Today I kept thinking about that little silly rhyme about the weather: “April showers bring May flowers.” Well, with today’s heavy rain this morning (and more predicted for tomorrow), it’s not quite accurate. But then again, welcome to southeast Texas. We just had some minor spats of rain, maybe an hour or two here or there of intermittent rain the past few weeks. Today turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I had so much coursework to catch up on.

And I finally did. I rushed through the quizzes (not my best idea, but they’re the kind you mainly take to prep for the final) and printed out the results to help me figure where I was weak. And then I started wondering about the final and how much time I had left to get that going.

Found out I mixed up the dates and it’s not due for a week.

I poured a little wine and started laughing when I saw that. All this fuss and impatience to get the quizzes done to study, and I’ve got a week more than I thought.

On the other hand, with my procrastination tendencies, this move just ensured that I can start May with a (mostly) clean slate, and new priorities.

Thanks, Hugh.

Since it’s raining, it’s mostly going to be cleaning tomorrow, but I’m looking forward to it for once. I mean, it’s amazing how you know you need to get things done, but the sheer amount of what’s left (and things with a deadline vs. without fighting for attention in your mind) just overloads your mind. Well, the steam valve has been loosened a bit and I’m approaching normal pressures again. I bet I sleep like a baby tonight with all that off my plate.

Most of today was spent working on coursework and checking on my parakeets. Both the ladies have five eggs now and they’re starting to stay in their nesting boxes for longer stretches, so I guess we’re coming down to incubation time now that they have so many eggs. I barely saw ’em at all today I’m not sure how long they’ll be in there with all those eggs, and I didn’t get a chance to check how many were fertilized. They’re so skittish and prefer I leave them be, so I didn’t want to agitate them. And I read that if they get too agitated with their nesting space, they’ll abandon the eggs. Definitely don’t want that to happen. I’ll find out with everyone else in the house once the eggs start to crack open and that cheeping fills the kitchen.

The moms can supposedly take care of the babies just fine. I just want to make sure I can clear egg debris out of the way so the little ones don’t cut themselves on the shells or anything like that. And hopefully the moms will know I’m there to help in those moments, because they move so fast I tend to jerk back out of reflex (and I don’t want the box top to accidentally stay open and mom fly out in a panic, or I jostle the box in my shock–that would upset them).

From pethelp.com. I gotta admit, the poor thing looks really creepy to me right now. Gonna be an interesting month of seeing the changes and all Probably got at least a week before anything happens, from what I’ve read.

And odds are I might have a visitor to help check on the birds in the next few days (or weeks) and I want the common areas looking good again. All these hours of classwork out of the way finally means I can concentrate on it again, and I’ll just take a final a day for the next few days til I’m done… and when I’ve gotten big projects out of the way.

I have to say, my backyard is getting lively with all the squirrels and birds running around, looking for food. But they’re not the only ones, and I wonder how fast the rodents will be depleted. Watched a hawk this afternoon (think it was around 4:30) nab a squirrel and fly up into the nearest tree. I was washing dishes and happened to just look up and see that out my window. Interesting as hell.

I just hope there aren’t many (or any) remains that have hit the ground after the fact. I can just imagine my heeler running over to either eat what’s left or roll all over the spot.

I already gave her two baths last week because she found some formerly frozen deer meat that a neighbor threw out into the woods and she rolled all over what was left (I won’t describe the smell, probably as bad as you’re thinking). I really don’t want to deal with her and another bath time right now. All my towels are already being used for the dogs when they come in out of the rain!

Yup–adding laundry to the list. But I believe, with all the huge projects of the past week, and today’s clearing of the decks, there’s a lot of fun I can have trying to make things work a little easier around here. And more than that, I’ll be able to clear the clutter from my writing space again.

Looking forward to that. I’ve missed it. Loved the rabid gardening, but I’ve missed going through my idea books and stories. Soon enough, though. Soon enough.