Good early morning GH. It is 80 degrees in my office/music room and 61 outdoors. I made an executive decision to open the windows and turn off the heating system for now. I once had a colleague whose husband turned off the heating system by April 1st and didn't turn it on again until November or December. I think, and thus I am late. Our forecast shows 70s and 60s over the next few days, but showers may appear by late this afternoon, and T-storms by Friday. Sugar the Weather Dog will let us know.

Mary tells me that I missed a really long train earlier. I think I remember hearing it, but I was tired from all the work I did outdoors today, so I didn't bother getting up.

Speaking, of outdoors, I made an attempt at creating those natural trellises I mentioned the other day. Since I am not generally the artistic type and since I had only branches to work with, they are what they are. With Mary busy, I didn't have any help with the knot tying, so she may have to assist after the fact.

In my never ending quest for all things free, I scored another new one on Wednesday after receiving one earlier last week. That's the one shown below. I have included a couple of pictures. Adam might say I was cheap, I would say I am being frugal. That's what allows me to have an electrician when I need one instead of having to go the DIY route.

This is one of the things I received from the fine folks at AARP. Big enough for a sandwich and a can of soda during a trip to our state park of world renown.

As you can see, the word "Free" is prominently part of the description for this collection of CFL bulbs. I picked them up yesterday at the local power company. They were previously out of them due to high demand, and in fact, they had already used up many this time too. I think this proves that I am not alone in my pursuit of all things free.

The item above, "necessitated" my getting the bicycles out of the man-cave for the season and filling the tires with air. Of course, in order to store the bicycles later, I had to pull the branches that I mentioned earlier. That's one of the reasons I had to build those trellises. However, in the process, I discovered that the Clematis plants are still growing, they just got stunted a bit during last year's drought. Mary and I are excited by the progress that our collective gardens are making.

We have the electrician scheduled for today. Since his last visit, the ceiling fan in Mary's office has taken on a look of "looseness." He'll know what to do. This time I promise to walk the dog while he works. I don't want to become an "electricians's groupie." Still, I have always enjoyed watching people with skills work. I have been on that side of the equation, so I have an understanding.

In sports, the boys in blue won, 6 - 2, but they are still a sub-500 team. The Tigers win streak ended at the hands of the Twins. The Red Sox blew out the Blue Jays 10 - 1, behind a solid eight strikeout pitching performance by Clay Bucholz and two monster home-runs by Mike Napoli. In addition, Big Papi is still on his hitting streak, which has been extended to 22 games. Today, the Red Sox send former Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster to the mound to keep their streak alive. Dempster is enjoying the best strike outs per nine innings pitched, at 12.5 /9, since 2005 when he was with the Cubs. The Caps were victorious over the Kernels of Cedar Rapids. While not having a stellar season they are still doing well and only two games under 500. That's better than the boys in blue.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Wednesday was May Day.  Not that that fact is unique to this year, but it is the anniversary many tings in the world. 

So, that 's all for now. It will soon be time to get up and await the electrician's arrival as well as...Tea time.