Fun Bits

• I think I forgot to mention that we had the police here over Memorial Day weekend. As is our usual weekend plan, we had a fire out back. Hub had been saving our Christmas tree, for compost he says, well…since Christmas. I went inside for a minute and came back out to see that he’d thrown the tree on the fire. They tell you to keep your Christmas tree moist for a reason, right? Picture a dry-ass Christmas tree catching fire. This tree sparked and then suddenly the flames were higher than the house. The leaves on our live chestnut tree were starting to curl. Hub grabbed the hose and put it out just in time, leaving a normal subdued fire in its wake. He thought it was hysterical. Me? Not so much. Anyway, about 30 minutes later an officer was peeking over our side fence. I caught his eye and he said he’d had a complaint of a fire too big for a back yard. He was looking around, and said “Clearly, you have an overreacting neighbor. This fire is fine.” Hub and I looked at each other and sort of shrugged our shoulders. And now we are plotting against the neighbor next door.
• I got our garden, both front and back completely planted that weekend as well. I never thought that I would be the gardening type, like ever. But it is so fun, and I love that I can eat what I grow, AND that the compost we worked on all winter is integrated in to the soil and is feeding our new veggies. Circle of life and all that crap. It is a gorgeous garden if I do say so myself. Separate garden post forthcoming.
 • I will show you this though—Bud built me a planter on the side of the garage, to dress up the back yard a bit. Isn’t it just great?

 • I finally added internet listening to my SiriusXM plan, and am enjoying listening to Howard while I work.
 • This maybe isn’t such a fun bit, but it is interesting for me. I’ve given up dairy.. My skin has been a mess for the better part of a year. I’ve been on every prescription acne medication. I’ve used everything you can imagine over the counter. Nothing works. I’ve waited for it to “get worse before it gets better” through countless regimens and nothing. Mild to no improvements on all fronts. So I’ve decided that it must be something inside my body that is making it so bad. I had a milk allergy when I was a kid, that gradually turned in to an intolerance. Certain forms of dairy make me feel worse than others, but generally my tolerance is high. I think. Or I thought. I noticed that I have more breakouts when I’ve been drinking iced coffee—you know that comes with heavy cream and wheels started turning. I’ve been thinking about doing it for a while now, and so I started yesterday. My plan is to give it 30 days and see what happens. I hope it works, because if not, gluten is next and I think I need gluten.
 • The best news of all has been finalizing some plans to meet up with 3 fantastic ladies in July, and having potential plans to see Carrie and her new baby (This should be easier than it actually is. She lives an hour away from me.) In my 12 years of blogging, I’ve had all of these relationships and I’ve never met anyone in person. This is a step for me, and an even bigger step for Hub who is convinced that everyone on the internet is a murderous stalker. Meet-ups ahoy!