What a sweet week this has been, starting with an excellent performance on Saturday at Drums Along the Rockies. Playing in front of thousands of drum corps fans gave me such a high that I was still grinning like a crazy person all the way through Monday morning. Luckily, my coworkers already know I’m a little odd.

I haven’t seen the close-up photos yet, but here’s an overhead view of our show during my solo. I’m up front, the short one playing the horn as big as my face.

The following day, my weekend got sweeter when I got the spend some time with Kelli, a very fun woman who runs a gorgeous blog that I’ve been following for a couple of years. She was in town from Arizona on a road trip through the vast wilderness of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. We met up at Denver Fabrics first, which was a real treat – I’ve never seen so many fabrics in one store, with lots of remnants sold by the pound (great for us frugal crafters!). Although I didn’t find what I was looking for, it was fun to shop with someone with an excellent eye for fabric. I will definitely be going back there sometime very soon.

We followed up the shopping with happy hour Sangrias at LoLa’s, overlooking downtown Denver. Kelli had also invited along two other bloggers from the Denver area, Rosie and Julia. For four women who’d never met, we had a great time and the ambiance was just right – drinks on the porch with a live band and beautiful weather. Kelli, I hope that this trip helped convince you that Colorado is destined to be your next home!

(left to right: Rosie, Julia, me, and Kelli)

This week it has been tough being back at work. But I made a point to bring in a little sunshine to share with my coworkers today.

They didn’t last long.

Mud.

We’ve had so much rain over the last month that my garden has been a bit waterlogged. Some of the plants have been loving the cooler weather and extra moisture. My onions and some volunteer lettuce have been doing very well.

Despite the small amount of sun, I also have some tomatoes and yellow crookneck squash starting.

After a bit of work, the garden is somewhat drier. Unfortunately the forecast calls for more rain this week. I can’t wait to get some sun!

Me: Well, do you want no more than 3, or no more than 4? Because 4 is more than 3

Friend: obviously they meant 34
…
Friend: or, they meant 3 minus 4…. so you need to include no more than negative one samples

Me: oh, so they will give me a sample?

Friend: exactly. at least one

Me: sweet!

The drum corps has been busy the last couple of months putting together our summer show and making some appearances in the community. Nothing like some hot breakfast burritos on a cold, early Saturday morning before a parade.

2.5 dozen eggs + 2.5 lbs of sausage + 1 bag of frozen hash browns + 3 dozen tortillas + 1 Friday night = 36 breakfast burritos to feed the entire group. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of them being enjoyed, but they were a big hit.

The parade was just the beginning lap of the Multiple Sclerosis Walk around a lake in Denver. We figured it would be short and easy. As it turns out, one lap was 2.5 miles, so we got our workout!

On one hand, I’m still so glad to have a job in this economy – I couldn’t afford to be out of work for long, and there are so few jobs out there. On the other hand, it’s usually harder for the “survivors” who have to pick up the slack while constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I watched some dear friends and extremely talented people walk out the door today – 28 people from the Colorado office. As with any layoff, rumors abound. Time to make sure the savings account is nice and padded, in case this isn’t the last of the changes.

For now, I’m just sad to see people go.

One of the hardest things about moving into an apartment last year was knowing that I would have to go a summer without gardening. Sure, I have a balcony, but it gets virtually no sun. Also, I am terrible at container gardening.

So, when it became clear that I am going to have to rent for another year, I started going through some serious garening withdrawl.

Then I found Growing Gardens, an organization that runs several community gardens in the area, one of which is right on my way to work. After spending a couple weeks on the waiting list, I got a call last week that a half-plot was available. Yippie!!

I’ve already stopped by twice to check out the plot. A friend is going in on this with me so that we’ll have two of us to do some of the work, and we’ll be working on amending the soil and getting drip lines in. We made plans to get together to start working the soil this weekend.

Then, in typical Colorado fashion, this happened.

You didn’t really think I would write a post today without talking about the snow, did you?

In Colorado, we have four seasons: Summer, Fall, Winter, and Snow. After a dry winter, it was a nice change to have some good snow yesterday and today. I am fortunate enough to be able to work from home, so I haven’t had to deal with the weather and the roads. It’s been two days of working from home and doing some things I don’t normally have time for.

I guess the garden will have to wait another week!

I picked up a copy of \”The Phantom Tollbooth\” at a used bookstore recently, one of the books I remembered from back then.

I read it again as an adult and found a new enjoyment in the cleverness of the writing. It’s a story about adventure and the wonders of language. And especially now, as a writer, I have a new appreciation of this story.

Hope your corner of the world is warmer than mine!

I survived my big release deadline at work last week. The day after, my brain promptly shut down. I took a four-day weekend last weekend and couldn’t bring myself to even turn on my home computer. So now I’m finally back to feeling somewhat normal, so it’s back to the blogging world!

The great news is that my name change flew through steps 4, 5, and 6 over the last few weeks. I had my court date last Wednesday, and the public notice is going through publication right now. Next week, I should be able to get the final decree from the court. Which is exciting, but that is when the real work begins: changing my name on every account, identification record, legal form, work information……..

I promise more interesting content soon. For now, I’m just happy to be back in the blogging world!

There has been some time for other stuff, though. I have just started to realize how much more I’ve been reading while living by myself. I used to be a 15-minutes-then-fall-asleep reader. Lately, though, I have trouble making myself go to bed. I tell myself, one more chapter… one more chapter… and suddenly it’s 1:00am. Although I’ve had a few zombie mornings, I love feeling like a teenager again, staying awake way too late reading, although now I don’t have to worry about getting caught. (It now occurs to me that, of all the things to punish a kid for, staying up to read isn’t really so terrible.)

When I moved 8 months ago, I decided to only unpack the books that I haven’t read (and a select few that I would like to read again). There were so many that I filled five bookshelves. I had over 150 books that I had bought but not read. I counted again last weekend and those are down to 122, but I’ve probably purchased a couple dozen more since last April.

Yes, you read that right. I have 122 books on my “to read” bookshelf bookcase. Don’t believe me? Check out my LibraryThing catalog. It’s not recently updated, but you’ll get the idea.

Speaking of books, my book club met last night to discuss John Adams by David McCullough. Despite all the reading I’ve done lately, work was just too busy for a 700 page book in a mere 4 weeks. So, I rented the miniseries from Netflix instead. (As it turns out, not one person at the meeting finished the book, and I wasn’t the only one who watched the show instead.) I thoroughly enjoyed the first 4 episodes of the miniseries, and still have 3 more to watch. Next month, we’re discussing The Tender Bar, which is a good timesaver for me since I finished it in January!

Also, I dusted off the sewing machine tonight and finally learned how to do a blind hem stitch. I was running up against a deadline to hem some uniform pants for a new member — we have a performance tomorrow evening.

Can you see the hem? No? Good!
(Sorry for the terrible photo quality. The lighting wasn’t great.)

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