Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Spring Into Summer

It was too darn hot when I awoke this morning, already in the 70s at quarter after 9. When I headed out with my big bag of thrift shop donations around 11, it was at least 85, sunny, and windless. This is really crazy. It did get this hot last year in April, but not until later in the month.

I kept my running around quick. I just dropped the bag of donations off at the thrift shop and said "hi" to my friend Erica. The last thing I need is more thrift shop junk. Went to the Collingswood Library for an hour, then rode straight over to the Haddon Township Library for volunteering. I returned DVDs and kids' books at both places. Had a nice chat about my job frustration with one of the younger librarians at Haddon Township, too.

My next stop was the Bagel Shop in Westmont, my very favorite lunch spot. I had a Turkey, Swiss, Lettuce and Guacamole Sandwich on a Honey-Oat Bagel. They really overdid the guacamole, which made the bagel a bit difficult to hold. Other than that, it was quite tasty. I didn't get there until around 2, by which time the place was totally empty except for the TVs blaring CNN reporting about the mining disaster in West Virgina.

I went to the Dollar Tree next. I needed another basket, this time to organize the random items stacked on and under the shelf in my living room area closet. I went for a long ride in Newton River Park after leaving Westmont, partially to avoid the traffic on Cuthbert that made last week's library trip such a pain in the neck. Stopped very quickly at CVS; I was originally craving ice cream, but I didn't like their prices. I bought dried fruit and mouth wash, both of which were on sale.

Spent the rest of the afternoon continuing the spring cleaning, despite the heat. I'm trying my hardest to get rid of those darn ants. I swept out the areas under the sink where the pots and pans are and the "pantry," aka the two little shelves in the area behind the wooden partition, between the sink and the stove. It didn't seem to do a lot of good. I just found more ants on my bottle and can recycling canister, which I emptied and washed out.

And yes, I did organize my living room area closet. Both the living room and bedroom closets are a pretty good size, but I've just left them kind of messy until now. I used a larger round basket to hold the candles, wires, and other odds and ends that were on the shelf in the closet. Stashed the bucket with the cleaning supplies next to the basket, and the little sewing machine under them.

It might be just as well that I forgot to take out something for dinner, given how hot it was. An omelet with spring vegetables and pan-roasted Brussels sprouts worked just as well. I have a Jello-mold "salad" chilling in the refrigerator for dessert.

1 comment:

Linda said...

Emma, I have a question. Do you have any leaves or pine straw or other plant junk on your roof, and are there tree branches touching your roof? At the old house pine straw used to accumulate on the roof. We had two trees in the back yard that would overgrow and touch the roof. The ants would climb the trees and nest in the gunk on the roof. They also came through the roof without the gunk being there from the trees. It sounds as if your landlady is really nice. If you have either of these things, could you ask her to get someone--maybe her son?--to trim the tree branches and get the stuff off the roof? I bet your ants would go away.

I hear about all sorts of ant remedies. One we tried was peppermint oil. NOT peppermint extract. Peppermint oil like they use in in aromatherapy. It's not cheap; 7-8 dollars for a little bottle, but they say the ants do not like the stuff and stay away. We have a "green" extermination service and they use cloves.