How many posts can you title "So much to do?"

Weekends start out so hopeful. It seems like such a large expanse of time stretches before you. Once Saturday is over you have---wonder of wonders!--all of Sunday!

Since getting a "career job" eight years ago, this hopeful feeling has mostly been squashed. Saturday I usually get in my inbox to take care of the things I need to wrap up from the week before. Sunday I jump in to get set up for Monday. All around me is a house that may or may not be messy (depending on how good I was at keeping picked up after myself), and of course people I promised to help, during the week, that now, hey, I REALLY ought to be helping.

Oh well! At least it is a gorgeous day. The kind of beautiful breezy sunny morning you may only get in the east, with all its thick leafy trees and scads of singing birds. Every area has it's own kind of "Beautiful", but every time I contemplate leaving this area, no other regional beauty feels as homelike as this.

This week, the fledgling Spencer Farmer's Market opens. Valarie stopped when she was driving by to remind me, but I actually had it on my radar. Sadly, if you want the fresh Finnish bread, not frozen, you have to be there at 9:00 am, not 10:00 am. I'll remember that the next time I go. I did pick up blueberries, some greens for dinner, and a bar of local soap. I refused to even look at the flowers. As much as I love buying local flowers, I have to remind myself that $8 is a couple of dinners, and there are flowers in my own fields if I would just get out there and pick them.

There was produce, jewelry, and quilts, jam...a nice combination of things for a teeny market. I will start every Saturday there, when I am home.

Alas, they were out of peas. Hopefully Mandeville's will have some the next time I go by.

So I have many many many many things to get done this weekend. The days are now getting shorter instead of longer. Summer will escape me. Luckily I have vacation and plan to start taking Fridays off, which will stretch my beloved weekends to a manageable space of time.

I'm sure my family and friends feel the same. So much to do, so little time. I guess the important part is trying to enjoy those tasks.

It's hard not to enjoy them on a beautiful day like this!

The wonders of Facebook

My high school friend, Beth, posted a true blast from the past on her Facebook page...a genuine award certificate from the Bouquet Lunch Club, which was our lunch table in high school. Rest assured, we were not budding gardeners. "Bouquet" was used quite differently than the common usage, and just mentioning the soap "Cashmere Bouquet" set us off into at least five minutes of high-school variety laughter.

I only re-connected with my friends with the advent of Facebook, and I've been able to get together with them a few times. They are still as good, crazy, and hilarious as ever, despite everything life has thrown at us all.

Not all of my friends are still with us to celebrate these memories, but things like this let me remember them while laughing, which I would think would be how they might want to be remembered.

Click the photo to enlarge it, Mom, there are names there you will know!

Danger, danger! Community garage sale weekend!

I grabbed my packages for the week and headed out to catch the post office before it closed at noon. On my way I encountered a yard sale, so I stopped. A little farther on, was another sale, and another! Oh no...community garage sale weekend! Hide me!

Luckily, early birds had picked things over, and had picked over even more by the time I got my "have to do it before noon" errands run. However, I did scored some fun and useful things:

I've resolved only to buy things I need,already use, or had planned to buy, when I stop at sales. I don't need more "stuff." Amazingly, I found quite a few things I already had on my list to buy. Of course, if I find brand new, quality pillar candles (5 for $2), I always buy them, because they are so expensive at stores and I am a candle junkie. I have also been keeping my eyes open for purple Christmas lights since the strand on my ficus in the great room died, and I refuse to pay $20 now for what I could purchase for five dollars at Halloween. I found a working purple strand at one sale for $1 in a pile of Christmas and Halloween decorations ("Dad! She would have paid $2!" the son protested). A hammer ($1). You can never have too many hammers. An almost new Weber grill ($1), which I had already decided to buy at a store since now, with bears in the yard, buying a new $100 gas grill to replace my old one (given away for scrap metal) doesn't make sense. It would just get tipped over by hungry bruins.

I also found a nearly new blanket (that sort of plushy creepy hotel type) to cut up for the cats since I'm sure cat fur will wash off easily ($2). There was a brand new window screen to replace the smaller, rusty one in the cat facility ($2). An alarm clock (25 cents -- tested, works!) which was on my list to buy this weekend because the one I bought from Walmart a few months ago is so obnoxious and loud that I turn it off rather than hit snooze, and then I oversleep. And there was a new package of candle lantern bags for a quarter--one of those things I always want to buy to line the walk up to the house for my yearly holiday party, then put right back when I see the price tag for them.

I found a new, soft seat for my Schwinn bike ($1). The women who were set up at the Grange, and myself, had a good laugh about fat butts. That purchase took me quite awhile to decide on, since my bike still sits unused this year because the gears need adjusting.

I did break my standard rule, however, and bought three silly things.

There was a bead window decoration that clearly was a waste of money as packaged ($1, bargained down from $3). The thing would have been tangled up before it was even unwrapped. And indeed, since I ultimately unwrapped it, I can attest to this. However I did not use it as intended. I cut it apart and added the beaded strings to the ugly apple tree which is adorned with beads and chimes that come my way.

I also found two little cast iron owl brackets that matched the one I already have in the bathroom (50 cents for both).

Finally, at the last place I stopped, there was this ivory or bone (far more likely) rose for $1:

Since I have no plans to sell it, it doesn't matter how much it's worth, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it was worth more than a buck, and would be fun to wear on a neck ribbon this summer. It also matches the earrings from my family that my mother recently gave me.

Then it was time to stop. That was my enjoyable drive through Spencer this morning. I also got to enjoy the warm day stringing my beads up on the tree. I can grill some of my local pork for dinner on the new grill (hmmm...I'll have to get charcoal). This afternoon I'll replace the screen in the cat room, and this evening I can replace the purple lights on my ficus tree.

All for less than $13 bucks. I've so glad all the antiques, etc. were gone, and there was nothing pricey to tempt me!