Thanks, neighbors

Our neighbor, M, stopped by last night to give us some treats in exchange for letting them have packages delivered to our house. It's a homemade onion and cilantro flatbread and an Armenian honey cake.

The flatbread was warm so I had to try it. I tasted more cilantro than onion, but I like both so it's all good. The "kids" are alright.

More spring blooms

We never planted this, but it shows up every spring - Woodland Phlox.

The darker purple flowers are lunaria, the money plants.

And our Bridal Wreath is blooming.

And look at the progress my clematis has made in less than two weeks!

Learning mahjong

Allison hosted a mahjong lesson at her church last night and had a great turnout. She opened it up to the public and it was sold out almost immediately.

I helped her set up and brought homemade cookies, a veggie pizza and wine, oh, yeah, and leftover bread slices.

My charcuterie creation with Allison's ingredients.

Learning the basics.

So deep in thought lol.

After the lesson, each table played a game and, shockingly, I won at my table.

The instructor gave me a little gold duck for my win.

Ten years

Birthday concert

Our friend, L, celebrated her birthday with a house concert by Michelle Malone on Sunday night. She said it was her fifth time hosting the artist and her 40th house concert. Wow.

For dinner L made lasagnas and had people being drinks or sides. We brought a lot of baguette slices (I said two loaves would be plenty; Andy insisted on buying four. I sliced three and there were plenty of leftovers).

Two birthday cakes are better than one, especially when the one is coconut.

That’s a fire

Rather than stuff this dried, decorative grass in yard-waste bags, we had a fire and burned it.

Turned out to be quite the fire.

New ‘do for Lou

L asked me a few days ago if I would have an aneurysm is she got her hair done like this. With Cousin C's wedding coming up I just replied, "Don't." Well, she already checked with C who said it looked cute so with her and W liking it, I was clearly outnumbered. It's even Disney-approved.

So, of course, she got it dyed. This is the "flat" version ...

and the "curled" version. She said she got lots of compliments from guests, coworkers and her leaders. Her exciting news Friday was that she was one of six people with her job chosen to train the next group of incoming coworkers!

I'm glad this is the back, significantly toned down from what she had shown me earlier.

Cat library puzzle

Piper usually doesn't bother my puzzles, but this one must have been particularly interesting.

Ruby prefers puzzles with bigger boxes. This one doesn't quite fit her.

All done with one piece missing.

Parkway tulip

Our second parkway tulip on April 16, getting ready to bloom.

In full bloom Tuesday.

A 250th passport

I forgot that I had ordered a 250th Illinois passport (it hasn't yet arrived ... if it will at all) when I was at a work meeting about possible 250th events and a woman running the meeting had a whole stack of them. It's a way to encourage people to travel the state this year and visit various sites. The book includes an interesting mix of sites but I've been to quite a few of the more well-visited ones - Route 66, Great River Road, Cahokia Mounds, Lincoln's home, Hull House, New Salem, Old State Capitol, Vandalia capitol and the Lincoln Museum.