A beautiful Sunday

I let the marigolds run wild after the summer garden was finished, and the bees spent all day yesterday taking advantage of the late season blooms. Temperatures tonight are expected to drop below freezing, so it was probably their last chance to prepare for winter.

Yesterday was also my dear husband's birthday! We had a quiet day at home (the weather was glorious, like Indian Summer) with the dogs and Marco. I made all of Gregg's favorite foods, including banana pudding for dessert. I have plans to make him a pineapple upside-down cake too, but he requested that I wait until the banana pudding is finished. 

Just a quick update

My first week at the new job is done! It's going fine, but boy, the principal wasn't kidding when she said there was going to be a "steep learning curve"! The bookkeeping aspect of it is far more complicated than I expected, but I'm learning a lot and taking it a day at a time. And unlike last year, I get to learn in a pleasant, supportive environment where I don't have to fear making a mistake because a volatile, mentally disturbed bully is in charge. My new principal and assistant principal are both great--friendly and calm and professional--and I can tell I'm really going to love working with both of them. What a difference! 

In the absence of anything else of general interest to talk about at the moment (because bookkeeping is a lot of things, but entertaining isn't one of them) I'll share a couple of pictures from my garden this past week. It's a happy place at the moment. :)

Pond Visitors

Blue Dasher - (Pachydiplax longipennis)

This little guy was hanging out around our container pond yesterday. Isn't he cute? Blue Dashers are friendly little beasts and will let you get close enough to take pictures. I like this one where he was perched on one of the Blue Pickerel flowers.

The bees like our pond flowers, too.

Sunday wrap up

It's a beautiful spring day here. The dogwoods and azaleas are in bloom, the birds are singing (and flocking to our feeders), the bees are out, the sun is shining, and it's warm. A nice day to be off work, and to have a little "me" time.

Last week was rough. In addition to the depression my husband and I were both experiencing, I had several bad days at work that made everything seem that much worse. It's no secret I hate my job. It's a retail store at the local mall, staffed by adults who act like they're in high school, and there is always some silly drama unfolding...blah blah blah. Same old story. Despite my best efforts to just show up, act in a professional manner, do my daily tasks, and go home, I still occasionally get dragged in to the middle of angry confrontations between my coworkers. Our store manager is a nice lady, but a terrible leader, and so there is no one around to effectively deal with the immature, counterproductive behavior. I hate the atmosphere this creates. I'm a peaceful soul; I abhor confrontation and arguments, and I refuse to play "office" politics. I'm kind and helpful to my coworkers, even when they drive me crazy. I work hard. I'm dependable and stable and never make trouble for anyone. And most importantly, I actively try to avoid any storms I see brewing. So how do I still get sucked into these stressful situations? Especially at times (like this week) when I'm least emotionally up to it? I left work in tears on Monday for the first time in months. I've gotten much better at letting this kind of nonsense roll off my back, but the timing was especially bad this week.

Topping off my week of woe was a dental appointment on Tuesday that resulted in a toothache that didn't really get going until Friday afternoon (after the office was closed for the weekend). I got two fillings in back molars on the left side, one on top and one on bottom, and the bottom one isn't....right somehow. It's uncomfortable to chew on and I have a constant, deep ache in my jaw. I've been taking Motrin every six hours and waiting for tomorrow morning to get here so the dentist can do something about it.  Why do toothaches (or any medical problem) get worse on the weekends? It never fails: if offices are closed and the only medical attention available is urgent care or the ER (with the prospect of  hours and hours of waiting) that's when a toothache or pain of any kind will really get down to business.

To sum it all up, this week was: depression, work stress, tears, and toothaches.

So I'm finally off today and it's gorgeous out, and I'm making the best of it, toothache be damned.  I'm going to take the book I'm reading (Ian McEwan's Atonement) and sit out in the warm sunshine, in the hammock, with a glass of sweet iced tea. I'm hoping that such a nice day is a sign of a better week to come.

The bees are working hard on this beautiful April day. I wonder
if they sometimes want to strangle their coworker bees...

Hard at work

Our blueberry bushes have burst into bloom this week. A small army of bees have arrived, and are hard at work collecting pollen. I think blueberry flowers are beautiful. The bees seem to think so too!