#166-I HAVE A GUEST

PREFACE:     I have decided that it is time for me to start spotlighting other new bloggers.  I met April back in November of 2010 when she became one of my first, non-family, followers.  Then she then she started blogging that December.  Blogging seems to come so easy and natural for April and, like me, it is partly therapy for her, too.  She brings her honest, unique and usually humorous perspective of her life to us, in real time.  You can visit April's blog at confessionsofaterriblemom.blogspot.com (this title is misleading because April is a terrific mom).   Now I am going to let April introduce herself:


Hi, I am April. I love reading blogs and began writing so that I, too, may vent my spleen on an irregular basis all over the blogosphere.  When not writing (or secretly fighting crime in a form-fitting costume),  I can be found in rural Kentucky single-handedly raising 3 kids.  I posted this on Wednesday, March 23rd and Karen asked me for permission to run it on her blog.

(Sorry, April, couldn't resist adding this....kt)

"Type L for Lazy"

I am most definitely not a Type A personality.  I am much more of a Type L for lazy.

Truthfully, I have not been blogging (I know, bad.  Stop nagging already, what are you?  My wife?), or entering contests or *gasp* reading books, because I have been very busy.  Busy with Spring!!

Thank God!  Finally, we have good, warm weather.  The kids and I are spending a lot of time outside, walking, playing, sitting (my fav activity!) and gardening.

I have flipped and flopped about the garden thing since I moved into this house and I finally decided to just go for it.  Granted, my landlord did indicate that she didn't 'think digging is allowed', but I asked her to double-check.  She never got back to me and anyone knows that means it isn't a definite NO, so it must be OK (I realize that it is the logical foundation of life as a 7 year old, but it also applies here, because I said so, that's why!)

I have started with planting some flowers in the newly turned beds in front of the house.  I intend to also eliminate the need for fighting my mower on the steep hills at each side of the house by planting some sort of hardy ground cover.

I have to be honest, if I could afford them and get them to my house, I would go with planting rocks.  It is amazing how little you need to water, weed and care for rocks.  Amazing things.

Finally, I have plans for a good size vegetable plot out back.  I originally was going to go with small or medium, but I went a little nuts when I was buying seeds.  Visions of crunchy salads and juicy melons were dancing through my head.

The most interesting part of all of this, for you dear reader, is visualizing my gardening chores being done with all the finesse, technology and tools of a leper in the 17th century.  I am, as always, teetering on the brink of abject poverty.   So, I have a cheap dollar store shovel and seeds with which to bring about my Martha Stewart transformation.  Oh, and let's not forget the hose.

It was also a dollar store item purchased last year for the kids to play in the water with, but it is now pressed into duty as the official garden irrigation system.  On one hand it is nearly perfect as a soaker hose- given the many, many holes, large and small, adorning it's length.  As a forceful spray from only one source, it is an abysmal failure.  It is worth mentioning that the water squirting from every direction is absolutely frigid in mid-March and that, once again, my heart and constitution are sturdier than I suspected.

I am not discouraged, yet.  If people could scrape vegetables and flowers from the earth for thousands of years with sticks and stones and the occasional ox, then I can manage with an dollar shovel and a leaky hose.  If nothing else, I know that my hard work will be rewarded with a bumper crop of zucchini- that magic squash that even a blind baboon could produce, if it stopped biting and flinging poop long enough to bother.

In fact, it is so easy to grow, it is a wonder I don't see 'wild zucchini' plots everywhere.  It is the dandelion of the vegetable world, only I never stand over a cauldron of bubbling oil attempting to coax crispy goodness from a slice of dandelion.

Don't get me wrong.  I love fried zucchini (though eating 3 lbs a season is my limit, thank you very much Miracle-Gro).  I just hope that all the other things I really want to eat decide to follow zucchini's Type A example and not my Type L.

I also hope my neighbors really like zucchini.

What's not to like!
(Actually, I HATE zucchini..... but I like April's posts......kt 3/2011)

WHEN YOU VISIT APRIL CHECK OUT THESE: 

*Practicing Patience

*Spring Is A Fickle Cuss Word

*Love Is Not A Noun

                                                          Confessions of a terrible mom