There are twenty of those tall brown yard bags full of tree debris lined up for curbside pick up today.  My husbands right eye swelled shut yesterday and was seeping so bad that I teased him about being a cry baby in order to get out of yard work.  Yesterday morning found me on top of the roof blowing that stuff down to the ground ... we wanted to scoop it up before it got blown into the pool where it really becomes a mess! Another wave of it was blanketing everything again before we'd finished a late dinner.  The blower was still plugged in so I blew the bulk of what was around the pool back from the edges last night in the dark.  In a awhile I'll snap a pic of the pool surface.  It looks like we are setting up a habitat for snapping turtles! And water moccasin!  

The picture up there is of the front yard - that's society garlic blooming.  We seem to have lost all of the majestic Mexican sage, and what I call wandering Jew, but am now wondering if those are an unfortunate choice of names nowadays. I'm trying to locate replacement plants.  We have edging material ordered from amazon to start delineating the beds.  I'm excited about that.  I have almost all of the perennials and shrubs in for the front beds.  I'll add to the bulbs over time. The backyard plantings are a priority right now. Last year we put in two palm trees and five knockout rose bushes, two short as it turns out. we'd like to supplement the privacy fence with several staggered trellises planted in trumpet vine, coral honeysuckle and probably some other flowering vines as I figure out the blooming cycle.

Best news! The doctor who is looking at the proteins in my blood - said (this isn't verbatim and all the applicable disclaimers are thus invoked), after a long explanation about those markers, the volume of protein in my blood is (optimistic, but confirming he said) not sufficient to even red flag. Mine are at .1% and the beginning of the potential problem area starts at 4-6% and even in that pool increases at such a slow rate that the progression to multiple myloma is extremely unlikely for me. He did have several vials of blood drawn which he said he'd give me a call on next week. Any concern about that isn't even on the back burner now. It is an interesting thing to consider though - one's own life in light of an early death. I understand as well as anyone how suddenly the death angel might appear, but in my paradigm He's always been coming for someone else.  I may write about some of those thoughts later.

Grateful.  I'm very interested in what comes next, but I really do love being alive.