Holy Spring Weather Batman!!

We have had a few unseasonably warm days of late and, just when I am about to give in to the fact that we may be in "summer" mode from here on out, Mother Nature throws us a curve ball and I could not be happier. We have had a bit of much needed rain of late and even though we still need a lot more, it has "greened" up everything! And, that rain has apparently brought with it much cooler temperatures.

This is usually when I am spending way too much at garden centers to really spike up my spring colors in the garden. I honestly think I miss the garden shops more than anything else...and, they will probably be my first outing when I finally get up the courage to get out and about again.

This week our weather has been so gorgeous that I just can't stay inside. In fact, when I headed out with my coffee early this morning, it was actually a bit chilly...in Florida...in May. Yay!!

I have actually had every window in my house open all day long. And once I get this post done, I am heading straight back out to sit by the pool and read for awhile. It is breath-takingly beautiful out there and I'm not missing one second more than I need to!

In any case, I have gotten a lot of heavy duty stuff done this week with way more to come. I think my friend the pressure cleaner will be back to visit tomorrow. But all that aside, I am thrilled to see so many of my old plants popping back up and beginning to bloom again. There are some definite blank spots from last years annuals that haven't been filled but, when I can bring in two flower arrangements in a day, I'm a happy camper. Here are today's beauties...with so many more gardenias finally getting ready to pop.

Some of my other faithful bloomers:

My Meyer lemon tree has about 8 lemons now and just finished another bloom so there are a lot more to come!

As simple as a penta is, it is one of my favorites because the birds "plant" the seeds for me all over the yard and I have them of all colors popping up where I least expect to see them. And, for right now, I am letting them bloom where they were planted.

They all just make my heart happy. Of course, this is what was happening yesterday:

After the garbage men emptied 6 cans full of leaves, I began the work on the far side of the pool. Once all of the azaleas have bloomed, I usually cut the bushes all the way back. This seems to be where I see my two friendly black snakes the most often and, even though I could never hurt them I don't like to give them extra room to hide so I tend to keep these bushes either totally cut back (when they have just gotten too large-like this time ) or at least cleared off down near the ground so I don't reach down to grab an errant weed and pull up something else instead! Lol

And now the cans are full again awaiting their next pick-up...at which time there will be 6 more cans of leaves quickly in their place. Such is the life of a person with 3/4 of an acre shaded with huge oak trees!

And even with all of that gardening, I have found some time for some much needed fun this week as well. As daughter #3 was dropping off a really large grocery gift, she mentioned that they would be having a cinco de Mayo dinner that evening and I was welcome to join...and join I did! She made a fabulous dinner hitting all sorts of Mexican highlights and Presley borrowed some of my party decor and had the house and table decorated to the hilt! Sorry, we were so busy eating that I forgot to get a picture. But, we did snap these when we were done.

This is silly Parker with his head on the rung of the table and, apparently, more than happy to pose with this silly sombrero...

...as were these goofballs. It was so nice to have some levity in this time of such seriousness!

So that is really all of my news for now. My big excitement the rest of the week will be more pressure cleaning. I actually really enjoy doing that because of the immediate gratification so, I will probably be back soon with photo proof! Stay safe and stay tuned.