Kicking Off May

Two big events down, two more to go. The Boston trip is complete and today we hosted the softball team for dinner. Next up I have a wedding on 5/23 and my parents’ 50th anniversary party on 5/30. Yesterday was also my birthday but I’m happy for that to not be a big event, thank you.

A lot of this weekend was spent prepping for the softball dinner. We had much yard and house cleanup to do. I was awoken by my husband’s snoring at 5:30 am yesterday and decided to just get up. I was at Wegmans by 7 am, buying groceries and party food. It was truly exhilarating! I never do that, and it was so quiet on the roads, and the weather was beautiful. By 8:30 I was at the inaugural farmer’s market of the season, buying carrots, green beans and an onion and scoping out the new vendors.

After the market, I did some weed whacking. T pulled all the weeds out of the patio concrete during the week — it looks way better. Going to try filling the cracks with sand.

I also picked five heads of lettuce (not fully grown) to make a salad for the team dinner, and later on I plugged those holes with lettuce seedlings that have been patiently waiting their turn, rootbound in their little cups. I had some of the salad, and I’m not just saying this — it was really good. So fresh and tender!

Today was party prep nearly all day long. F and I made two pans of “Tini’s mac n cheese,” which required a lot of chopping and grating of cheese. I also marinated chicken and baked it, and made some plain grilled chicken as well. We made too much food, but I know we will eat the leftovers. The chicken, the mac n cheese supplies and the s’mores supplies added up, but overall it was still cheaper than other options. I had all the marinade ingredients on hand.

Excited to be really getting into the swing of spring now. It was great to see the garden again Friday morning. I didn’t miss anything blooming while I was gone, fortunately. There are some green strawberries out there, and the bean seeds sprouted. And the tomato stem that I put in water has sent out roots. This week, I have a plan to start hardening off the tomatoes in the giant blue tub (involving the shed).

The oregano is filling out nicely in the front garden and doing well on the side of the house too.

A quick bird note: for the first time, robins and blue jays have visited our feeder. And the robin and others now seem to drink from the bird bath. I’ve been trying to catch a bird doing this on camera.