I de-accessioned a few sea creatures this morning -- plastic and stuffed ones. Tom had a new visiting nurse today and she has a 3-year-old daughter who is fascinated by marine life. The nurse commented on my wonderful stuffed octopus from Micca and I told her that I have the largest collection of rubber squid (and other non-edible cephalopods) in the state of New Hampshire (probably the ONLY collection of rubber squid in the state of NH) and she told me about her daughter. So I pulled a couple things out of the guest room and gave her a plush stuffed crab and a seahorse plus two collections of small fish and other sea creatures from which I had extracted the squid and octopus. One happy kid plus I've gained "cubic footage"!

The firewood is almost entirely gone out of the driveway. (The last bit is being loaded as I type.) And in a few minutes I'll go out and move the sedums from the "holding bed" and dig up and replant the violets in the driveway...oh, and move the ajuga that are jutting into the driveway. Then I'll message my driveway guy that everything is set for him to start on the driveway on Monday. (He'll move the loam pile.) AND I'll explain to him again exactly where the edges of the flower bed on the inside of the turnaround are -- my hostas are NOT expendable, and a couple are right on the edge, so he'll have to pay attention.

The time-consuming part of dinner (slowly simmering the meat) is finished, so after moving the plants I can spend the rest of the afternoon on the phone. Maybe I can fit in some time for Tom to practice concertina with my singing. He's been unable to play concertina for most of a year and not only has to get back in practice, but come to grips with the fact that, in a pinch, he can no longer visually locate the correct starting note. I've lost my vocal partner; I don't want to lose my accompanist as well, especially now that I'm singing a lot of "his" songs.

Linn