09 May 2010

Mother's day

I have one more post from yesterday -- some cleaning and organizing that did me well -- that is not up yet. And so much about today and I am not feeling very organized. And so this is a mish mash of the day.

Julia made me a lovely mother's day card! I will post it tonight. My goodness, it was perfectly appropriate!!! I have read our Julia T-Rex book to her and she is not yet willing to draw pictures for the pages -- yes, this does relate to the sentence before. I got the feeling that she did not want to draw something that was dictated to her, but then yesterday, David asked her to make the card and she did a lovely job.

She understands mother's day.

Julia was in a drawing frenzy yesterday. I am dating pictures now. She was working with colored pencils and using lots of color.

There is a robin's nest in our back yard. The silly birds made a nest in a rather precarious place -- on top of a 2x2 beam that is leaning against the garage. We are being very careful around the nest and I think the dog is trying to be quiet when she is in the back yard. Today, I put a ladder near by and took a look inside. Julia got to see it as well and she was very careful to not touch or get too near the nest. This was VERY difficult for her. She was thrilled to see the eggs.

On our way to the brunch place this morning -- nice treat to eat Sunday breakfast out -- we got a little lost and passed a very nice garden center. After breakfast, the family indulged me and walked the garden center for awhile. What a great place!! Lots of interesting choices. I want to put in about 7 shrubs in various beds in the front of the house, and this is where I will go to find them. Slowly, the front garden is coming together -- another few years before it looks like it is truly an intentional design. This is such fun for me. I will not tackle the back until we do the house renovation although I do have a bunch of hostas growing back there that I will this summer.

David and I have been talking to architects, design and build firms, kitchen designers, and contractors -- interviewing a few each week. We've found a kitchen designer that we like, and we are narrowing down the others. It is always easy when we don't like someone. We've also decided to put off construction until early next spring. I wanted to do it sooner, but David needs more healing time (we had planned for the fall) before we throw the house into total disarray, and we are hoping to use some of the money from my mother's estate which is no where near settling. So, next spring.

We received our wedding invitation from our British friends and I wrote to a bunch of Bed & Breakfasts for reservations for our week in England at the end of July. We will be staying in St. Albans which is about 25 minutes via train outside of London. I've already promised Julia to find some dinosaurs. I think the British Museum has everything! We are planning to visit with our friends and relatives, see a castle and some art, walk in London again (I love the city!), and just be somewhere else. It will be Julia's first time out of the country since she came home, and our first big trip since China.

Oh, I want to go NOW.

Julia is playing with her ZhuZhu pets -- they are a scream, running around the house making all sorts of noises. One can almost see a pattern in their movement, and I swear the two of them coordinate their moves. Is that possible? Best of all, there is an off button -- I am not a fan of rodent pets and these toys may be all the rodents that Julia needs. At least, I can hope so.

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