Since June 5, I have

Since June 5, I have...
Last Saturday we buried our parents' ashes in Leesburg Cemetery. We discovered that my grandfather bought 8 plots in 1932 and only four were used. We buried them together in beautiful walnut boxes which my husband made. The service was very touching as each family member shared a memory of Dad and of Mom and then sprinkled a shovel of dirt over the boxes.

Aunt Katharine, my Dad's sister from Oregon, came for the service. At 86 years old, I was concerned that we would wear her out, but she is as spry, alert, inquisitive, and active as someone much younger. It was so hard to say good-bye, as I don't know when I will see her again.

Before her visit, I went into a cleaning frenzy. It started with my new pantry which required cleaning and rearranging my kitchen cabinets. Then I did some painting and decided to take down every picture in the house and rearrange them. All the windows are sparkling, at least they were last week. I found room for about 100 books from my mother's estate by weeding out some books and removing non-book items from some shelves. And the list goes on.

This week I've devoted my time to three volunteer projects that were on hold until after Aunt Katharine's visit: a newsletter for a nonviolence charity, a brochure for the church about small groups and an hour talk at a big box about container gardening as part of my Master Gardener hours. The talk is tomorrow and I'm still organizing it. I get to go through the garden center and select the containers, soil and plants to use for the demonstration. I'm a little nervous about it but it should be fun.

The boys started drivers ed this week. The first two weeks are classroom and the third week is driving. Next week they get to start correspondence classes for high school credit. That foray into homeschooling should be interesting.

And all the while my garden grows. The weeds are growing but I'm fighting that battle slowly.