Spring, Finally....

Yee Gads (as my Grandmother used to say)...
 Once again, I seem to have forgotten all about blogging and more than a month as passed since I have posted anything.  Let's catch up...

My Pampered Chef business is going all right.  I had my own show first and welcomed a handful of neighbors and friends to help me through my first "cooking demonstration show".  It went better than I expected and I was pleased.  Two friends then booked shows for April, and those went well, also.  Now that my summer plans are picking up, I am not working too hard at booking demonstration shows, but I would like to get some catalog shows going to keep active.  Anyone want to share a catalog???

Easter was nice.  Flo came from his internship in NYC to spend the weekend with us and that made it special.  We had Jim's mom come for dinner as well.  It was a nice, quiet day... but not very spring-like unless you like your spring cool!

Flo and Aaron, Easter dinner

The dinner table :-P

The week after Easter, I went to spend with my Dad, while brother and wife went on vacation.  One day I got to spend time with my niece and do up her hair; guess I have not completely lost my touch:

Sami's hair french braided for tennis.

 On my last day there, Dad wanted to go check on a consignment that he had at an antique shop, and I found THIS beautiful lady and Afghan Hound and puppy.  Isn't it lovely?

Spring has crept in slowly, and one day I was finally able to get outside and do some gardening.  

My raspberry canes, pruned and tied.

I should really have had a "before" picture so you could appreciate how much I had to cut out!  I hope a get a good early crop.  The late crop will be lost because of the blasted Japanese Beetles!

In this past week, I have been able to do even more gardening.  I have one of my 6' square gardens cleaned out and planted with peas, radishes, onion seeds and broccoli plants. Two more sections to do, but I have found garlic shoots up and growing!  Now if I could get all of that tarragon out!  I dug a HUGE original plant out, but have all kinds of runner plants to keep after.  I wish I had known that Texas Tarragon was as invasive as mint. What a mess!

I have also taken the advice of my sister-in-law, the Master Gardener, and transplanted my poor rabbit-chewed blueberry plants into containers.  They are just now leafing out, so we shall see if keeping them up, keeps them safe from the rabbits!  Those blasted varmints have also eaten the bark off my apple tree!  This tree is espaliered with 6 varieties of apples, and the lowest 2 branches seem to be dead... but the upper 4 are leafing out.  I thought surely the whole thing was lost!

As usual, I am busy with the dogs.  We had our first outing of the year with Elvis entered in an Agility Trial.  Since it is my own club, I entered all 3 days in Jumpers.  I know he isn't really ready to do Qualifying runs, but this is an opportunity to get out there and blow off a few entries for experience.  At least my money goes to my own club, even if we don't get the Q's towards our title.  Sure enough, he did NOT Qualify, but we did make it all the way around the course - which is a big improvement over those couple of trials we went to last October!    

Next week, I get to go to the Cardiologist and find out about my dingy heart again.... now that it isn't bothering me anymore.... isn't that the way it always goes?  As soon as you make the appointment, you don't need it!