Irises and Waxwings

Our local Botanical garden sells plants to the public in the fall and spring every year. Last fall I bought a grab bag of iris rhizomes and two specially identified irises. I have a small patch in my front lawn of yellow irises and along the side of my house I have black ones that have never bloomed. I’ve concluded they don’t get enough sunlight.

When I returned with my newly purchased grab bag I proceeded to thin my yellow ones and move my black ones, planting in the others I had purchased. Being the plant nerd that I am, I could.not.wait. to see what shapes, colors and sizes would show up this spring.

About 4 days ago I saw the first bud. Today it is in full bloom and GORGEOUS. What a treat to have one of the grab bag irises bloom first!!!

click to enlarge
While I was outside drooling over my wonderful new iris I heard a more than normal amount of rustling in the trees behind me and turned to find a flock of Cedar Waxwings descending on a Cherry Laurel and Holly for their, apparently, wonderfully tasty berries.

What a show these beautiful birds gave me. Swooping from tree to tree, resting, keeping watch, and feasting.

If my Chemistry class hadn’t finished lab and lecture early, I would have missed this. What an incredibly beautiful day!

The Dallas Arboretum Tulip Show

One of my nieces stayed with me over spring break. I only worked 2 days last week so we had plenty of time to do lots of fun things. Last Thursday we decided take in the Tulip show. Neither of us had ever been to the Arboretum and we thought this was a great way to see it first.

It actually turned out better than I anticipated. We were there for 3 hours! I of course took lots of photos. Below are some of the better shots.

Enjoy!

It was wonderful! I highly recommend a visit!

Lent

I wasn’t raised observing Lent. Several years ago a friend of mine suggested our circle of friends should participate. No one in this circle is particularly religious but we decided we felt we needed a bit of a self-check in certain areas so we all agreed.

This year I’m inspired to participate again. I’ve contemplated it over the last several days and I’ve concluded that for me, Lent is a period of time to deny myself something that I’ve overused or taken for granted.

For me this is normally food. This year I’ve decided to straighten myself out in a few areas I feel I’ve let get out of hand.

I don’t drive through much but lately I’ve been doing it more than I want or need. So no fast food. I’ve also been a bit loose on chocolate. So no chocolate.

One last area is a habit I need to break. I’ve trained my body to crave something sweet immediately after something savory. I, for a very long time now, always grab a sweet after I eat lunch and dinner. A cookie, a pudding cup, an ice cream sandwich, a hunk of chocolate. I feel like Pavlov’s dog. Sometimes I even think about what sweet treat I’m going to get before I even eat the meal. Sometimes the meal is just my justification to get to the sweet treat.

This needs to stop. I’ve decided it is doing me no good. It’s about breaking the habit, not denying myself dessert. So after a meal, I will wait at least one hour to maybe have something sweet. As long as it isn’t chocolate. Those little vanilla Jell-O pudding cups are good!

I bet after 5 minutes I won’t even want something. What are you doing for Lent?

Organization

I wonder how many blogs have been written about organizing. I wonder how many of those I've written myself. Well, here's another to add to the list.

Despite the fact that I had this idea come to me in January, it isn't a resolution. Although it very much looks and sounds like one. I decided this was the year to clear out, weed through and organize my entire house. I, like most of the country, have too much stuff. And I, like most people, have categories of crap.

A few of my categories are:

Belly dance costuming
Crafts
Dishes
Toiletries
CD's/Books
Plants
Clothes
Home Improvement Junk

The idea is to focus on an area at a time and deal with it. I so wish everything in my house had a place. That is the goal. An organized place. Not just a drawer in the kitchen full of nuts, bolts, pens, twisty ties, clothes pins, duct tape, etc.

Normally when I take on a project like this, there are charts and plans involved. Time lines, Excel spreadsheets and the like. But somehow I've managed to get a few areas done without planning anything. It's March already. If I had planned this I would have wanted to get at least one area done per month.

Well, I've pretty much done that, without any forethought. It is happening organically! It's pretty great!

I've gone through all of my dance costumes and put everything that can be repaired/altered into one box. The rest is hanging in my closet. I also went through all of my clothes and have a large garbage bag full for donation. This past weekend my husband and I went through all of our bathroom cabinets and threw away a multitude of expired medications/vitamins and unused lotions. I've also cleaned up and moved all of my indoor plants back to the outdoor porch.

That's 4 things! That's progress!

I think I'll tackle magazines/books/cd's/DVD's/VHS tapes next. I've done some of this within the past year so it shouldn't be too big of a job.

Onward and upward to my perfectly organized home!