Saturday, March 21

We awoke to a rainy morning, with hundreds of blackbirds loudly chattering in the tree tops. After a cold cereal and banana breakfast, I got on the treadmill. Afterward, I answered a long e-mail from my high school friend in Texas, who tried to convince us to stay at hers and her husband's ranch when we travel there. But Shih Tzu, who will be fifteen years old April 1, and is nearly blind and deaf, would simply not be comfortable staying in a strange place. So for this trip, we are forced to take the RV and stay at a campground.

Once I was ready for the day, Hubbie and I dropped books off at the college library for their upcoming sale, and then went to the everything's a dollar store to pick up kiddie birthday cards for great-grandchildren.

For lunch, Hubbie and I had the rest of the leftover beef and cabbage stew, with bran muffins, and bowls of fresh fruit topped with semi-sweet chocolate chips, walnuts, and fat-free whipped topping

Mother came over after lunch, and I took her to the WDCS to do some personal shopping and pick up caladium bulbs and packets of veggie seeds for the garden. At first, we thought the store had quit carrying these garden items, since we didn't readily locate them. But a clerk pointed out that they were on one small aisle.

In past years, there were large displays of all sorts of bulbs, and flower and veggie seed packets. It's a sign of the times, I guess, that this year there is such a limited choice. I'd think, though, that since victory gardens are being encouraged, even by First Lady Michelle Obama, that stores would be promoting gardening supplies instead of limiting them.

The only thing I bought was a package of matte digital photo paper to use in hand tinting photos. I bought tinting pens with a gift card Son and Daughter-in-Law gave me for my birthday, and now I'm anxious to try this craft.

After we got back home, we relaxed for a little while, and then Hubbie and I went to the WDCS to get groceries for next few day's meals.

Then I put together wheat bagel pizzas for supper. We had these with cottage cheese, and a salad made from fresh lettuce from the garden, spinach leaves, canned mandarin orange slices, fresh mushrooms, grape tomatoes, green onions, Craisins, and walnuts, topped with raspberry spritzer.

The lettuce from the garden sprouted from some that had been planted last fall, and there was only enough for one batch. So when Mother commented that this was the first of the garden crop for this season, Hubbie responded that it was also the last.

However, Mother and Hubbie planted green onion sets yesterday. And she'll plant a new batch of lettuce after we return from our trip this weekend. So this season's veggie gardening is underway.

Hubbie and I spent our quiet hour from 6 to 7 p.m. in different pursuits...he read his novel, and I researched attractions at the various places we'll stop in Texas. Then we watched favorite one-hour shows on TV that I'd recorded on DVR.

Although predictions were for a mild day with a temp in the 60s, it never got out of the 50s in our part of the state. We're hoping for a warmer day tomorrow.