C'mon Back Spring

Spring is my favorite season.  Not too hot, not too cold, life begins anew.  Unfortunately, in this area, spring came in March, we had temps in the 80s, it was nice, it came too soon.  Mother Nature fooled us again.  We finally had some rain, a little bit anyway, more expected this weekend.  We were under a fire watch, which the rain of last weekend removed.  We still in a deficit of 3-5 inches of rain need to get to "normal" levels.  It doesn't seem to affected the growth in my area.  Here's the Azalea in my backyard.

We had two winters back to back that were really bad with deep heavy snow (2009 & 2010).  It did damage to our plant and tree life.  This bush is on the list to go sadly.  You can see less than half is still alive.

The hosta in the lower left corner became breakfast or maybe dinner apparently for the deer.  The picture below shows their chomping damage.  I put out some deer repellent around all the hostas about a month ago, before the rain and the colder weather rolled back in.  I did another treatment last night.  Hopefully, the damage will recover.

I just love spring because everything comes to life in grows into full bloom, so pretty.  I couldn't resist taking a picture of this medium strip on the road I travel to work.  I love the purple!!

The Black Eyed Susans have made an appearance.  They were all over the garden a few years ago.  When I planted the tomatoes last June, I had to pull some Black Eyed Susans to make space for the (too many) tomato plants.  My hydrangea and lilies are sprouting too.  We hope to get some gardening done in May, less tomatoes.  We're going to venture out, not sure what to plant, maybe lettuce and/or carrots.  I'm open for suggestions, I'm looking for low maintenance and easy to care for.

The whirley birds/helicopters continue to fall everywhere as you can see in the picture above.  It is a season all to itself here, usually the whole month of April.


I continue to stay busy on the job, which doesn't seem so new anymore.  I've been there 60 (calendar) days (9 work weeks), time flies.  I still love it, especially the short commute and lack of pressure I've had with other jobs (higher paying too).  I've learned a lot, yet I still have so much to learn.  There are still two databases I don't have access too.  The guy who is training me is blaming the Supervisor for not following up on my access.  In my downtime, I do some online reading of manuals, policies and procedures.  I discovered I should have received a 30 days review, which I didn't.  I'm going to ask about it, not sure if I will be opening a bag of worms by asking, I might as well find out.  I need to know if they think I'm doing a good job and what they believe I can do better, rather than be surprised (good or bad) without knowing.


We had a little excitement in the office (well actually the Northern VA area).  The Discovery was flown in to be housed at the nearby Air and Space Museum (extension), the Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.  Many of us were glued to the office window looking for shuttle to cross our skyline.  I stayed by the window for twenty minutes.  All I saw was others outside looking at the sky for the shuttle to arrive as well.  I went back to my desk, I never saw the shuttle fly by.  I ended up seeing it on the evening news instead, oh well.

I continue my routine of working out on the elliptical after work daily.  I haven't lost any more weight, I haven't gained any either.  I need to step it up.  I need to add some strength training too.  I was hoping to also add some outdoor activities (like gardening and some walking) as soon as the weather stabilizes.  Rain these past couple of weekends isn't helping with planned outdoor activities.


I spend my weekends doing cleaning, laundry and sometimes grocery shopping.  I have learned since I've started working that the weekends were going by too fast when I was spending both days doing chores.  I'm trying to get the grocery shopping done one weekday after work, hitting both grocery stores.  It sure makes for a long day.  I remind myself it is worth it when I get some extra time on the weekend for me!


Hope you are enjoying some "me time".

I'm Not The Newbie

I'm not the Newbie at work anymore.  Three new people started at work this week.  They are not really new people, they are replacements for others that moved on.  We are a group of eight people, two teams of four.  Three people from the other group transferred on to new places.  One guy packed his apartment, his wife, who is eight months pregnant, his 3yr old son, and transferred to Vermont to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in three weeks after accepting a job offer there - unbelievable.  He put down a refundable deposit on an apartment when he was in Vermont for the interview (in case he didn't get an offer).  If you want it bad enough, you'll do what needs to be done to get there I suppose.  He gave notice, March 19th, his last day with us was March 30th.  He was suppose to start his new job in Vermont on this past Monday, April 9th.  He had a moving truck packed and ready to hit the road on on Sunday, April 1st.

