May Day

It was a gorgeous May Day here. Not that we celebrate anything different on May Day but I do like to acknowledge the first day of a new month. I did talk about a few worldwide traditions on May Day to the girls but since we lacked a hawthorn bush and a May pole, we were not able to improve our cultural IQ.

I spent part of the day painting trim in my bedroom and part of it digging out my garden and planting a few seeds. Both were quite messy undertakings. Our room has needed new paint for more than a few years. I actually bought the paint a few years ago and haven't yet cracked it open until today. The trim is sort of a dusty purple and the walls are moss green. I think I'm going to leave the ceiling and the door trims white but give them a good cleaning. I thought the ceiling was relatively clean until I climbed up there to paint today and saw the grime. It's amazing what deposits oil heat will leave on everything.

I'm almost finished digging out my old garden and planting it. I'm planting more this year in anticipation of the price of food being outrageous. I might not have much come of it but then again, it might go well, so I guess we'll see. After I dig out and plant the last two squares of the old garden, I'm going to commence to making the new garden.

The summer before last, we laboriously dug out and leveled an area to put our above ground pool. When I say 'laborious", I mean laborious. The clay soil around here is nothing to sneeze at and it was quite a chore to try to get it leveled out as well. We persevered with the happy knowledge that the pool would at last be warm this summer. (The summer before, it was under a big old tree and the water never warmed up from the sun.) After we finished and before we got the pool set up, Friend Husband gave me a "don't kill the messenger" look and announced that we'd have to dig another hole. At our incredulous protests, he answered that the place we'd selected was too close to the chain link fence and it was out of code with our township's rules about above ground pools, even those blow-up ones. I tried to be a good wife and good-naturedly help dig another hole. About the only positive thing I could think that would come of our moving the pool (and laboriously digging another hole) was that I could use the first hole as the basis of a garden when I wanted to expand. This year I'm expanding.

Friend Husband doesn't know this yet. Friend Husband also doesn't know that our room is torn apart so that I can paint it. Friend Husband is out of town right now and I'm furiously attempting to get a million things done (including keeping the twins alive and educating his children) before he gets back. So I've been spending a lot of time running back and forth between the house and the garden.

I've been enjoying my garden time. A big old lilac bush is in the side yard right next to it and it's loaded with lilacs this year. Last year a freeze hit just as the lilacs were blooming and it killed them all. I'm trying to enjoy these extra this year. I also enjoyed the sun and the wind today. As soon as I realized how windy it was, I whipped downstairs to wash a load of towels and then hung them out to dry. Towels are a lot softer line-dried in a stiff wind. They also dried very quickly, which was a bonus since I got them out so late.

I've discovered that I can only multi-task three things at a time. Today I was painting trim, giving Rachel a spelling test, and answering the twins' incessant questions. Either Sarah or Abby came in and asked me a question and my entire brain derailed. Only three things at a time and preferably not that many, please!

I try to wear the twins out as much as possible before supper and this time of year, it's not too hard, especially when we spend a lot of the day outside. They had their bath and a bit of supper and then it was time to hit the hay. They did their usual attempt at stalling (I need a drink!) but I finally got them settled in bed. It was too late for a bedtime book but I did agree to sing to them. Lately we've been doing some tunes from Seussical, Jr., since that's what their sisters recently did and they've got the songs in their heads but David surprised me by asking for something from Fiddler on the Roof after I'd finished "Notice Me, Horton" from Seussical. So I sang a couple of songs from Fiddler (I love all the minor keys in those songs) and then a couple from 1776. By that time, David was snoring and Zi was fighting it, hard. But I'd saved the clincher for last.

Each of the children has had a song that, for some reason unknown to us, has put them to sleep. For the twins, it's "I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger". They love that song, I love that song, and I have to sing it to them before they go to bed. I told Friend Husband the other day that, if I should unexpectedly croak, he should learn the words to that song so that the twins will go to sleep. So I cranked out a few verses of that old hymn and Zidy was out like a light. Such power!

Such was our day. I enjoyed it. Nothing really special, nothing out of the ordinary, but a happy day, filled with purpose and a little fun. Hope your day was just as pleasant.