Hello, May!

I have taken a bit of a break from my normal day to day, whatever that is, but it’s a new month and it’s time to get back into a regular groove. I completely overlooked April as far as planning and hitting any personal goals that I had, it’s almost like it didn’t exist. I am embarrassed to say I didn’t even crack open my planner. And here I thought 2021 was gonna be this perfectly planned out year with very orderly and organized monthly goals. Yeah, right! Honestly, April was not a good month and I had a lot of down time. I’m out of my slump though, and ready to hit some goals. I am even going to open up that fancy planner I bought for this year and get a plan for May.

The month didn’t end too badly. I got a bit ahead of myself when I last said that the cold weather was behind us. I did look ahead at the forecast, but I should have known it changes in an instant. We got down to lows in the 30’s the week before last and I was a little worried about the grapes! Why had I even said anything, I thought. But, they survived. It was 37-38* at my place those two cold mornings and the muscadines survived just fine, as did our other vines. The blackberries look great and a lot of them are already covered in blooms. Not sure what the season will look like for them, how much fruit we will have, but we have last year’s wine bottled and ready to take us until the next year’s batch, whatever it may be.

The yearly yard work has begun. I’ve started to tackle weeds and the grass is growing like crazy. Everything got green overnight it seems, and of course we have the rain that comes with the green. I think we are in for two days of downpours and possible severe weather tomorrow. I am looking forward to a bit of a dry out this week as we have some pressing matters to take care of in the yard. One of which is an overgrowth of poison ivy where one of my blackberry patches are. The blackberries at my house get neglected. There are now wild roses, honeysuckles, mustang grapes, and poison ivy growing with very little blackberries underneath and beside it all. I probably won’t have any blackberries left at this particular place once the week is over as I’m planning to poison the poison ivy.

What else can I say about the end of April? We spent some good time with family and friends this month. In fact, I spent a lot of time away from the house this month hanging out with others. It did me well. There was a lot of eating out this month too, and that didn’t help with some of those goals I ignored for April. But, I’m not going to be too hard on myself. 🙂

One other noteworthy thing I did last month was get my sewing room set up. I got a cabinet from IKEA for my patterns. A whole cabinet of patterns! Well, not totally full of patterns just yet, but there is room for more. (I don’t need any more.) All I have left to do is decorate the walls. I took down the last of the school maps that were up there and now no one will ever know that I spent the last 13 years in that room also teaching and not just sewing. I have pictures for the walls, but just need to finalize the positions. And should I decide I need more, I have frames for that! Just ask Stephen if I have any picture frames. 😀

I have two pictures left for this post and they really don’t have to do with anything, I just thought they were neat. This is a Wooly Sower wasp gall and I found it at the property when I was taking pictures of things growing out there. Just what we need, more wasps in the summer, but this fuzzy gall is pretty neat looking!

And this picture, similar to my header, is the old Greyhound station in downtown Jackson, TN lit up. The station closed a couple of years ago, but it remains for historic purposes. I heard that it gets lit up certain times of the month, and even though my guy works not far from it, he couldn’t tell me what days those were. When we went to the BBQ festival and headed back to pick up my car, I saw the blue lights illuminating the night sky so we had to detour so I could take some pics. Only iPhone pics, but they will do. Had there not been an event going on in the parking lot, I would have taken more. Next time, whenever that will be.

I leave you with my video for April. Thanks for reading; have a great week!