Since there is demand (one of you said you wanted to see it) I'll post the pictures of my poster on perennials for various Master Gardener committments.

It's in three parts.

The center section, which defines perennials and gives a list of the perennial plants of the year award winners. 

One side bar shows shade perennials.

The other side bar shows sun perennials.

Michelle is complaining of cramping and contractions.  If this is it, you won't be hearing from me until it's over.  You can always check out our progress at the great-grandma's site, josaju. http://www.xanga.com/josaju

I love this mystery series by Jeanne M. Dams.  It's set in turn-of-the-century South Bend, mostly set in the Studebaker mansion.  Historically fun and, as far as I can tell, accurate.  But then, how would I know if it wasn't?  I wasn't alive in 1904!!!!!

Happy day-after-Resurrection Day!

The cantata was glorious!  We sang our hearts out, I think God was glorified.  Both of my kids and my almost sil came, but late.  I remember when I was there age, going to my uncles church and having to go to Easter Sunrise Service!  Kids today are so spoiled!  LOL.  I'm making fun of me in my dotage!

I hurried home to put the lamb in the oven.  The ham cooked while I was in church.  Everyone else brought food.

Posting pictures of the food and the guest.  Peter took the photos, but he only got a partial of me.  Oh well.  The food was better looking anyway.

STanding at the table, waiting to bless the food.

Peter loves this kind of shot.

The only shot of me.  I thought I was helping Ken - turns out he was "posing" for Peter with the bread in front of his face.  Sigh.

Fran helped me serve the hot stuff.

Isn't this the prettiest jello salad ever?  12 layers!  Fran said it didn't take her all that long.  I was glad she made it and not me!

My aunt and her grandson, Ross.

Ruth.

Sam and Michelle.

Dave, looking very contemplative.

Today I am going to help Michelle file her Indiana taxes.  At least she got the federal ones in the mail.  She "didn't know" she had to do both.  What do they teach kids these days?

I've been working to create a poster on perennials for Saturday, when there is a Master Gardening booth at Earth Day.  I'm supposed to work in the afternoon, assuming the baby doesn't come then.  This being somewhat on hold is difficult!  Hard to plan things.  At least between now and the middle of May.  I took a two day sub job in June - I figure that's safe!

I need to go make the rounds.  It was too busy this weekend to get much computer time in.  I spent six hours outside in the garden on Saturday.  I'm a little sore now, but not too bad.  It felt so good!  I weeded, raked out leaves from perennial beds, and just generally enjoyed myself in the warm sun.  It really rained hard late yesterday - we need it.  But overall, the weather was nice for Easter.  I like it when it's later in the cycle, rather than coming in March!

I read this book over the weekend.  I picked it up because I thought the author was Rhys Bowen, not Peter.  I plowed through the bitter end, although I'll never read another by him.  Maybe they're all not like this one, but boy, he really had it in for any kind of Christian.  See, this is what I don't understand about "tolerance".  It seems to only be applied in one direction:  we Christians are supposed to be "tolerant" (read accepting and, not just accepting, but embracing) of any other kind of belief or lifestyle.  And if we're not, the brown stuff hits the fan and flies!  But why then is it OK for those who don't believe to be intolerant toward us?  If a Christian wrote a book painting ALL nonbelievers with the same negative brush stroke that Mr Bowen used to portray the people of faith in this book, there would be a huge outcry against it.  But, since it's against Christians, it's OK?  Please explain this to me.  I don't get it.

Anyway, don't read the book.

I had our second meeting of our new red hat group.  We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, then went to one of the member's homes and decorated our red hats.  This is what I did to mine:  I added some purple ribbon, some feather ribbon, pearls and azalea blooms.  I think it looks perky.  Michelle says it looks like me.

Back view.

I subbed yesterday for a science class.  This was a class I've subbed for before - one of the blocks was the one that I had bribed with chocolate if they could be quite for the teacher for 15 minutes.  They did, so I brought in chocolate yesterday.  That was fun.  The rest of the bag I left on the table in the teacher's lunch room.  I'm sure it's all gone now!

What a beautiful spring day!  Daffodils are out, as are some early tulips, lenten roses and hyacinths.  Very lovely.

Ken is coming home tomorrow - he's staying on campus while it's empty so he can get some needed work done on his big term paper.  Man.  When do they grow up and become responsible like that?

