I bought my tomato and pepper plants on Monday. Yes, it had snowed over the week end, but the rest of the garden was covered and thankfully, my family remembered to bring in my potted plants when the snow hit. So, maybe winter is finally over and we can get down to the business of gardening! I sure hope so!

I’m trying a new method for my tomatoes this year. I already described it in another post, so I won’t go into it again here. But I’m pretty excited about that. I hope to get the ‘cage’ up this week end. I bought sixteen tomato plants, four green bell peppers, four yellow bell peppers, four jalapeno peppers and four cayenne peppers. I also bought some more marigolds to go around the garden. I think my husband measured the garden at 30′ x 40′ so it will take a few to make it all the way around. But I think they help a lot for pest control and they are so pretty.They do really well in the heat and sun too…great for the area we live in! At some point I hope to get into saving my seeds from the year before and planting them in a green house in the spring. But, that is not an option at this time, so I go with the plants.

My lettuce is doing really well, along with the spinach, endive and the mescalin mix. I pray those rabbits, raccoons or whatever got the cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower have found somewhere else to eat! My beans are also coming up…so things are looking good.

On the other hand, my climbing ‘angel face’ roses are not looking so great. They were hit hard by the cold, freezing temperatures last week. I’m going to check them out today and see if there is any hope. I may have to sing them a song or two! Maybe the promise of a fence soon for them to climb on will give them hope!

Yes, I’m back! As soon as I wrote that title above, I thought of that Sarah McLachlan song that starts out the same way. So now I have that running through my head! But, I do love the song, so that is not a problem.

Well, it has been a while since I posted. But, I had a great week end in Girard, Kansas! I had attended a writer’s conference there over the week end and I was rather busy the couple of weeks before that getting ready and getting my family ready for me to leave! It was only a couple of days, but it is a big change for everyone. But they all did fantastic and my second oldest kept the house in order. She fit this in among baby sitting and taking her ACT test the Saturday I was gone.

Anyway, back to the writer’s conference, which is what this post is about. Even though I started writing my first full length novel about eight years ago, I didn’t really get serious about writing until almost two years ago. It will be two years in July. Now, that I’ve finished the fourth book in the series, I thought it was time to really start concentrating on getting published. But, before that I really need to learn more about the writing industry and the business side of it. The conference was great for that. Deborah Raney, an author with over ten titles published, was the main speaker. Her workshops were terrific and I learned so much in those two days. She was also a real encouragement as were the other writers attending the conference. Everyone there was so good! I had entered a short story contest for nonfiction, and when I heard what was being written by others there, well, needless to say I pretty much gave up on winning anything! But I did win second place for my short story! I can’t tell you how excited I am! It really meant a lot to me!

I have also entered two of my books in contests and I’m excited to hear back about that. This writing business is very exciting for me. I already have another story in my head, pounding to get out, but I keep telling myself that I need to start doing my rewrites on the other four first. But, after this week end and Deborah Raney’s great workshop on rewriting, that doesn’t seem so bad. Actually, it is pretty exciting to think about correcting all those mistakes and layering in more on my characters. So, good bye for now…I have to go write!!!

That’s what I’ve been thinking the past few days. I was so excited to have most of my garden in…and now it is covered with plastic because we’ve had freezing temperatures the last few days. It is supposed to be in the teens tonight and tomorrow night! I hope that lettuce that was coming up is happy with it’s plastic blanket.

So, that’s the weather here in the midwest. But, this won’t last long and soon it will be sweating weather and we’ll all be wishing for cooler weather. Us fickle humans!

Really this isn’t too bad. When we lived in upstate New York, we had weather like this the first part of May, and you could have some pretty cool days into June. And of course the days were always kind of cloudy and dreary. You don’t have to worry about that too much here.

But, I do have my plants potted for the front and back steps. They are just being kept cozy in our bedroom…the safest place from the two cats. For some strange reason they want to dig in the dirt.

I do wish you all a Blessed Easter as we celebrate the resurrection of our Savior.

I’m going to put this post in the category of: On the level of stupidity. Many of you have read my post: That’s Aggravating

I had replied in the comments that maybe I would write a post on why having the neighbor’s dog and children in my yard are a problem.

Years ago, even when I was growing up, people knew that you should teach your children what their boundaries were. They were to play in their own yard, unless invited to play in someone else’s yard. They didn’t just walk through someone’s property without having permission. If you had pets, they stayed in your yard. People don’t have common sense about this anymore…hence the reason I put this post in the category that I did.

This topic could go off in so many areas…so without me ranting too much on it, what are some of your pet peeves about etiquette, or lack thereof? Please share them here!