For Peat's Sake.

 On the upside the temps have been amazing for the past two days, in the 60's yesterday and close to 70 today. A little rain but with these warm days I'll take it. On the downside is the mud. I've written about mud before, here since it's clay it takes on a magical quality. Between the snow that melted and the rain that came the back yard is a giant quagmire. The kitchen floor is swept when the mud dries and mopped once a week, it's just not worth it anymore than that. I saw the neighbor Jim with their new dog Blackjack. Blackjack jumped up and planted his paws on my shoulders, lost his balance a little and straightened himself out much to Jim's dismay. I just asked him if he'd noticed I was already covered in mud so what was a little more. Of course since I'm between jobs and it was warm I spent most of yesterday out in the yard with the hooligans who were both absolutely loving it.  I have a couple of pairs of shoes specifically for the backyard and my pants are washable so nothing is a problem.  The fun thing about living in a rural area is you can dress like a lunatic all day long - there's no one to really see you but the neighbors that are dressed the same, you just need to remember to change before you leave the house. As you can see the socks are finished, they went pretty fast. I started on a shawl - yes I know I had said I was thinking about a sweater but I had already skeined the yarn awhile ago so what the heck. David has been busy finishing up at the Bruceton Mills house, the big game this week was Find The Septic Tank, a delightful game that was played here last year at this house with the neighbor John, a hand drawn map from the owner's former son and a big iron pole. That was a fast game after David found out from the neighbor that no one ever remembered seeing it pumped(the guy that pumped it 12 hours after it was located told David he was amazed it didn't back up it was so plugged). But I digress. David has been poking around off and on for the past month with no luck so he had to rent locator equipment and finally found it - five feet down!! We have no idea but it's a 1000 gallon tank and the health department is coming tomorrow to inspect, keep your fingers crossed. Since it's raining today we took the day to hang out, went out to breakfast, go my haircut, did the shopping. After the past crazy months, it was a relief. I have a few other things to  wrap up - I had to get a physical the other day and was declared perfect again, but was taken aback that I've gained about 15 pounds. There is no mystery there - I ate it back. I have no problem losing it when I want to  - I just wish I could figure out not how to keep it off ( we all know the answer to that) but how to stay motivated to WANT to keep it off.