No more visits to the emergency room.  Yet.  I know that this will be over soon, but all of us are about ready.  NOW!

I hope you all enjoy this holy weekend, with services at the church of your choice.  We are performing our cantata for service on Sunday - dress rehearsal is tomorrow night.  Should be fantastic.  Then the family comes over for Easter dinner.  I have to buy the ham yet.  The lamb roast is defrosting.  Almost all the rest of the menu is being brought in by Aunt Em and cousin Frances.  Yay!  I set the table and had to add a card table to one end in order to sit 13 people, including one in a wheelchair. 

I'm listening to Moody radio as I type this.  I love the internet - I can listen to my favorite radio station that way, even if it doesn't quite make it on my radio!  WMBI, 90.1 out of Chicago.  Or www.wmbi.org.

Just got back from the last ultrasound.  The great news is that the placenta is in an OK position now to deliver vaginally.  Yippee!  The baby is head down and ready to go.  The tech says he's weighing in at 5 lb 14 oz - she doesn't think he'll exceed 7 pounds, which is a good thing, considering Michelle's size.

I'll post the latest portrait as soon as Michelle returns with Sam.

In other health news, I saw the hand doctor last Friday, when my mom was here.  He was happy that the pain had subsided, but befuddled as to why it's still numb.  He finally had an inspiration, and tested the arm, about 4 inches above my wrist.  Whatever he did sent shooting pains down into my hand.  That didn't happen when he did the same thing on my right side, so now he's thinking it's Joe Schmoe Syndrome.  I don't remember what he called it.  I half think he made up the name just to make me feel like there really was a condition that I was suffering from.  Someone asked if it was Carpal Tunnel.  Nope.  They have a test for that and I don't have it.  I thought I did a few years ago and stopped doing counted cross stitch.  My entire hand would go numb at night.  Still does on occasion.  But this is a different kind of numbness - it's on top of the thumb, like the skin is numb, not inside.  Anyway, I asked him how many times this year he'd seen a patient with this syndrome and he told me "Zero".  So I go back the first week in May when all four of the hand doctors have their monthly consult and I get to have all four of them look at my thumb.  Aren't I special?  Geesh.

4 hours later - Just returned from the hospital.  Michelle had a blood scare, so we all had to troop on over there.  She's fine and hopefully we won't have to go again for another month.  Next time, we're hoping we can stay for a longer while!  Seems that the prodding that the tech did caused some bleeding.

As promised, the picture of Kaden:

Not nearly as clear as the earlier ones.  Seems it's more difficult to see anything the bigger the baby!

Ah, to have a boring life.  One can only dream.

What a fun shower.  Pictures to prove it:

The parents-in-waiting.

Great-grandma to be.

Barney thought the party was boring.

Aunt Cheryl quilted this.  If you enlarge it, maybe you can see a little bit of the intricacies and the heart design.

There.  This is a better view.

These girls drove in from Illinois.  They were high school friends.

The cake.

The beverage table.  Michelle and I both wore purple.  I just noticed that!

The gifts and the guests.

This was one bizarre shower game.  They put candy bars inside of diapers and microwaved them.  The end product looks like, well, the end product.  So the point of the game was to sniff and guess which candy bar it was.  Yuck.  I think I only got 2 right.  They all smelled like Snickers to me.  Although the one that really was, I guessed something else!

Opening gifts.

I had to help untangle.

Baby monitor.

Then afterward, the chicken dance:

Katie (the blond) and Allison, sisters from our old neighborhood.  Katie and Michelle were in the same grade and Allison is 3 years younger.  It was really nice that they drove all that way!

There you have it.  Baby shower festivities.  Michelle even got a gift from LadyEowanofRohan, which was a crib mobile and one of their favorite gifts.  No joke.  They (Sam, Peter and Michelle) had a great time after the shower putting it together, then playing it over and over and point the remote (crib mobiles didn't have remotes in the old days) and turning it off and on.  Way cool.

Today my aunt and uncle came over after church and we ate most of the leftovers.  There were plenty.  And tonight, Peter informed me about 5 minutes before his guests arrived, that he had sinned and failed to mention to me that he had invited his small group over tonight.  I was just on my way to Papa Murphy's for pizza, so I picked up enough for a crowd.  It is nice to have the house used!

Tomorrow mom and I are going to book club, then she'll leave in the afternoon.  I'm so glad she was able to come.  It really made it special and we had a great time.

