The Weekend Activity List

1. Attend the monthly DAR meeting. Check.

Our speaker was a gentlemen who is on the Smithville Film and Music Commission and who has the inside scoop on the movies and commercials and web movies and video games that are filmed in the Smithville area. You would be surprised how much filming goes on in Smithville, including the movie that took the majority of the awards at the SXSW film festival in Austin this year.

So naturally, I had to go round and visit the house where Hope Floats was filmed. Love that movie.

I then indulged myself with a leisurely drive through historic downtown Smithville, looking at various Victorian houses for sale and wiping the drool off my chin.

2. Spend some time in downtown Smithville,

visiting my favorite antique and gift stores.

Buy something totally unncessary. Check.

I don't know why I keep buying hats. I have yet to wear one and I have to keep them under lock and key or the cats eat the feathers. But I just can't seem to help myself.

3. Run out to Lowe's and pick up tomato and basil plants. Check.

Every year I have to plant a couple of Sweet 100 tomato plants and at least one sweet basil plant. It's the farmer genes in my background, plus I love fresh basil in my spaghetti sauce and vegetable beef soup and I love Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes in my salad. I try to get out to Lowe's or Home Depot early enough that I can find good, hardy plants. Of course, once I'm out there, I fall victim to the call to plant other things. (This year I added a jalapeno plant.)

I also decided on a pot of begonias and a pot of purple petunias in addition to my basil, pepper and tomato plants. I had promised myself that I would not plant pots and pots of things this year because come the May work rush I lose interest and begin to resent having to take care of them. I thought I was doing pretty good this year, when I rounded the corner and ran into something I had to have.

I believe I mentioned last year that Big Foot, the huge split-leaf philodendron that Mother and I bought about 30 years ago, had gotten a bad case of frostbite last winter but still had some life in him. Well, another bad spell of winter weather has pretty nearly done the poor old boy in. When faced with a bank of 1 gallon pots of split-leaf philodendrons in the nursery, I decided I would adopt a new one. (This tendency to compulsively adopt plants, dogs and cats gets me into more trouble.)

By the way, if you have not made your spring trek to the nursery, brace yourself for sticker shock. Prices have sky-rocketed. Apparently the Libyan crisis has affected even the price of tomato and basil plants.

4. Clean the deck, fill the bird feeders,

pull the patio umbrella out of storage. Check.

It has been interesting watching the sparrows and finches inspecting the new deck arrangement. They perch on the tomato cage and peer down, wondering if tomatoes are something that they will like.

A funny thing happened on the way to getting the umbrella put back into place. I had gone to the storage shed to get the umbrella and the chaise lounge cushion. I had retrieved the umbrella and pushed it over the deck rails and went back to the shed to get the cushion. I don't know if I had overlooked it on my first trip or if I had dislodged it when I pulled out the umbrella, but sitting dead-center (no pun intended) in the doorway was an expired mouse. I yelped, not immediately realizing that he was deceased, and jumped backward about 3 feet. The dogs, watching from the deck, decided Mommy had lost her ever-loving mind. I'm sure the neighbors were just nodding their heads in resignation.

I do not like mice, dead or alive.

5. Get two weeks' worth of laundry done.

Fold and put away the laundry.

Check.

What can I say? I have a lot of clothes, but eventually you run out of underwear and you can't put it off any longer.

6. Bathe the dogs. Check.

They were not happy about this. But they had followed me every step of the way during my planting and cleaning activities and not only were they smelling pretty gamey, they were too tired to run and hide under the bed.

7. Change the bedding. Check.

Nothing like clean dogs and clean bedding at the same time.

8. Indulge in a big Sunday lunch that

somebody else cooked. Check.

9. Investigate a new antique store between

Bastrop and Smithville. Check.

With a name like Dixie's Den of Antiquities, who could resist? This one will be worth revisiting.

10. Get the floors vacuumed and mopped. Check.

Well sorta.

I got the kitchen and utility room done, which are the worst of the lot considering the cats hang out in there, tossing cat hair in all directions and flinging food every whichaway. Their litter boxes are in the utility room and I have a hard time understanding just how it is they manage to scatter litter to the furthest corner. Cats. Love them or leave them. Or find a good shrink to cure your tendency to take the little heathens in.

I'll tackle another room tomorrow. And another room the next day. By the time I get the rest of the house done, the kitchen and utility rooms will be a wreck again. It never ends.

What I didn't get done.

No genealogy.

No work on the two newsletters that remain on the top of my to-do list.

No cleaning of closets.

Fiddle-dee-dee. I'll think about that tomorrow.

LSW