What a stinker

Silent but deadly

It is once again that time of year during which my neighborhood stinks.

Like, really stinks.

It's the Bradford pear trees; they are the actual REASON it stinks.  Like a zombie's armpit, or so I've heard it called.  It's bad, and there's nothing to do but live through it or don't go outside.  CERTAINLY don't fling the windows open even if it is a glorious Spring day that really does call for the flinging open of windows.

Why, they're so bad even the polite persons at Southern Living can't stand them.  They even had to go so far as to import some grumpy Northerner to rant about them, just so Mama wouldn't get too hot under the collar and sweat BB cream all down the front of her housedress.

So, I'm hiding in the house until...next week maybe, or until I see the shower of bright white petals start to fall to the ground during a wind or rainstorm.

That will be a happy day, for sure.

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Y'all, if I manage to make it though the next couple of weeks (stinky trees and all) it will be through a minor miracle and a major jug of bourbon.  We are reaching the finish line for a major work project and if you're not familiar with the gut-clenching thrill of a looming deadline, count yourself lucky.

And because it's nearing 5 p.m. here, it's time to go put in another couple of hours of work.

Oy.

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Tiff out.

Daffy-liciousness

 Yesterday and the day before it was in the 70s around here.  Windows were opened, rooms aired out, shorts were worn.  It's been an amazing time.

And I've spent most of it indoors, reasons being work.  But hey, I get to look out a window while I'm being the 'busy pharmaceutical professional' that I am (that title was bestowed on me many years ago when I received a piece of mail from a vendor addrssing me with such an impressive sobriquet), so that's better than slaving away in a cubicle far removed from daylight.

Can't complain.

From that window I can see the front flower garden, which is a hot mess.  We tore out an old concrete walkway a few months ago, superseding it with a ramp that goes straight out to the driveway, and have done nothing with the arrangement of the garden to cover the bare spots.  HOWEVER, there are the daffodils.

These daffs are indestructible, returning year after year even though I was SURE that a few years ago I'd relocated them all or just heaved them because they weren't flowering anymore.  The daffs had other thoughts, and are currently a-flowering where they shouldn't be, little cheery street urchins about to steal your heart with their indefatigable get up and go.

So, they can stay.  I appreciate their beautiful toughness.

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North Main Street in Wake Forest has become staggeringly beautiful.

Again, it is thanks to the daffodils.  This is what they looked like a couple of years ago, which is very similar to what they look like now.

About a half a mile of this!

A couple of days ago they were just promissory notes of Springtime, but that note's been paid in full.  Such beauty!

Now, if those ornamental trees above them burst into bloom at the same time, as sometimes happens, that'd be the icing on the cake of pollen season.  This is just a couple of blocks from the Tiny House, so I might just have to wander over to see if that's the case.

Ah, Spring.

Tiff out.

I saved a lot on soap last year

 

Becomes relevant, I promise.

It occurred to me a few days ago that I have been showering regularly as of late.  Like EVERY DAY type of regularly.

'And, so what?' you might ask.  I do not blame you for wondering, frankly..

Well, this time last year I wasn't.

This time last year I was 5 infusions into 6 rounds of chemotherapy, and just about every ounce of strength I had was plowed into healing after each session.  I continued to work, being that work distracted me from feeling like hammered crap most of the time, but cooking/cleaning/bathing were not things I did more than perhaps weekly.

That's right, I was maybe taking a shower a week.  It was just waaay too much effort.  Standing up and walking the 10 steps to the toilet was often too much effort; how was I to wedge in another few minutes of standing up and washing myself?  Unthinkable.

Yes, it really can be that bad, and it was.  Especially on the few days after getting the Neulasta injection, which kicks your bone marrow into overdrive making neutrophils to get the immune system up and running again, resulting in PAIN that is strength and will-to-live sucking.

But hey, I don't want to dwell on all of that, but do want to take a moment to be grateful that it is (fingers crossed!) in the past.

I did save a bunch of money on soap and shampoo though.

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Topically aligned and coincidentally applied, we have discovered the joys of shampoo bars at the Tiny House.

It's soap, for your hair.  Hair soap! So old-fashioned it's rad!

I like this kind: Royalty Soaps shampoo bar.  With bonus video on how they're made!  One puck of this shampoo bar has lasted me for about 6 months, so that's about a $20 spend per year which I think isn't exorbitant and far less wasteful than buying plastic bottles of mostly water with which to scrub your melon.

Biff is partial to one of the two kinds that Indigo Wild sells. Not sure which flavor he's got in the shower at the moment, but I'm guessing it's not the lavender.

Obviously they're not the only shampoo bar sellers out there (The Hairy Farmpit Girls also sell it, so check their stuff out too); there are likely lots of options from which to choose your noggin-washer.  I encourage y'all to shop and skip the sulfates and plastic, then hit the bar!

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We had a visit from the grandbaby and his Mom the past couple of days.  Purpose was so that we could give our van Carl to her because 1) we got a new car and don't need a van anymore, and 2) they could use a second vehicle.  

The visit was fabulous, the baby adorable, the dog a professional 'doter.'  Lovely time, except I fear we've not been as observant as we could be about certain things.  Like, we did not pick up on the fact that Carl had a desire to transition.  A mortifying omission, to be sure. 

Well, to address this issue S went out and purchased a steering wheel cover in glittery pink and seat covers in a very party-glitz pink Lily Pulitzer-type pattern (that's her up top with some of her designs), then added in with some kind of fruit-scented air freshener, and BOOM: Carl is Carla.

We're glad to have had a part in this new phase of life, for Carla and her new family.  Just wished we had noticed sooner.

(Carl got 'his' name from being a white van who, to Biff's mind, resembled the next-door-neighbor of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force.  That's how badly we got it wrong.)

Before and after.  Quite a change!

Tiff out.