Crafty Lil Devil

Happy Memorial Day weekend! It's been a busy one here at the Crafty house. Friday was my last day at the old job. It was a 1/2 day so it was pretty short. Not too much to do, so that was nice. They had a card for me and cake made that had stick people on it to look like me (Ms. Amy) and a bunch of kids. It was nice. Also, I have rethought my plan to post that letter I wrote about the REAL reasons I left that job. I've even halfway decided not to send it at all. I would be totally justified in sending it to the doctors I used to work for. But I guess I sorta left on a positive note...you know, following my dream, going back to school, etc. I just don't really want the last thing they remember from me to be a nagging, finger-pointing, "It's all her fault I'm leaving" type of letter. Guess I'd rather just forget about it all and move on. I'm really looking forward to the new job starting on Tuesday. (But not so much the 7:15 am time I have to be at work. YIKES!)

Friday after work, I went to a nursery I've been wanting to visit since we moved here. I found a gorgeous plum-colored rose bush that has the most amazing smelling roses I've ever smelled. It was on sale, so I bought it. Nevermind the fact that I do not know the first thing about growing roses. Guess now's as good a time as any, right? After the nursery visit, I stopped at an orchard where you can pick your own strawberries. (Yes, I know strawberries grow in fields, not "orchards", but this strawberry field is actually behind an apple orchard.) I picked 10lbs of strawberries! I was planning on making several recipes this weekend and didn't know how many I'd need, so I just filled a flat full and it ended up being 10 lbs worth! That's ok though, because as soon as I got home, I made a batch of strawberry freezer jam, sliced some strawberries to freeze, made strawberry-banana bread, and made a pitcher of strawberry margaritas. We still have a few to eat just plain, but I think I did pretty well using up those strawberries.

Saturday, Jason and I went to Hagarstown (Maryland...about 30-45 minutes from our house) and went to Petsmart, Sam's, and Lowe's. I ended up buying 3 more rosebushes (red, white, and pink), 2 tomato plants, a jalepeno pepper plant, and a watermelon plant. Jason laughed when I told him I wanted to try to grow watermelons here...especially since I have more of a brown thumb than a green one, but I thought for $0.97, it couldn't hurt to try. We came home and planted the roses in the front yard right in front of the porch and they look really good.

Today, we got up and started cleaning. And I mean CLEANING! We've cleaned today like we're trying to get our security deposit back from a place we've rented. (That's the only time we really get down and deep-clean it seems. And we usually don't even get to enjoy it!) We moved everything out of the living room and dining room and vacuumed and steam cleaned the carpets. I took stuff out my spice drawer (it's huge and usually a wreck) and also from about 1/2 of the kitchen cabinets. I re-organized and cleaned and put everything back in. I wiped down all the counters, the fronts of the cabinets, the fridge (even the top, which only my dad usually can see), the stove...everything. Tomorrow, I need to scrub the kitchen floor and that room will be done. I think Jason will keep steam cleaning the floors so we can get the whole house done this weekend. Man, it smells good in our house!

But we didn't just clean all day. We also watered the plants, pruned my hibiscus, and went to the grocery store. We found some good sales and stocked up. We got a good price for a huge slab of ribs that we'll throw on the grill tomorrow. Guess I'll make some baked beans and some of my grandma's potato salad. (YUM! My favorite!) That's about it for us. Just spending a nice weekend around the house. Happy Memorial Day!