Flowers!

Yes!  It is spring.  In spite of a few days of chilly, near freezing weather, the trees have declared it spring.  Frothy green lace adorns the trees.  Black Jack Oaks look like bonsai trees with their angled limbs and puffs if green at the tips.  The redbud (which is really lavender) is blooming and the dogwood is uncurling from green to white.

My little phlox have created a blanket of pink while red and orange tulips poke through between them. And the flowering quince plant in the fountain garden makes me repent of my threat to pull it out if it didn’t do something.  It is covered in salmon blooms. 

 

And today it is 80 degrees.

Monday was Kera’s happy birthday.  I also got a job writing an eBook.  This goes with a pretty steady job writing two articles a week and one writing 4 emails promoting my language company.  I’m talking with a business in Canada about another B2B job.  So I’m keeping busy.

Tuesday was my clay day.  I had hoped to have some projects ready for display for our Stake RS activity on April 20^th.  They will be close… but likely not finished with the glaze firing.  Still. I had fun making them.  This time I threw pots.  Throwing is what you do on the wheel.  Building is when you don’t use the wheel, you roll and form.

I had much better success with my throwing this time.  You have to center the clay on the wheel or nothing else will turn out right.  If your bottom of your bowl is too thick or too thin, that doesn’t work either.   But I made three cute little pots. It was so much fun!

It seems like there’s wad of financial stuff on our plate.  We’re still trying to clear the title of the Minnesota property so it can be sold.  We’re looking into “infinite banking” a method of using life insurance to create your own bank where you can lend to yourself tax free and have insurance protection and create a stream of income for later in life.  This involves learning, and talking and filling out forms and figuring out how to fund it.  Mortgage rates are low so we’re working on refinancing at least one of our rental loans.  This comes with paper work, tax returns, balance sheets and so on.  This is also annual report season with its share of proxy voting.

Then, of course, once property sells, you have to look at reinvesting it.  We can buy a house or become private lenders and earn 10%/year. Or we can invest in a neem plantation in Brazil.  I’ve done some checking out, and it actually sounds like a pretty valid proposition.  Out of country gives some diversity from risks here.  Agriculture is steady and in demand.  The trees last for a hundred years and produce after the 3^rd year—oil is used in beauty products and as a natural pesticide and the cakes that remain after the oil is pressed is used for cattle feed and fertilizer. Returns grow to 42% after 6 years.  Anyone interested in joining me?  I think next time Steve goes to Brazil I’ll get him to look in person…. If he’s willing.  Or maybe I’ll fly down… and it’s a tax deduction.

Seminary is nearing graduation.  We’re working on getting teachers to trainings, finding out who is graduating, and getting the graduation set up. We need to look at teachers and see who might need to be changed out.

Friday I went visiting teaching.  Friday night we had a sweetheart dinner.  The young women put it on and they did a great job! It was a nice evening with a silent auction of deserts to raise money for girls’ camp.  We came home with lemon bars, no-bake cookies, and a strawberry cheese cake!  Oh, then we bought a leftover pan of lasagna.

Saturday Tom and I both headed to the yard.  We raked up old leaves and transplanted some groundcover and irises to the front entry beds.  We created a gate in the chicken tractor so the two ladies could have use of the chicken run. As they seemed disinclined to fly, we didn’t need to put the cover on the run just yet.  But we have the chicken wire to do so.  It was warm enough to open the little chick’s door to go outside, but the world was too scary.  Today I opened it again after church and a few brave chicks leaned out to nibble grass.

Saturday afternoon Tom went to church because the Youth were having their super Saturday activity at our ward building.  They had a carnival theme.  People brought popcorn machine, cotton candy machine, funnel cakes, and a variety of booths with games.  The kids had a good time, then cleaned it up and had a dance.

Today was a good fast and testimony meeting. Tom conducted.  Gee.  We sure have a cute bishop.  Our Relief Society lesson was #7—a great one on adversity.