I don’t have anything exciting to report this week…except that my baby-child is officially a legal adult today. WHAT?! HOW?! Happy 21st birthday to my smart, caring, beautiful, talented, creative, and favorite daughter, Reagan. She has always been a shutterbug, but she is currently working towards a career in professional photography at MTSU. She recently made some updated headshots for me. If you want to help her build a portfolio, look her up on Instagram: @reagan.a.photos. 

It’s been a windy here, which has affected the power/WiFi. In fact, the WiFi has been out since yesterday afternoon, and I couldn’t get the laptop to connect to my hotspot. After restarting everything and resetting factory settings on my phone this morning, I am finally connected. When the power went out Sunday night, my condo was the only outage in our building. One of our maintenance guys took a look at my breaker box and told me it was damaged, along with a couple of outlets. I don’t know the specifics, but new breakers and outlets were purchased yesterday and it’s all been repaired. I’m hoping the repairs will keep the power from blinking out so often.

Tim made some adjustments to my bike when he was here; he put air in my tires and tweaked the gears. This made yesterday’s bike ride to the farmer’s market easier. I need to start limiting my purchases since my freezer is full of food. But those prepared meals are so delicious and hard to resist. My Valentine’s dinner last night was French Onion Mac and Cheese with red wine and a Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownie for dessert. The best part of this meal is that I didn’t have to cook anything.

I’m still enjoying my trips to Progeso’s mercado for flowers every week. It has been a challenge for me in that there isn’t a lot of variety in plant material from week to week. One of the ladies recognizes me and helps to select flowers and greenery. She knows I prefer lilies that are still in bud; the open lilies are stunning, but won’t last long once I get them home. She pulls material from buckets behind the counter, which makes me feel special. The bundles I bring home every week are all I have to work with for arrangements, whereas at home, I can run out to my garden for more material if I need to fill a hole (not right now, of course). Still, I manage to create some beautiful arrangements. I plan to show some pictures of my work to the lady at the market this week.

Speaking of flowers, I am STILL working on garden plans. I have completed the six-week Floret Online Workshop, and I’ve learned so much. I’ve finished my seed sowing schedule. You may or may not know that sunflowers are my favorite, though dahlias are a very close second. And irises. And everything else. I have 30 different varieties of sunflowers to plant this year. YIKES. However, using the “days to maturity” on each packet, I’ve made a bloom schedule so that at least two different varieties will be in bloom every week from June 6th to October 10th. This way, I’m only sowing a few seeds a week throughout the growing season. I’m kinda proud of my sunflower plan. This is all assuming I don’t slack off a week or two, which, let’s face it, is inevitable. But for now, I will live in my sunflower utopia. 

Now that I’ve figured out when to sow my seeds and plant the seedlings, I need to design a layout for these plants. There are so many factors to consider, like varying bloom times, spacing requirements, and plant heights, all while trying to plan an aesthetically pleasing garden. Good thing I enjoy puzzles.

I’ve been sitting on this last bit of information, because I didn’t want it to fall through. But, we at long last have a lead on a job for Pierce. The Homegoods/T.J. Maxx in Brentwood is giving him an opportunity to train there with a job coach. He will work a couple days a week with the likelihood of adding more days if Pierce does well. His first day was supposed to be last week, but it got pushed back to this week. Right now, his job coach will be providing transportation. Once he’s completed his training with her, we’ll have to figure something else out. It’s possible that Pierce, his coach, and T.J. Maxx will decide they aren’t a good fit for each other. But I am clinging to this scrap of hope. I will keep you posted.