busy,busy,busy

 Back, for a moment.
*I've just been blogging on the Genesee County Herb Society blog about our April meeting, if you're interested.

**If you're wondering about those extra page links above,  so am I. I still haven't figured out what to do with them yet. All in good time, Grasshoppa.

***And, I ran across a Google feature that lets me make a custom search engine - and put in my favorite, personal favorite  "herbal living"  blogs as the sites to search, which should bypass a lot of digging if you want a herbal response to a question you might have. It's posted over there on the right side of the page and I call it Google For Herbs (recommended sites).
Want to test it out? Just type say, violets, or huckleberries, into the search line and see what happens.
Cool, huh? (Btw, when you want to clear the search, click on the x.) Just don't forget to come back after your wanders.
I've added a bunch of my favorite herbally oriented blogs and websites that I read with my Google Reader (RSS), and I'll add more as I remember or run across them.

 Now for my personal update....
"It's been a week." That's what I used to say after a particularly awful week, but I'm updating my complaint to March was a month.
Well, not all of March - it did come in 'like a lamb', weatherwise, and I got a wonderful head start on pruning and flowerbed maintenance, though that was cut short. Herb had a heart attack, his third. Yep, TGFHI (Thank Goodness For Health Insurance - I pray everyone will someday have the same quality of health care he got, without being forced into bankruptcy and lifetime peonage).
And... he caught a cold from a sick nurse in the hospital (why do you go to work in a cardiac ward when you're sick? Is the money that important?) and then he gave it to me. It musta been some super germ, 'cause it knocked me flat for a week. But NOW Herb is well, feeling better in fact, back to work - he got a consulting job with a friend, so it suits him perfectly, and I'm getting back to life as well.
But like the poem says, April is cruel. We've lost our tentative hold on spring - the daffodils are blooming, and though it hasn't snowed on them (my personal weather adage) it's definitely cold enough for that to happen. The incredible pure white blossoms of the star magnolia browned after last night's heavy frost, and working outdoors isn't fun in these temperatures.
And the ground is finally wet after a long dry spell. We had 2 inches of rain in a day... it seems like the weather isn't as moderate as it used to be.

The holiday was great. Patrick and Mary Clare flew home and we all were together the weekend after Herb checked out of the hospital, but for actual Easter the family gathered at Skip and Tree's house. I left my camera at home. I'm not a great photographer anyways, but it would have been nice to help recall how beautifully Ashley dresses up my little K and A. and how animated they were over their Egg Hunt.
Skip and Tree are such good "from scratch" cooks, too, we really get a gourmet meal when they host the party. Skip is the master of the grill and served barbecued hot wings of his own recipe to nosh, and later, grilled pork roast on a bed of onion and fennel, with salads and a side of his incredible risotto. Followed by strawberries and whipped cream.

And here's the quote that was previously scheduled for today:
"When there is personal darkness, when there is pain to be overcome, when we are forced to renew ourselves against all the odds, the psychic energy required simply to survive has tremendous force, as great as that of a bulb pushing up through icy ground in spring, so after the overcoming, there is extra energy, a flood of energy that can go into creation. "
- May Sarton