" I Like" Thursday Post

The clock on our dining room wall is broken.  It keeps on ticking, but the hands never move.  They are stuck at 9:20 and every time I catch a glimpse of it for a second I think it's still 9:20 either in the morning or the evening.  This unraveling of time seems to fit this odd period when time isn't measured by being somewhere in particular, or starting or ending a scheduled event.  Time just unfolds and another day, or week, or month, or even a season goes by.  

It's officially spring here in Boulder now; we can tell by the blooming of the first early poppies and iris.  They'll continue on into June, when sunflowers, coneflowers, and daisies begin to bloom. 

So on this "I Like" Thursday, a weekly topic which my friend LeeAnna began as a way to promote positive thinking when the world turned grey in November 2016, my first like is the wonderful poppies and iris. We don't have any blooming in our yard yet, but I spot them on my walks with Turbo around the neighborhood and they always make me smile. 

This past week we got into baking with sourdough starter, courtesy of our friend Raymond who was given his starter by his friend John.  Starter is one of those friendly things that gets shared from one enthusiast to another.  We sure enjoyed the "sandwich biscuits" and bread that we made ...and ate!  One thing about starter is that you have to use some of it each week.  After gaining two pounds by eating yummy baked goods with delicious butter I made a deal to take the "discard starter" from Ray occasionally instead of hosting my own.  Better not to have it so readily available in the fridge if I want to get through this shut down period without gaining a ton of weight!

As time has moved on, Turbo is now ten months old.  He's discovered the water that has again filled the irrigation ditches and washes and the suddenly strong currents in the creeks and streams as water pours down from the melting snowfields up in the mountains.  Here he is trying to get up the nerve to actually take a drink of water in the ditch in the old cemetery down the block.  After seeing his dog friends lapping it up, he finally took a drink himself.  It was a big moment! 

The trails around here are increasingly busy so one afternoon we drove a few miles up Boulder Canyon to take one of Ben's favorite hikes, the Chapman trail.  I hadn't been there for a while and it was good to see the beautiful Indian Peaks off in the distance.

One result of the odd flowing of time nowadays is that we wake up when we are ready, not by the clock.  For me that means I'm sometimes up at 6:00 a.m. and sometimes sleep in until 8:00 or so.  I've found that one reward for waking up early is watching the sun come in through our east window.  We hung a stained glass window with a sun face on it some time ago and have just now discovered that when the sun shines through the glass the sun face is projected onto the side of our dresser, which looks pretty cool!  Now don't think I never got up early before; I sure did, especially when Paul was in school.  But I think I was so "on task" to get ready for the day that I never noticed this neat trick that the sun and the sun face glass pulled off every spring morning.    

I don't have any photos of one of the most fun things of the week which was having Mother's Day dinner with my BIL, John, and my SIL, Dawn and their son Michael.  We ate Dawn's wonderful BBQ ribs outside on their patio and had a relaxing visit which was very welcome after almost two months of not visiting apart from the weekly walks that Dawn and I take out on carefully selected wide trails.  It was great to enjoy a family time together. 

Colorado has begun to reopen its retail stores including nurseries and garden centers.  On the very day that our local nursery reopened for walk-in service I made a quick trip in to buy some annuals to fill a few pots on our patio and to tuck into our raised beds.

Given that I was trying to "stay safe," I was in and out faster than I could ever imagine --- oh, for the days you could linger enjoying the pretty offerings and slowly making your decisions!--- so when I got home I was delighted to find that the plants in the pots outside our patio door actually look great and give me a little spark of joy when I see them.  (I'm looking forward to watching the geraniums grown up a bit and the lobelia trail down a bit and together fill the wall to a pleasing effect.)

We have been spending a lot of time gardening and enjoying the results.  We inherited about eight separate garden areas around this house and now is the time to weed them and replant as needed, so we've been busy.  Good thing we like to garden!  We've had to reseed a fair amount of our side yard which got torn up during the stone work we had done on the raised beds last fall.  We couldn't think of a good way to keep Turbo off the new emerging grass so we're just going for it and hoping for the best.   

Here is our side yard from the street with Turbo standing at the edge of the new grass.  Good dog! He loves to hang out by the side gate and watch everyone go by.  He has lots of dog friends and always barks out a hello.    

We still eat in the dining room most evenings but the other night it was pleasant enough to take our meal out to the patio, which is one of my most favorite things.  To celebrate I brought out the tablecloth we bought at Mama's Fish House to remind us of our wonderful two trips to Maui.     

Many of our meals are accompanied by texting between us and our friends who share our love of food and drink.  This photo captures an "everyday great moment"; Ben laughing as he texts with his friend Ray about our delicious dinner of Sicilian style swordfish.

Well, if there wasn't a pandemic going on, I'd be in New York City today with my sister Jean and our good friend Janice.  We'd planned a super trip to celebrate 20 years of our annual excursions, and had even splurged on tickets to see Hamilton tomorrow night.  Since that trip is not happening, I took some time to go back through my photos and relive our earlier travels together, and found this nice photo of us by the Boston skyline in 2011.  We're already busy planning a rescheduled 20th anniversary trip with a new destination, the beautiful red rocks of Sedona, Arizona.  Reliving past travels and planning future trips is a delightful pastime in this unusual time.

Linking to my friend LeeAnna's "I Like Thursdays" at Not Afraid of Color