Mom liked the book club book better than I liked it.

As promised, pictures of the birthday party at Texas Roadhouse.  Unfortunately, they don't require the birthday person to do a chicken dance or anything remotely humiliating like that.  But they did announce that Michelle was turning 12 (someone at the table told them that in jest, but that's what they announced - maybe 12 is a normal age for pregnancy in Texas?) and everybody in the restaurant yelled out on cue, "yeehaw"

Michelle, with Peter and Sam.  Two of her favorite guys.

The girls.  Unfortunately, this was the best of the 4 group shots that we took.  If enough of you send me money, I'll post the really really bad one!  Not one of us looks good in that one.  We all howled when we saw it.

The birthday party:

This is a good one of Kaden.  The whole gang - Michelle, me, mom, Dave, Peter and Sam (3/4).

This sassy lass is celebrating her 19th birthday today.  This is one of the first glimpses we had of her in the orphanage back in September, 1993, when she was 6 1/2.  Life has certainly been eventful since then!  I'll post a current picture after the family dinner at Texas Roadhouse.  She wouldn't let me take it now because she's not photo ready, at least according to her!

I'll be back later with more pics, including the pregnant chicken dance, if that's what they make her do!

I decided to simplify my life even more and am not making anything from scratch for tomorrow and to serve the food as people arrive.  Then they'll have room for dessert after the games and gifts.  Sounds like a good plan to mom and me.  The lady who was providing the cake stopped over today with the gift and cash for me to pick up the cake tomorrow - her fil just had a heart attack in West Virginia and they are heading there now.  He's 87 and "holding his own" according to her.  I'm really amazed that she even thought about us with all that on her mind!

Just read this garden mystery.  Why do people have to be so stupid and take such risks in some mystery novels.  I'm almost to the point where I want to yell, if you get killed now, it's your own dumb fault!  But you know they won't be killed because this is number x in the series and you know the author isn't about to kill off the star amateur detective yet!

Just a quick update:  mom arrived safe and sound and right on time.  She didn't encounter any terrorists and didn't even have to take off her shoes!  She's one happy camper!

So Michelle, mom and I went out to dinner at a restaurant right across the street from the airport.  It was a busy place!  Then Michelle had a doctor appointment and "great-grandma" got to hear the heartbeat.

We had that yummy crockpot pork for dinner.  Now we're all relaxed.  I imagine that mom will be in bed shortly - she was up at 2:30 a.m.!

Guess what I found while raking out my garden:  treasures!

Lungward (pulmanaria)

Hyacinth

And I planted these in containers:

Mixed color pansies.

It's spring and I'm having fun outside.  Well, not right now, but I'm going back out there!

Thought I'd share pictures of my egg cup collection.  Just for fun.

Now that they've worked out the bugs, this new uploading system really is easier than the old way.

One week until the shower.  A few people from Illinois are actually going to come.  We have between 25 and 30 people coming.  I went to Sams and got a bunch of frozen food - the rest we'll make.  Am I repeating myself?  I'm pretty tired now, so it's possible.

I set my clocks forward already.   This is the first time we've had to change clocks since moving to Indiana almost 3 years ago.  I always hated the spring ahead time, but enjoy the fall back one - love that extra hour of sleep!

Michelle came home an hour ago, called Sam from my cell phone saying "Turn around" to him over and over.  Nothing else.  Except, "If you don't I'm going to start walking down the street to meet you."  What's up with that.  As Dave says, "How would we know?  It's not like she confides in us or anything.

Her second car payment was due today.  Nothing of course.  And then the insurance payment is due on the 14th.  No job, no money and she didn't qualify for unemployment since she sat on her butt all last summer in Napanee doing nothing but sponging off Sam.  So now she's paying for it, but apparently not learning a lesson.  She got a call tonight from the South Bend Chocolate Factory store in the hospital where she put in a application back in November.  I told her I'd call anyway if I were her, even if I were 8 months pregnant.  Even if they don't hire her to start work now, maybe she can line up a job with them for once the baby arrives.  Better than no job at all, right?  But what do I know?  I've only lived 3 times as long as she.

Happy Birthday to my dad on Sunday.  And my Aunt Em.  They're twins.  Remember the party last summer for their 150'th birthday?  Tomorrow is their 152'nd.

Enjoy your morning in church!