Am I home yet?

With spring’s advent, the pace of life around the garden has noticeably accelerated. I normally have a couple of hours on the weekends, to sit and compose an entry, delving into my limitless store of cleverness. The past two weekends have been so filled with activities and commitments, I’m finding that days are slipping by without writing a single witty word. For this, I am most humbly sorry; I don’t like to think of myself as a “sometimes blogger”,

only posting when I have nothing else to do.

So, let me catch you up on our whirling dervish household:

v Last Saturday was a full day. After taking care of Saturday chores and heading over to the gym (yes, I’m still going- only once a week right now, but I do want to increase that), Chris and I headed over to the church for the annual Widows’ Luncheon. The Men’s Ministries sponsors the event- they do the cooking, serving, and clean-up- so Chris worked as a server, while I joined the Ensemble to provide the entertainment. The meal was wonderful; unfortunately, by the time we finished singing, they were out of just about everything but salad, green beans & twice baked potatoes.

After the luncheon, I changed clothes and headed over to drop off the scones at the site of the tea party. I stayed for about an hour, helping set up tables and washing teapots, and then headed back home. I grabbed a short nap, changed my clothes again, and the three of us went to the Sunrise Rotary Shrimp Feed. My boss is a Rotarian and gave me 3 tickets, since he was going to be away for the weekend. We had a full table of people from my office with their spouses, so the wine flowed and the shrimp was devoured. One of the husbands, who is also a neighbor, challenged Sam to eat 30 shrimp- offered him $10 to do it- so of course, Sam had to accept. He managed to pack away salad, pasta with sauce, bread, and 31 jumbo prawns; our neighbor was so impressed, he gave Sam $20! (No, Sam did not get sick, though he did take a Pepto before bed.)


v Sunday morning, we only attended first service; all three of us went to serve at the tea party. It was rainy and windy, but we had a full house- two sittings, with 48 people at each sitting. The rooms were lovely, the servers were dressed in period costumes, and the food was wonderful. Just ask Sam. We worked in the kitchen, setting up plates of food, refilling teapots, and washing up as we went. Whenever a tray would come back to the kitchen, Sam’s job was to clear them off- he did this mostly by eating the (untouched) leftovers.

We stayed until 6:00 pm, and then took Sam over to his weekly dance class. They had a long practice, because the youth class has been asked to be demonstrators on an instructional DVD series being produced by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. This really is quite an honor for such a small group as ours; we are essentially a social class, not a performance group like some others, but we have good reputation for quality and teamwork. The past two years, our youth group has been asked to dance in the closing ceremonies of the Pleasanton Highland Games, which are the largest in the US and the venue for many of the events’ world championships.
At class, we discovered the capacity of a sixteen year old boy’s stomach: 12 assorted tea sandwiches, 5 scones w/clotted cream and lemon curd, 4 petit fours, 6 chocolates, 3 choco/cherry mice, an unknown number of broken cookies, 3 glasses of sparkling cider, 2 cups of tea, and probably half a glass of champagne. All this combined with two hours of jigs, reels, and circling rehearsal resulted in a progressively paler Sam and a dash to the men’s room. Once he got sick, he was fine- though he did pop another Pepto when we got home at 9:00.


v I already mentioned that my week at work was pretty nasty; the evenings were just busy. Monday and Wednesday, I was working on hemming skirts and dresses for the girls in the dance group- we will be filming on March 10^th- and finding matching knee socks for the girls who will be dancing as gentlemen. Tuesday evening was the Quilting Circle meeting; we got quite a bit done, piecing half of both quilt tops we are working on- I think we’ll be done with them within the next 2 months. Thursday was choir practice, and Friday I did the weekly shopping, since I prefer not to do it on the weekends.



v Sam has been training with the tennis team for the past couple of months and completed conditioning camp this week. He came home Wednesday with big news- he made the tennis team! He’ll be playing JV doubles, which will be a great start for him, since he’s really just learning how to play; Thursday was his first match and they won 1-0. I’m very proud of him- he has worked really hard and is getting a little more serious able his grades; unfortunately, he is right on the border with his GPA to qualify and if he hasn’t brought up his science grade (currently a 58.5%) by quarter end, he’ll have to warm the bench until it’s brought back up. I would appreciate your prayers for him- I would hate to see him get discouraged and give up.



v This weekend has been spent shopping. I booked my flight to Vancouver, had to replace two tires on my car, hit Home Depot for garden stuff and a new toilet seat (don’t ask), and find a new washer, as mine is 15 years old and making ominous noises. Sam had a karate belt ceremony to attend today, for one of his teachers, so Chris and I were able to go to lunch all by ourselves. We worked in the yard this afternoon, reseeding the front lawn (a large section was destroyed during the freeze in January) putting in some new herbs, and dividing the blueberry plants and putting them in their new home. Tonight is dress rehearsal for the kids- I’ve been peeking in every so often and they are looking very snazzy.

So that brings us up to date; this will pretty much be status quo for the next 6 months or so. Chris is already working occasional Saturdays and they are sounding him out about traveling to LA and Las Vegas soon; Sam will have tennis practice or games most days after school, in addition to his twice weekly karate classes, so by the end of school in May, he’s going to be tired (not to mention pretty buff); and I am doling small sections of my free time to various activities and looking forward to a productive season.

Speaking of which, here is the next clue to my new activity-

Charles Augustine Buckley, Sr