Sitting here, looking at the cursor blinking. Lots of swimmy, swirly thoughts. I keep typing and erasing. I think my ovaries are being mean to me. I forget that pre-surgery, I used to do this insane little dance every three weeks or so. I haven't had mad cow pms in a long time.
So let me not dwell. Or brood. I shall ponder happy things.
Like...my muffin top is gone. I put on my low-on-the-hip jeans yesterday and went...wow. Looky! Post surgery swelling is almost gone! I like it!
I weeded the little flower bed on the far side of the pond yesterday. Actually, it was so heavily infested with nutsedge that I removed the majority of the native modeling clay soil and replaced it with bagged top soil. Then I used landscape fabric and cypress mulch. Not my favorite garden look in the world, but it beats nutsedge any old day. All my plants seemed to be surviving the transistion.
What astounded me while I disrupted the flower bed was the critters who live there. Several species of frogs, toads and salamanders, an enormous wolf spider carrying all of her babies. It's what I had in mind when I envisioned the pond.
I love to be around the pond at dusk or at night (I just went out to take Molly to pee.) There is a chorus out there. All kinds of frogs. Apprently, the leopard frogs particularly enjoy the acoustics of the waterfall. Several sing from there. It's so cool.
Also very cool...I was very conscious of fragrance when I chose perennials. Right now, it's all sort of come together. The jasmine is blooming from the trellis, the Mr. Lincoln rose has at least a dozen blooms on it and there are four three-foot tall bushes of four-o'clocks. Dianthus at the ground level. We moved the little table and chairs to that side, near the pond. Drink our coffee, watch the fish and the south wind blows all these fragrances around.
The gardenia shouldn't be too far from blooming too, but I think that last big freeze damaged it. My grandmother's gardenia looks the same...all beat up. I am nursing it along, but I doubt we'll get to enjoy many flowers this year.
I tilled the last new flower bed today. I really like the way it is coming along. Fragrance is on my mind...and I set out on a online wild goose chase trying to find lilacs that would enjoy living here. There are a couple of hybrids that tolerate no winter and humid, balmy summers. But I am not sure they would thrive here. It's a trade off, I guess. I can grow bananas and tropical water lilies, but no tulips or lilacs. Figs and loquats, but not cherries or apples.
Baby fish! We have oodles and oodles of baby fish. I caught a bunch out of the lotus tubs today and moved them to a bigger tub in the gazebo (where the eltrical outlets are, so I can put an airstone in there as it gets hotter.) I have several baby fantails and some look like baby shubunkins. So...anybody want some goldfish? 
It occurred to me today that it is May. May! When did we get to May? Then I got happy because it means that school is almost done. Benjamin finished up his grade level work over a month ago, so he's already begun next year's work. He had a huge math test a couple of days ago...he made a 100. I am so proud of him!
Two in the AM ...I'll leave you with one of my favoritist songs of late.
Edit:
I heard about this on the radio the other day...I thought this was cool. You can download the whole CD, The Slip, here. From Trent Reznor..."thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one's on me." (We have bandwidth restrictions, so being up at 2AM...I can finally download it. 2-4AM are when the bandwidth limits don't apply  ) | 
