I guess I might survive

it's only supposed to get up to 35 today.

I guess it's good that it's still above freezing. It's supposed to get down below freezing at night this coming week, but the days are all supposed to be above freezing. My mom reminded me that makes for good maple syrup weather.

Not that we tap our trees or have any personal interest in syrup weather.

But I really liked the 60 and sunny day. It sure was nice.

Of course, Spring only reminds me of my lack of planning and know-how in the gardening realm. While everyone else is getting excited about seeds and seedlings and transplants, I'm half frustrated and half-glad that I didn't order my plants last fall and that my spring order is going to fall through.

Did I tell you about that? I heard of a deal ~ $25 off a $25 order ~ this past fall. I was excited. And daunted, I stress out a fair amount about what to get for where and whether I'll just kill it in the end. But I finally picked some things and was relieved, except that I didn't really write down where I thought I would plant them, so I knew I'd just have to re-figure all that out when they arrived in Spring. Now I'm always a little nervous ordering when I hear about a deal, thinking maybe the deal is one-code-per-customer and I'll spend all the effort (which is not minimal, for me) to pick what to order, and then be crushed at the checkout that the code isn't valid for me. But it was.

Until this Spring. When I got an email saying the company reviewed their orders and codes and that the code I used wasn't assigned to me. Months after the order went through.

So, bummer. They did offer $25 off of $50, which is nice. And I'm sure they only checked because they were freaking out about possibly hundreds or thousands of nearly-free orders ... the problem is, I'm not up for *re*picking *twice* as many plants as I'd picked before. $50 worth of product is a lot for a plant killer.

So I guess I'll just let the order drop and get nothing. Which is sad because later I'll be sorry I didn't order anything.

I would love to have a beautiful garden of flowers. I think it would be neat to have a successful vegetable patch. It's not that I feel I should, it's that I really think it would be neat. Only I'm not only bad with plants, but also lazy, which usually makes for a lethal combination.

Last year we had that nice young man help us whack out our weeds and cover things with weed barrier and mulch. The good news is that it looked good for the rest of the summer. The bad news is that there are weeds and plants poking through the weed barrier. Which might be good, if the plants I *like* pop through. But what if it's just the weeds? I covered up some daffodils and things, because late summer it was too late to remember exactly where they were, and the weeds needed some *major* control (think of them being neglected for 5 years that we've been here and countless years before that) .... so anyway, I'm not sure I'll have much at all coming up this year.

My idea was that I would be pretty vigilant about weed control for now, and plant thoughtfully in the future.

But now that it's Spring, my guess is that I'll neglect the weeds, and not figure out what to plant, and will continue to be sad that I don't have a lovely garden that comes naturally to me. Because I really don't have the knack for it, I don't think.

My sister is cool, she's bold and daring and remembers things. So she tries things out, and has success with some, and moves other things around, and it's neat. But I am both more timid and less hard working and forget everything, so it just doesn't really pan out in the gardening area for me. I think the biggest problem is that I want to only do it once, to have a good, smart plan and have it work smoothly, progressively, not have to re-do things that didn't turn out like I thought.

Boy, I guess I should quit whining about gardening. It sure made for a very long post! I didn't mean to whine about gardening. I only meant to whine about the weather a little.

Apparently they're somehow, mysteriously, related.