Working Through Some Changes

First yard post of the season (with a lot of other, professionally-more-important stuff below, so scroll down if you don't want gardening chatter.) 

We didn't have much of a winter, and the daytime temps are hitting 60ºF already, so I've been out in the planting beds doing work usually scheduled for mid-March. The redbud got its annual "calm down, don't sprout new limbs everywhere" pruning, and some other shrubs got their shaping barely in time. The serviceberry leaves will break from their buds any day now, and the crabapple isn't far behind. I keep warning them that we're likely to get many hard frosts yet, but they listen to the sun and the warming earth, not to me. 

The sage, thyme, & lavender never died back, just went dormant (you can tell by the stems and the texture of the leaves) but I've chopped down a bunch of other dead perennial stalks so the already-sprouting bulbs can emerge without interference. 

And today I went ahead and transplanted a couple of perennials I'd marked for moving last year.  It's less stressful (for the plant) to move them while they're dormant, and they're all already greening up! I'll have to spend some time tomorrow moving a few more.

I ended up in the yard yesterday for dirt therapy, to be honest.  It's been An Eventful Week, and it isn't over yet.

What's been happening? Well. These things:

• Finalized travel plans for Minicon. (Easter Weekend. Minneapolis. I'll be there!)
• Fussed around with my office space and made it comfier than ever. (pic at the bottom of the post)
• Did the first-pass and review of the Weaving In the Ends audio first chapter. Y'all, this narrator is EPIC fantastic. The producer is working out minor points of voice and pronunciation, and then full recording will happen.  It FEELS SO REAL. Years in the making, finally going to happen, and I the narrator is still interested, then MOAR AUDIOBOOKS WILL HAPPEN. 
• Found out one of my favorite authors died (Steve Miller of the Liaden Universe writing team of Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.)
• Couldn't concentrate on much after that news, so I turned to the List Of Overdue Life Tasks and filled up next week with appointments for maintenance upkeep of self and car. Unfunny fact, though: anticipating appointments is almost as stressful as making appointments & going to appointments.
• Lots of upheaval at the library, between people retiring, people quitting to change jobs, other people gettin hired from within, other people being passed over, small renovations and huge logistical improvements in the coming months -- honestly none of it affects me directly, but it's...environmental. Change is hard, even when it's good change, & this is decidedly a mixed bag.

I hav an extra library shift tomorrow (see "upheaval" above) there will actually be a game in our basement on Saturday )some kind of driving game thing, all Spouseman, not me) and then Dinner With Friends on Sunday. That's  a lot of downtime or creative quiet.

Hence the dirt therapy. And cat petting therapy, and the watching diverting TV shows therapy.

And now, fair warning that I may be posting less fluffy, more prickly posts in the coming months. Firstly, because the world continues to smolder like the dumpster fire it is, and my thoughts lately have turned to lots of sensitive/social/political topics. 

Secondly, because I've caught onto the sneaky self-censoring weasels that have been keeping me away from posting about anything remotely awkward. You know the weasels I mean, right? .The biggest  is the  "that isn't important enough to blog about" weasel, but its littermates "That's too controversial" and  "No one needs to hear my opinions about that" are vicious too, and they were so sneaky I didn't realize how badly gnawed I was getting  until recently.  

in the navel-gazing tradition of bloggers everywhere, I have staked out this little online space to work through my unsettled thoughts about all kinds of things by writing about them. 

Those sensitive, social, and political topics deeply inform my writing, so pondering about them does belong here.  The messy, unpopular, controversial ideas are just as important to share as my fluffy, happy and whimsical ones. All of them are valid.

Anyway. All this is to say, expect more occasional rantlets about real life thing on my mind than I've posted in the last however long it's been since I ranted.

But that's all for now. Have some pics of me and Pippin enjoying the happy new napping nook in my office. It gets afternoon sun.