May Be

A lovely, fresh morning. Blue sky above the bright greens of spring. Very special in Olympia - sun lighting up the world, blue setting it off. A May weekend ripe for gardening, hiking. Today I will plant the scarlet runner beans and otherwise putter in the garden, rechecking the broccoli for slugs, taking the Remay off the peas and chard sprouts (peas were devastated by I suspect a bird, probably a jay, pulled out the sprouts to eat the seeds) :(

Nice of us to feed the wildlife though. Hopefully that's how Ernie felt when a bald eagle swooped off with one of his chickens. That was last year, now they have wires strung all over the top of the chicken yard.

Other than beans, I have eye appointment at 11:30 I am thinking of bicycling to, and nothing planned until 7:00 meeting painter friend to give another estimate on deck repainting at my house. The first estimate if I go for the whole thing would cost $2936! But it is itemized and I could do some myself - ie, remove lattice $400, remove and dispose of the fiberglass roof under deck $550.

This is fascinating stuff I know but here's the suspenseful connection - getting glasses because preparing to not have them covered as well under health care when I move to Hawaii. Getting deck done so I can re-rent to a nice solid household and have mortgage covered while I am there. But I may need to get someone new to be my property manager, as Ariel is thinking of bookin' it to Oahu herself.

Several big developments in the strategy towards Hawaii life with Dan:
*told supervisor Art at work I will be leaving in September!
*told workmates same, more solidly than previously, which also resulted in learning another member of our team is also quitting - at the end of this month!
*big one - Emily got a great financial aid offer from Puget Sound University, due to her good grades, and just back from Oahu we visited the school yesterday and talked with a financial aid counselor, and found out it will be even better when I no longer have a job (perversely pleasing). We had a guided tour of campus (the art of walking backwards while talking, it's really very important in a guide so you don't feel you are tagging along but are being engaged) and saw dorm (ok), swimming pool, talked to a psych dept teacher (she was great), ate lunch at the cafeteria (many vegan options, organic/local-ish salad bar - but not like cooking for yourself from the coop).

Shouls have taken camera, extremely photogenic day on extremely photogenic, small and quaint campus. I can see Emily loving it there, so that is exciting :)