So tomorrow I return to work and all in all it has been a fairly productive week, though I didn't get everything finished on my too long, 46-item list.

Here's the list of what I did get finished: Get Rosie's prescription, Pick up mammo prescription, Pick up film, Sams, Mail Mae's birthday gift, Shop for foundation items, Lunch with Lori, Lunch with Lauren, Osteen field trip, Go visiting teaching, Set enrichment board meeting, mammogram, Clean baker's rack in bedroom, Clean ceiling fans, Rosie dentist, curtains sewing room, hem black shorts for Rosie, Finish bedroom curtains, Make Baked beans for William's birthday, Will's birthday cake, Patch Aaron's suit pants, Go to teacher conference at Rosie's school, Buy stroller, Sort old files box 1, books for crooks (picked up and arranged to deliver, will deliver this week), Watch William Saturday, scan and e-mail old photos to Aunt Bobbie. In addition to all this, we played games with Rosie two or three times and Steve and I went to the movies.

Shaking and baking ...

For William's Mickey Mouse-themed birthday I borrowed a cake pan from a friend's mother and baked a Mickey Mouse face. Decorating it wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be.



A corner of a placemat is showing in the photo. The hand crocheted placemat is older than I am. They belonged to my first adoptive mother, Bernice. Who knew pink and teal would be my favorite colors at this age?


I'm hard at work on my to-do list. Started the week with 46 items on the excel spread sheet. I've finished 20 and I'm hoping to complete six today. We'll see how far I get.

Today was one of the most perfect days I can remember in a long time. I spent the entire day in the woods. I waded in deep water, hiked in fields of wildflowers. It was exquisite. It stopped raining and I got to see several beautiful locations with dozens of species of birds. Absolutely heavenly.


Heard but not seen: Parula, Limpkin, Meadowlark, Pileated woodpecker
Seen: Swallow-tailed kites, Bald eagle, osprey, Barred owl, Great egret, Cattle egret, Snowy egret, Great blue heron, Sandhill crane, White ibis, Little blue heron, Green heron, Anhinga, Wood duck, Black necked stilt, Laughing gull, Ring-billed gull, Killdeer, Red bellied woodpecker, Cardinal, Vultures, turkey vulture, black vulture, crow and fishcrow, blue jay, great crested flycatcher, lesser yellowlegs.

Wildflowers seen:
Tickseed
Bachelor's button:
Golden canna
Common arrowhead, yellow colic root, sabatia, rhexia and loosestrife

Furlough

72 hours in. Not getting as much done as I intended but ticking a few things off the list. I also read two dippy books and played games with Steve and Rosie last night. That was fun. I'm so depressed it's raining the whole time I'm off. No sun. No swimming!

Had several rolls of film developed ranging from six months to three years old. Here's a couple of photos:

Furlough

I'm officially 24 hours into the furlough and I only peeked at my work e-mail twice. I'm absolutely not allowed to answer any e-mail.

We kept William tonight. He's so funny! He rolls all over in his sleep. Constant motion. Wonder who he got THAT from!??

Just finished my to do list for the week -- 42 items. They run the gamut from finding our missing checkbook to taking Rosie to the dentist and squeezing in time for fun stuff like the beach!! I'm hoping for a great week!

Our garden is looking great! For now we just have the four container boxes and two plants. I may try to get a bit more of a garden in this week. But the tomatoes, cantaloupes and squash all look great! Hoping the cilantro will do well. It's one of my favorite herbs. I also planted more basil.

Thrilled with the rain. Everything is beginning to look green.

Kayaking

The kayak trip was gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. Wish I could do that more often. And after all that worrying, we didn't even have one near miss with an alligator.

We had a very busy weekend, doing dozens of chores around the house on Saturday then running an amazing number of errands in the evening.

Sunday was perfect. David and Patti had us for dinner. Aaron and Jen stopped by. It was heavenly.

Kayak trip

Today I will head to Lake Disston to take my boss out in a kayak to try to get photos of parent ospreys teaching young ospreys to fly. I'm trying not to worry about alligators.

Reputations

A good reputation can be a powerful thing. I thought of this today as a public official called my reputation into question in a public meeting over a quote. This scripture came to mind.

Job 27: 4,5
4 My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit.
5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.

Birds

Three Carolina chickadees in the yard tonight. They're very cute. They were named by John James Audubon, when he saw them in the Carolinas.
I don't think they're very happy with our large sunflower seeds in the bird feeder. Their beaks are very tiny.
We're going out tonight for Cinco de Mayo with friends.

Cute kids

What can I say? They're adorable. We kept Katelyn all weekend and Jen brought William to play on Saturday afternoon. It was simply wonderful. Then Patti and David stayed for dinner on Sunday night and we had an enjoyable meal out on the patio. (Then Patti and Rosie did the dishes!! Yeah!!) All in all a great weekend.