I suppose it's time

It's been quite a while hasn't it? I wonder if any of you still check in at all?
If you do, please accept my apologies for being away so long, NOT!
I don't feel I owe you any explanation.
It's my blog to write, not yours.

Can you tell I'm somewhat hormonal tonight?

So what's happened since I was last here?

1) I stood up Neesja again in the middle of June. That I am really sorry for. That was the second time I tried to plan a trip to visit her and ended up canceling it.

2) I also didn't make the trip to Calgary I was hoping to.

3) I did actually make it to Brandon to visit my long lost sister and her family. It was a whirlwind tour, but well worth the time.

4) I took two wholes weeks off work. The last two weeks of June. I started it by keeping the first of my plans to visit Brandon, and canceling the Neesja trip and the Calgary trip. The plans I made were going to have me away from home almost 80% of my days off. I decided that would not be good for me. I needed some time and space to relax and "take a load off". As nice as the traveling and visiting would be, it would also add stress to my days and I knew that there was no way I was up for it. It would have killed me.
Once I returned from Brandon and got caught up on the pile of laundry and house cleaning, I spent the remainder of my days off doing nothing. Other than the odd trip to the grocery store or walk down to the video store, I never left my house or yard. It was the best holiday I can ever remember having.

5) I read two good books (on my holidays), Life of Pi & The Kite Runner. I recommend them both. Life of Pi was what I expected, but at the same time not at all what I expected. It really surprised me and I really, really enjoyed it.

I found The Kite Runner to be very engaging. It is a story of a young boy growing up in Afghanistan at the beginning of conflicts in his homeland. He leaves with his father as a teen and grows into a man in America, falls in love, marries, and then gets an unexpected call from an old friend of the family that starts....... Hang on! I am not going to give away any more of it. You get it. What I really liked was the truth in this book. Although it is classed as fiction, it has REALITY (not the TV kind, the real reality).

6) I gardened. I have a fantastic crop of peppers coming along. My Roma tomatos are starting to make my mouth water. They are full grown and should be starting to turn red anytime now. My 4 types of Basil, my Oregano, my Cilantro, my Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (come on sing it with me) have been adding flavour to my BBQ's and salads for many weeks now and I have perfected a marinade for chicken. Ask me, beg me, better yet pester me, I just might share the recipe. I have also made a couple of Beer Chickens on the BBQ. They are now one of my favorite foods.

7) Oh yeah, I also cooked a lot of really good (from fresh, scratch ingredients) meals while I was off.
Now back to my garden. My flowers have done pretty well this year so far, with the exception of my perennial bed in the back yard. It is 5 yrs old now and I think it is time to shake it up a bit. Some of it needs to be divided. I have plans in my head for a new bed in the back, so I am hoping to convince my husband somehow to help me dig it, lug all the crap to someplace other than my yard, fill it with some really nice soil, build up a nice brick work type border to match my fire pit, lay the fabric, transplant the bed, lay a really nice layer of mulch and THEN, dig out the old bed, lug all the crap to someplace other than my yard, fill it with some really nice soil, build up a nice brick work type border to match my fire pit and make ready for a vegetable garden in the spring.
I also want some raspberries and saskatoons, although I would be willing to wait another year for them.

This brings you up to date pretty much. I have been seriously kick ass busy since I returned to work, and it's supposed to be the quiet time of year in my business.