April 26, 2009

Another exciting week as the weather continued to be a bit cooler than seasonal - was still using my running suit for the evening constitutionals, but we have finally encountered a the country wide heat wave this weekend. With the warm up we spent a bit of time in the garden getting in a few more seeds - yellow squash, zucchini, and acorn squash this week (note that we have never done particularly well in the squash family with a record of 2 acorn squash from last years garden). The grass is beginning to green up and with the warmer weather I would expect next weekend will be the first mowing - oh joy, only 6 more months of a weekly mowing from there!!!

Joann was in town for most of the week having only to travel to and from New York on Monday. As mentioned last week, she is jetting off to Istanbul tomorrow for the week, so stay tuned for some photos from Turkey next week. Usual work week for me so not much there to report. We were going to go out for our first lobster rolls last night, but I had a business lunch that filled me up enough to seriously decrease the enjoyment of stuffing lobster on top of it. So that exciting event will have to wait until next week. Tonight we are warming up the grill for beer boiled brats, sweet potato fries, and asparagus (OK the asparagus will be made inside) with Sheri and Bruno. Tomorrow holds more outdoor chores as the weather is supposed to stay warm.

The photo opportunity this week is provided by our wedding anniversary orchids. We purchased these orchids for our 25th wedding anniversary and have faithfully watered them ever since without a bloom to be seen. Out of the blue this year they both suddenly decided to shoot out a flower stem and as you can see we are enjoying our first orchid blossom after 3 years - yes in case you were trying to do the complicated math, we have been married 28 years this June. We are completely amazed as we didn't really do anything different this year than past. So apparently several years of benign neglect is the key to making an orchid blossom. Will be curious to see how long to the next blossom cycle after this one.

April 18, 2009

I'm glad to report that the daffodils managed to peak their flowers out this week. Not all of them mind you, but enough to qualify as spring. That and the forsythia are in bloom makes one hopeful the cold, cold weather is behind us. A quiet week on our front with Joann actually being in town for four days during the work week and her only travel was an in-and-out jaunt to New Jersey. Quite an accomplishment and I'm almost getting used to her being around again. Of course, she heads off to Istanbul, Turkey in a week so it's not like she is giving up her jet setting ways. She still wants to become a super platinum flyer on American before the end of the year. Only another 40,000 miles to go....

I had my usual mix of work and play. Really nothing spectacular to report this week. Much of Pfizer is waiting to see what we will be structured like post-Wyeth so it is business as usual for much of the company. My exercise continues with a mix of running - still in a running suit so far, it hasn't yet warmed up enough for shorts and a T-shirt - lifting and our weekend yoga class. Seems to be enough to keep my sore, but not enough to help lose any weight.

This weekend was finally warm enough to really start tackling gardening chores. We spent today moving some flowers around in the front beds and getting summer bulbs in the ground. Out in the vegetable garden, another crop of peas went in along with carrots and onions. A little rain would be good and some is promised for tomorrow and next week. We have one or two pea plants starting to push their way up and several of our lettuce varieties are already underway, as you can see from the photo. We are heading out to dinner tonight with Deb and Rich for Mexican - yummy, you can't go wrong with a cheese and bean (or beef, or chicken) burrito loaded up with sour cream. Not good for the arteries, but oh so good for the soul.

April 12, 2009

I would love to say that spring is here, but the temperatures just aren't agreeing. I was going to post a lovely picture of the daffodils blooming in our flower beds, instead as you can see we have a shot of daffodils in waiting. Maybe next week.

The week started off pretty much as normal, Joann off to New Jersey and me off to Groton. I managed to find some time this week to unbury my inbox of email a bit - at least until this week. Joann was actually home more than she was gone this week as her trip to Jersey was just for the day and her trip to New York city only was one day instead of the two planned. It was nice to have her around for once. Didn't get out to any more gardening as the weather during the week was on the wet and cool side. Our forsythia haven't even flowered out as yet. For the weekend, we have nestled inside so far. Homemade pizza and chocolate cookies were on the menu for Friday night. Saturday was overcast and became very rainy, so while Jo went off to get a haircut, I handled working on the budget. Dinner was homemade spaghetti and meatballs (from Pat Steinkamp's recipe - sister-in-law for those who aren't in the know) and a crusty french bread from the bread machine. Oh yeah, dessert was "blizzards" from Dairy Queen - we know we shouldn't, but boy are they tasty. Naturally, lunch today will be meatball sandwichs on our homemade bread - can't wait!!!

Today we are supposed maybe see a peak of sunshine and there are garden chores galore just waiting for attention - stake up the grape vines, arrange a system to cover the blueberries, mulch the strawberries, move the rhubarb, etc... Have a great week until the next post.

April 5, 2009

We finally had some warm weather this weekend, which led to some serious gardening. You might as well get prepared for several months of boring gardening stories. As Joann mentioned this morning, the beginning of spring gets one filled with the all the hopes for your garden. We are certainly hoping for more success this year than last - while we had several good crops last year, we still haven't mastered getting large tomatoes, lots of peas, or consistent yields from everything that goes into the garden. We are still investing more energy than we are getting back out in vegetables - especially since you can buy most veggies at the grocery store, even if they don't taste quite as yummy. The photo montage this week is our garden as we start another year - the greenery is garlic that we planted last fall.

Fairly quiet week as Joann was in New York learning how to become a more dynamic and effective leader at an internal Pfizer course. While I had leadership team meetings - first on Tuesday with my boss's team and then on Wednesday and Thursday, with my bosses boss. Friday was spent visiting IBM to learn how they transformed their Research and Development efforts from an internal funding model to a model that consists of a mix of internal and external. Very interesting and IBM certainly seems to have it's fingers in a lot of pies as they are doing things as diverse as computational biology, semiconductors, and IT servicing. We also got to tour a chip plant was fully automated. It was very impressive although as it had semiconductor wavers moving around the plant without any human intervention it was a bit scary as in computers taking over the world - Terminator type of future.

We spent the weekend being homebodies as we both needed to catch up a bit. Yesterday was chores and a haircut for Eric in the morning all leading up to a great home-made vegetable soup (using more of our sweet potatoes from last years harvest - so we weren't completed disasters in growing things) for dinner with our favorite french bread from our bread machine. Then we watched Michigan State defeat UConn in the NCAA's. We were routing for both teams - Mich State as our Big Ten representative in the finals and UConn, well you can figure that one out. Today as mentioned above was putting in the peas, potatoes, lettuce, and some berries (raspberries and strawberries) in the garden leading to a pretty good nap for both of us. Apparently running for an hour and then gardening for several more is a bit tiring for folks of our age. The rest of the day is preparing for another exciting week at work.....

Have a great week