these days. It's a different season here, in more ways than just not being winter anymore.

I made a new budgie mix today and I think this might be the best mix yet: Apple Carrot Harvest Beak Appétit, budgie seed mix, egg food, flax, oat groats, peas, corn, papaya, honeydew, clementines, and blackberries. The reviews are in: they love love love it!

For breakfast yesterday I had mixed pasta in a jalapeño jack and parmesan sauce, for lunch I had 1¹/₂ 7-layer burritos from Taco Bell (mmm... lettuce), for dinner I had spaghetti in a tomatoe sauce with zucchini, mushrooms, carrots, peppers and parmesan cheese. For my first healthy snack I had cashews, for my second I had a clementine. I completed my exercise quota in the form of a cigar walk to Stop & Shop.

Yesterday, purpleglitter and I made the budgies fun coconut bowls filled with a blend of apples, peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and millet.


( how it went over (+9) )

I made my most funnest birdy food mix yet! I started with apple carrot harvest Beak Appétit, then added three kinds of seed mixes, a vitamin mix, two kinds of millet, organic smashed peas, fresh organic carrot tops, fresh organic carrot bottoms, organic flax tortilla chips, Ezekiel 4:9 bread, and organic spring salad mix. I hope they like it.

I woke up later than normal this morning, around 8:30. I went over to the house_of_clocks where I fed the mazzycat.

I started my hour of reading a half hour early, and went all the way through to 11:00.

After reading, I went immediately back over to purpleglitter's apartment, where I took the cover's off the bird cages, fed the birds their mixes (seeds and pellets) and gave them all carrot tops (which they are in the process of devouring). I changed their waters, and gave Squeaky a fresh bath. I do this every day at 11:00, so that purpleglitter will get plenty of time to spend with the birds after she gets home from work. Getting them up early meant they had to go to bed early and purpleglitter missed most of the playtime with them.

In a way, taking care of mazzycat and the birds already has provided some structure to my day, I just hadn't realized it. Project Schedule will still hopefully provide more, but it's not like I'm starting off from scratch.

Went to the Great Meadow with grrldan and merryperseis. It was beautiful and the sun trickled through the trees onto our smiling faces. We crossed the stepping stones and sat down in the first clearing we came to.

Our picnic lunch consisted of Fred & Ginger Trail Mix, green olive tapenade on mini toasts, marinated portobella mushrooms with roasted peppers, and orange-carrot juice. While we were enjoying our picnic in the bright sunlight, a dark cloud placed itself over our heads and proceeded to rain on us. It was sunny in every direction, with the exception of the gray rain cloud directly above. It hovered over our heads for a good ten minutes or so, before deigning to move on.

On the walk back, one of merryperseis's feet slipped off a stepping stone and into the stinky bog. Luckily it was not at a deep point along the stones, but it did thoughoutly soak her shoe. However, the shoe dried quickly on the way home in the bright sun.