Ok, I'm back

We're finally in the house. I'm now posting from the Acid-trip room. I call it that because the wallpaper moves. It's a pattern of little yellow rosebuds on three walls, and the coordinating stripe on the fourth wall. I swear, the wallpaper moves. It's made people dizzy. We were hoping (okay, I was hoping) to have the wallpaper down and the house painted before we moved in, but that didn't happen. The current plan is to rent a wallpaper steamer some weekend after we've recovered a bit, steam as much wallpaper as possible off the walls, and then bribe people with beer and pizza to come paint the next weekend. Right now, though, I can deal with the wallpaper. This feels like home. I still hate the carpet in the kitchen, though.

My in-laws are coming next weekend (unless plans have changed), so I will have the expertise of my mother-in-law, the garden guru. (Yea!) I know the beds need clearing, but I'm almost afraid to pull anything, because I don't really know what it is. There's something that looks like a weed, but I'm not sure. So far, I've planted a pot of sweet peas by the back fence, and loosened the soil and planted wildflower seeds in the bare patch where a bench used to be. The seeds I've started seem to be doing pretty well, except the meadowsweet. I've got two Cherokee Purple tomatoes, three Brandywine tomatoes, five marigolds, four basils, four thymes, and two parsleys. I've got cucumbers and watermelon to plant when it warms up a bit, and I'm probably going to plant the beans leftover from the science experiment I'm doing with my class.

I'd really like to finally enter an A&S competition soon. I'd thought I could do something with the meadowsweet, since I know it was an herb that was used in period, but that's looking doubtful. Those were the only seeds that didn't sprout in the tray, and I put the last of them in a pot outside. We'll see if they come up. I don't know what I want to do, but I want to do something. I've been thinking about doing some embroidery, maybe. I just want to enter something in competition, just to get my feet wet. I've thought of all the peerages, a laurel is the one I'd most likely go for. I'm not ready, or sure I'll ever be ready, to seriously go for it now, but I think I'm ready to go dabbling in that world, to see if it's something I might want later.