Scattered Thoughts . . .

O ur flower gardens took a big hit with all the rain we've had and the lack of sunshine didn't help at all but, surprisingly, I've been able to keep most of the flowers alive.   I found that all the rain was flushing all the nutrients out of the soil in the gardens, window boxes, planters and flower pots.  Once I noticed that our flowers were wilting and dying, I realized that all the rain was probably flushing out all the nutrients from the soil so I started fertilizing the flowers daily rather than weekly.  Once the flowers started to look a bit more healthy, I cut back on fertilizer but I'm still doing it far more frequently than usual.  Of course, we're still getting more rain than usual too.   As I said, the lack of sun has been a problem too and, unfortunately, there isn't anything we can do about that.  I suppose we can just make sure the flowers are getting everything else they need.   The other thing I didn't think about is that our flower pots, win

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Sheila was offered a new job which also provided her with a nice promotion. She excitedly started this new job right after Christmas. Actually, we were both very excited about this opportunity for upward mobility as well as for personal and professional growth. Then, sometime either later that first week or in the following week, Sheila learned that there would be no time in this new position for annual leave during our time at the lake house! We had been waiting almost two weeks for an official determination on whether or not Sheila would be allowed take annual leave so we can head to the lake house. This decision sort of got waylaid by new training requirements and then a virus going around the office landing some of the decision-makers home on sick leave. Unfortunately, on our end, this wait was delaying our planning schedule, causing missed deadlines and, generally speaking, putting quite a damper on the new year thus far.  While we waited