Mild spring

I probably shouldn't say anything, because I'll jinx us, but we are having a really mild spring in central Oklahoma.

There have been some storms, yes, but there have been very few tornadoes.  Mostly, there's been a lot of wind and hail with the storms, but nothing terrible in our area.  No flooding, either, which is nice.

As a result, the things that I have planted are doing well.

The neighbors gifted us a load of left over garden soil after they installed a big container garden, and planted a peach tree in their front yard.

We just spread that out in a big patch over the weeds in the back yard, and I put out an assortment of wildflower seeds that are supposed to attract bees and other beneficial insects.    There are a thousand tiny sprouts coming up!  By summer, we should have a big patch of black eyed susans, yarrow, and salvia.

It will be nice to have flowers in the back as well as in the flower bed out front, which has iris and peonies in spring, and black eyed susans and speedwell in summer.

I also planted 2 scarlet runner bean plants, also gifted to me by the neighbors.  Those are doing great!  We still had our old gate from the chain link fence, across the old driveway, and leaned it up against the pergola to give the beans something to climb.

They will eventually have bright red flowers, and will make edible beans.

Since I moved here in 2009, there have been very few Mays that have not been insufferably hot by the middle of the month.

I am loving having an actual spring.   We've had a few grey, drizzly days lately, but today should be lovely, and we are in for a few nice days before the next round of rain.

Last year, it was so wet for part of the spring that my herb garden, and attempts at container gardening, all drowned.

I haven't tried any container plants this year, but our neighbors are inspiring me to try again.  That will mean a trip to Lowe's, though, so it may not happen.

We tried to go to the revived OKC Farmers Market yesterday.  It was not a good idea.  Too many people, not enough of them wearing masks, and the booths were not spaced far enough apart to allow for distancing.

We just walked through and left.

So, our grocery order had lots of veggies, and NO unhealthy snacks.  We are both still gaining weight, and all of the crappy snacks are now gone, so, with the nice few days we have coming up, we should be able to get outside and at least walk, if not ride our bikes, too.

We are in the process of doing a re-fi of our mortgage.  The appraisal was Friday, so I did most of my inside chores already for this week.

The mortgage payment that we get to skip will be used to pay for the appraisal.  I have no idea why they aren't folding the appraisal fee into the mortgage...that's always been how it has been done in my previous experience.  Oh well.

Today, the grass should be dried out enough to mow, so we will get our outside chores done today, and maybe get in the hot tub this evening.

Yesterday was a surprisingly lazy day for me.  I don't usually "DO" lazy....but I think being in quarantine really has reduced my stress in a lot of ways. 

I've used up all of the purple tinted conditioner for my hair, and the color has faded over the past 2 weeks to a lovely shade of mauve.   I'm trying to decide if I want to do anything else with it, or just leave it.  Maybe the hair color thing is out of my system.   I'm not sure yet.

If it didn't cost so much, I 'd LOVE to get the "opal effect" coloring done.  However, that involves hours sitting in a salon, too, and I am not about to go to a salon for any reason.

I'm afraid of damaging my hair, or of using anything that will not wash all the way out eventually.

I get my bi-weekly blood draw tomorrow, and then Tuesday, I will actually see my doctor.  He cancelled all of his face to face visits for a couple of months, but he is back to seeing patients, and we all wear masks.

I plan to talk to him about the obvious increase in pain since the beginning of the year, the increased dry eye symptoms, the itchiness on my back that drives me nuts sometimes, and the maddening night time leg cramps are back, no matter what I do.

All of these are side effects of, you guessed it, the hormone blocker.

Through it all, it's been the various hormone blockers that have caused me the most trouble.  The one that was the least impactful was tamoxifen.

Maybe we can try a different one at this stage.  We'll see what he says.  I know that the one I am on is the one that is recommended for this chemo pill, so I don't know if he will allow a change.

I've become increasingly aware that all of the things that I had planned to be doing while on lock down are not happening.

I am not reading, I am not doing more yoga, I am not regaining my spiritual practice, and I am not deep cleaning my house.
Dave and I are not playing dominoes or backgammon at all, either, which we thought we would do more often.

It's a matter of mild depression, I think.  My mood lifts MARKEDLY when we get out of the house, and especially when we go somewhere else, other than just out into our neighborhood.

Even though the farmers market experience was a big disappointment, just going, and being around people, made me feel SO much better!!

We also took a long, meandering drive after we left the market, and it was just so nice to be out somewhere.

I also feel that we are self-medicating WAAAY too much with alcohol. 

We need to strengthen our resolve to get that under control again.    We were doing really well for a long time, there, but this international crisis threw that right out the window.  I, personally, do not drink to excess when I drink, but I AM drinking more than I should be.

Alcohol is a depressant, after all, and I am harming myself in more ways than one by drinking more than I should.  It also causes weight gain!

SO, I am determined to relegate drinking anything but the occasional glass of wine, or a beer, to the weekends, and then, I will only have a cocktail or two.

Dave has to make his own decisions on the matter.  I can't let his behaviors impact MINE anymore, in this regard.

On that note, I am off to make our Sunday breakfast.

Best wishes for a lovely week to my gentle readers.