I don't know much about the new people yet.  Did I mention how diversified our office is?  My team is a hispanic male, black female, asian male, and me (white female :).  The other team is an asian female...and the newbies are a white female, a black male and an middle eastern male.  The latter joined us today, he wore a suit his first day (none of the males wear suits, not even the bosses).  It will be interesting to see if he wears a suit tomorrow, doubt it.  We have casual Friday too, which you can wear Jeans and a collared shirt (no tee shirts or tank tops), we can also wear sneakers on Fridays.  I must remember to tell the newbie, in case no one else has.

The job has been busy, which is good.  As I will always say, better busy than bored.  I'm still forcing myself to get on the monster elliptical after work daily.  I'm exhausted after the elliptical, barely able to walk, dinner is usually a salad or something very light.  I log my daily food intake adding up the calories, fat, carbs, fiber, and sugars, adding in my steps and elliptical exercise.  The computer has my presets of height, weight, goal weight, etc.

I haven't noticed a change in my clothes, so I haven't been on the scale since mid-March.  I'm afraid of the disappointment.  You know when you've lost weight, you can feel it usually in your clothes.  I can't feel it, it doesn't show in my clothes.  I'm sticking with keeping my food journal and even lowered my calorie intake another 100 calories.  I know muscle wears more than fat (or someone told me that once, I believed them).  So, the plateau I'm experiencing could be attributed to that.  I hope so or all the sweating I'm doing is for nothing.  I keep going on faith that it's all worth it.  If I believe anything else, I would have given up long ago.  I have to believe in me first.  Every now and then, I want something sweet, here's my treat.

John left Monday for three weeks in Charleston, South Carolina for work with four other people he works with.  He calls me nightly to report how his day went.  Poor man, he goes out to dinner with his co-workers, and when he gets back to his hotel room, sometimes  it is about 8-9pm (they also have some cocktails too :)  I'm half asleep by that time, just trying to stay awake waiting to hear from him.  I thought it would be very warm there for him.  He said it isn't hot, it is comfortable.  He doesn't get to enjoy the weather much because he's inside most of the day.  I suppose I'll hear more about his stay there when he is able to venture out this weekend.  I visited Charleston in the mid-70s when my brother was stationed there in the Navy.  We went to a place called Isle of Palms, right on the ocean, palm trees everywhere (yes, the name is obvious), it was beautiful.  I told John to visit Isle of Palms if he got the chance.

Easter dinner with mother-in-law was a little disaster.  We initially had dinner scheduled with his entire family.  His Mom cancelled, she wanted to stay home and watch the Masters Tournament.  She called us Friday and asked if we'd like to meet her at a buffet place halfway between her place and ours early enough so she could still get home to watch the Masters Tournament.  NEVER go to a buffet restaurant on a holiday!  We waited in line for 30 minutes, we took turns going to the buffet.  There was a beef station, a chicken station, a salad station, and a station with all the add ons, i.e, mashed potatoes & gravy, macaroni & cheese, green beans, corn, asparagus, broccoli, squash, spaghetti & sauce - you get the idea.  It was apparent from the time we got there that we were one of very few that spoke English as a mother tongue.  Everyone who  has children within a 10 miles radius of this restaurant brought them to this restaurant on Easter Sunday (there must have been a special deal for kids).  All the people had not eaten in days - it was apparent by all the pushing, shoving and cutting in line that happened.  His mother paid $41 for the three of us, she paid extra for all our beverages (excluding water).  I've had a better meal at McDonald's.  She too was disappointed (this place was her recommendation).  She felt just awful  about how crowded it was.  I said I looked forward to visiting again when it wasn't a holiday, I'm sure it would be a better experience.

Spring is still springing here.  The helicopters or whirley birds (or whatever you call them) have started falling, they're everywhere.  The leaves will be her soon.  John has been on the roof twice cleaning the gutters of helicopters.  

My hostas are popping.  Unfortunately, some hostas near the shed were eaten by the deer already.  I was so disappointed.  I didn't get out there quick enough to sprinkle the hostas with Deer Scram to keep the deer away.  I hope the hostas will grow back.  The Azaleas are popping too.  Unfortunately, if you have allergies, the allergy count here is up to 1200/day for trees.  Have the Claratin (or whatever) handy if you are an allergy sufferer like me.

It's all good in my world, hope yours is the same.