As I’d hoped, the weather and my schedule cooperated and I got to spend time today puttering in my garden plot. And by puttering I mean, clearing the main bed, turning soil, and planting seeds.

But after a couple hours, it felt nice to see something looking so … tidy and taken care of.

The back portion is several rows of peas and the front row is several rows of spring greens.

I haven’t bought any new seeds this year, so we’re seeing what will sprout from past seasons. I feel more optimistic about the seeds from last year than the ones from 2009, but either way those seeds are out of my house and in the ground.

And while I’m relatively sure that doing this much planting so early in the year will guarantee a blizzard and frozen ground in the next two weeks, these are all plants that flourish in cooler weather and should be able to withstand a certain amount of cold.

Have you started thinking yet about what you’re going to grow this year?

I’m currently hanging out at the Phoenix airport waiting for the red-eye plane that will take me home. It’s been a long couple days and I’m done. I may not be awake long enough for the flight attendant instructions.

But I will make good use of tomorrow. I should arrive home just as the farmers market opens, so I’ll take the compost over and get some breakfast before I take a short nap with Corey.

I have bowling in the early afternoon (thus only a short sleep) and would like to follow that up by planting some peas in my garden. And maybe I’ll return a few things to the library.

Tomorrow night I need to stay awake long enough to watch the final installment of Sanditon and to greet Rudi when he returns from coaching in central Pennsylvania. However, I’m betting he won’t object too much if I want to make it an early night. Monday’s coming fast, after all… (Plus, the next work trip begins on Wednesday.)

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

I dozed off wothout writing, so here’s a quick morning post:

I’m writing from Phoenix, where I have a work event this weekend. I had some time yesterday and got to do a little exploring, which included finding Fatty Daddy, home of this wondrous concoction. That would be a waffle cone with gelato, a macaron, and a toasted marshmallow on top.

What an amazing city!

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I may have mentioned my birthday was last Friday and that I went home and that my mother brought out a cake. And then another cake that she’d made. Two seemed decadent enough, but then the next day there was a third cake. Three cakes!!! The last was a jelly roll style Mum made with vanilla cake and strawberry frosting enrobed in chocolate. Isn’t it gorgeous? I’m definitely going to turn 46 more often if there are this many cakes involved!

2. My alumni association sends Valentine’s Day postcards to couples who met during college. It always makes me extra excited to see it arrive in the mail.

3. We lost at volleyball this week, which doesn’t naturally seem like a beautiful thing. But our teams were well matched, the games were tight, we played well, and the score could have gone either way. It felt great to walk away after an hour knowing we’d left everything on the court.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

I’m at a point where I’m trying to finish up some lingering projects, which would be easier if they were further along, if I had more energy to work on them, or if I devoted more time to crossing them off the list. Instead, I read a chapter or two at lunch, knit one color, and then put them away, seemingly surprised that they aren’t done yet.

So here we are, still less than 100 pages into We Met in December (which is also when I began reading) and not yet to the heel turn on sock #1.

A Fatal Grace has returned itself to the library, but I am on the holds list for the audiobook at 3 libraries, so am hopeful that it will revert to me, if not for this week’s trip, then likely before next week’s. I’ve downloaded Helen Hoang’s The Bride Test for this week, but the first chapter makes me wonder if I’d prefer to read it on paper. Time will tell.

Head over to As Kat Knits to catch up with people who make more steady progress toward their knitting and reading goals.

You may or may not remember this tv show, Ally McBeal, from the turn of the century. It was a bunch of young, mostly well-intentioned Gen X lawyers who were gifted in the courtroom, but a hot mess in their personal lives. As with many shows at that time, it also had a phenomenal soundtrack (who knew before then, for instance, that Robert Downey Jr. had such a lovely voice?).

But this moment, at the end of season four, in 2001, marked a particular moment in time, when a teen whose prom date had dumped him at the last minute (I think he retained Ally to sue the girl, lost, and then brought Ally as his date) got up on stage to sing to the girl he’d loved and instead sang his way into the heart of America.

Josh Groban was only 20 when he made this appearance.