We've had a week of absolutely gorgeous weather.  My shade garden is finally all planted. Once it all comes up I'll take a picture and post it. We've decided to just mulch the sunny one and wait to plant it until fall. We need to paint our house first and by then it will be too hot to put out anything. Still hoping I'll get a vegetable garden planted in the coming weeks.

Friday evening I enjoyed a girl's night out with my inlaws. We went out to eat and to a Christ in the Arts of West Texas production of Journey to the High Places, an original retelling of the classic spiritual allegory Hinds Feet on High Places performed as an elegant story ballet with a choir singing the narrative. It was my first ever ballet and I found it both both inspiring and beautiful! So glad I went.

Saturday I took my MiL with me to shop for supplies for hubby's upcoming birthday cookout and then to a nursery to buy bedding plants. She needed petunias and I needed impatients... Of course we had to stop at a thrift store along the way.... Hubby and his brother are still working on the bathroom remodel.

I'm looking forward to gathering in the Lord's house to worship this morning. Have a great Sunday y'all!

Last night hubby worked until bedtime so I spent the evening piddling around in the yard. We live on about three and a half acres so I am always finding something I want to move closer to the house to enjoy. Last night this is what I found and relocated near the entrance of my driveway. So far it is the only thing blooming on our place:

While I was relocating plants the skies grew dark and I literally saw the thunderclouds circle around us leaving behind nothing but wind and the tantalizing smell of rain.

If you look at the enlarged version of this next picture you will notice bits of yellow here and there on the prairie. That was the prickly pear before I moved it nearer the house.

Today I am planting Castor Beans around my vegetable garden spot.... Supposed to be a natural gopher repellant. We'll see.

We've been busy around here remodeling my MiL's only bathroom. I have been designated the interior decorator so last week she and I made an afternoon long trip to Lowes to pick out countertop, faucets, etc. Over the holiday weekend her boys began the rip out and redo process. All my years of helping hubby with projects has paid off because I think they have sent me to the lumber yard at least once a day for incindental stuff like a plumbing fitting or tile spacers so the work didn't have to stop. So it seems I am decorator and go-fer. Lord willing, they'll finish up by the end of the month. I know my MiL is thankful to have a son living right next door. Being without a bathroom is no fun!

Last night the guys took a break and we got together with the local kin at hubby's brother's for a Luau themed meal complete with leis and flowered attire. We have some great cooks in the family and as usual there was way too much food. It was a bit cool and windy for us grown-ups to get in the pool, but all the great nephews took their first dip of the season. At one point they even had the puppies in with them. You know you are tired (or getting old) when watching someone else having fun is entertaining.

Today marks the beginning of my Sister of the Heart's Year of Jubilee. Living 1500 miles apart makes getting together a once or twice a year event, so I can't just pop over with a birthday surprise and share a cup of hot tea.  Instead I will spend the day thinking of her, eat a bite of chocolate in her honor, and hopefully visit with her for a bit on the phone. I will thank my Heavenly Father for this fun-loving, gentle spirit I have grown to love like a sister these past four years. And I will pray that every day of her fiftieth year will be filled with good health, joy and peace, and the knowing that she is loved.

Hope all of you had a wonderful Mother's Day! Mine started off on the wrong foot when hubby and I overslept and were late getting to church, but got better and better as the day wore on.

The first song was almost over by the time we found a seat near this sweet elderly couple. Which was fine by me~  until the music ended and I began to hear the all too familiar rhythmic pop of the older gentleman's oxygen. This was not my first Mother's Day without her, but I had a very difficult time concentrating on the sermon for remembering all the times Moma sat beside me in church, her breathing making that very same sound... and that it was Mother's Day and she wasn't there beside me.(Which just goes to show that you never know what it going to trigger grief, or where you will be when it strikes.) I didn't do a very good job of keeping the tears in check, and made a bee line to the car after service, hoping no one noticed my tearstained face.  For the life of me I couldn't tell you what the semon was about...

Hubby served me lunch out on the newly poured patio, and then we took a nice long Sunday afternoon nap before meeting up with the inlaws for a special Mother's Day supper. Everything tasted delicious and my MiL made out like a bandit in the gift department. After supper I talked to both my kids on the phone. Something I guess I'm going to have to get used to on holidays with us all living so far apart..... It helps a lot that they both sound happy.