I suppose when you spend 26+ years at something

... you're entitled to belabor the issue, especially if you actually liked it!  When I reported on my retirement initially, I mentioned a dilemma in obtaining pictures.  I suppose my sending to that person the pictures I took at our party last week was what triggered the guilt to achieve success!  Yay!  So now I will finalize all that celebrating.

 Jenny, the boss, gave me an engraved paperweight (picture of it posted prior),

and I teased her enough I actually hoped she'd give me a black one

in honor of a lump of coal for Christmas, but no, it's pink (her favorite color).
(Once she had the warehouse freezer floor resurfaced in pink.)

 This is the room, all ready for the luncheon last December

 Kneader's sheet cakes.  The pink one's my favorite, chocolate peppermint.

The others were pineapple cocoanut cream and fresh strawberry french vanilla.

 The rest of the eats.

 The two guys in our department - Steve runs the warehouse

and Bill coordinates menus and kitchen operations.

 This is the last clerk I trained, Alice for Independence High School.

 We four in the district office:  Colleen, Gail, Bill, and Jenny

(the director, who also retired at yearend).

This picture was sent to me as a joke.  These are an annual vendor's Christmas gift

and the cookies are disgusting looking - all dried up!

It's a miracle we even ever ventured a taste, but are grateful we did,

because once you start nibbling, you're doomed,

right down to the last crumb!!

 This is the set-up at Timpview High, all ready to go for last week's district retirement party.

Molly & Grant (Grant is my replacement,

and his wife is a cook at Timpanogos Elementary -

both of them have culinary degrees.)

My first boss, Vaughn Hawkes & his wife Arlene (in yellow).

They are currently serving a local mission with a couple from my ward.

 The veggie & fruit art.

Three desserts - cheese cake, lemon bars, and these peanut butter bars.

 Blendtec machines, all ready for tropical smoothies for everyone.

 Entertainment - Bobby Koa and his wife, singing "M (as in Mother) is for ...",

pointing at me for the "O means only that she's growing old" - Ha!

Bobby was a teacher at THS and for years ran one of the lines at lunch.

The PHS jazz band - excellent!

Not all of us who were there, but those who complied

when Jenny asked them to gather at the end.

Dos Pájaros Uno Piedra

Now, I have no idea why I wanted to put that in español - I guess because I've gotten a lot of extra (paid for) help in my yard this year and I admire his handiwork.  I wonder if he'd ever let me take his picture?  He has the kindest face I've ever seen - especially for someone who works out in the sun on a daily basis!  (Well, he's probably in his 30s instead my assumption of 50s.)  *wink*

I bought this contraption for yard work (holds a few tools and I can sit on it instead of bending over and then passing out.  *wink*  I keep it on the front porch, and it turned out to be the accidental object of the post title!  I love sitting on my front porch, but the swing tips a tad too forward to be comfortable, and this makes it just right, as Goldilocks would say.

A few pictures of my yard, just keeping step with springtime in my Rockies.

If you look closely, you'll see the tiny sedum plants (which are supposedly safe down to Zone 4 and I live in Zone 5).  Looking forward to watching them spread.  The bit of "white" you see is bone meal, purportedly helpful in getting sedum established.

Last night was a fun event - the Provo School District Spring Party, this year celebrating retirees, since we've a bunch.  Not a good picture, but I wanted one with my lei.  People taking pictures of themselves so their phone shows (which I'd have needed to do to get a decent one), bugs me.  Including selfie sticks.  It's bad enough to be "selfie" without being obvious.  *wink*  Now I’m talking single selfies.  Group selfies are great, no matter how they’re taken!  And so are singles, on occasion.

This was a gift, the poem, and I'm sure you know it, by Marianne Williamson, starts with "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate...."  Also nice to get it, on the doorstep of Mother's Day!

 Feeling sad about my lei biting the lack-of-water dust - and then I had an epiphany!  It will last a few more days now it's in a bowl of water, and as a matter of fact, perked right up!

Today I went with our Relief Society group to see the Payson temple.  It is gigantic!  Must going to be a ton of building going on down there.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more thoroughly coordinated temple, though Kansas City is a close second, from the cut glass to the carpets to the furniture to the marble to the themes, including apples which Payson is noted for.  Makes me wish I could fly in my entire family (assuming I could even get tickets), so they could bask in the glory.  They said 17,000 went through on Thursday!  And this in wet weather on and off all day.  There were a lot of tears in the pre-video presentation at the next-door chapel.  Just makes me burst with pleasure that our people pay our tithing, so that we can both honor God and present our beliefs so beautifully.  There were a lot of tears during the video.  Wish I’d have ordered my glasses a week earlier, so I could have loved it even more, were that even possible.

Food & Flowers

Well, Jewel, you don't have to be embarrassed any more

by the dilapidated kitchen table which Johnny kindly jury-rigged its wobbly leg,

and my handsome folding chairs.  *wink*

Helped a ward family pack up to move, their next abode is too small for this dining set,

and I got a smashing deal!

The mover is a contractor and he oohed and awed over the wood.

Pretty classy, huh!

And five chairs so any time you or Grant's families visit, the count is perfect!
As well as a lot more roomy.

 Bargain summer porch flower - $7!

I think it's because it's lopsided, but it will be fine as more flowers bloom.

And lastly, I have a lot of flags this year, but I bet they don't last until Memorial Day.

So I'll end this with a funny story.  I hope to travel enough that I'll need some assistance with getting things watered, i.e. the above flags and the strawberry patch adjacent. I have not had good luck hiring neighborhood kids.  I have the drip hoses, both for my grow box and the front.  But the referenced area above has been a dilemma since I didn't want to mess with splitters and all that conglomeration of hoses.  

All of this nonsense is due to secondary water.  Using house water for the entire yard would cost me a fortune (already pay $97 for city services due to their last project of covering the canal).  So if I want anything outside of desert landscaping, I have to deal with secondary.

When I got my sprinkler system repaired, I had him put in a faucet in the front (recessed) and back (above ground) which you can barely see if you follow the wall to the lawn edge.  That way I hoped to run a hose to this area, with a short length to the flags and a longer length to the strawberries (where I have a drip line).  I decided to buy a 25' length (which you can see here) running to the strawberries, and a 10' length to just put water in the furrow for the flags.  That way, I wouldn't need to reconnect each time, from using one hose (and I actually realized that these would be cheapie so the less messing with, the better).  By the end of this month and they're done blooming, the flags won't need near as much water (hence I wouldn't have to add a splitter and drip hose just for that section).  When I connected it, it caused me to immediately send this bad one star review, joining the ranks of everyone else who had the same experience:

May 1:  This item is worthless and unusable. Leaks like a sieve, day one. Surprised at the ratings of it. Makes me wonder if it's more cheaply made than it use to be. Wish I didn't have to send it back to get a refund, and actually can't since it is "opened" and "used". :-( I do like the color a lot and can tell the hose kinks less than the green versions, but since I can't use it, it's not worthy of even one star.

May 2: The saga continues. Yesterday afternoon I went to the big box store which has the greatest selection of plumbing parts in the valley to find the parts to replace the end connections. Nada for a 1/2" hose. So then I looked for another 10' hose in 5/8", which is the length I need, already having found out the short ones are the most cheaply made but at least I'd be able to replace the ends. No luck. But, as fortune would have it, today I had my wonderful yard helper come to fix a leak in the sprinkler system. I mentioned my dilemma with the adjacent hose, thinking maybe he, a man in the business so to speak, had a resolution for me. He said, and I quote, "In Mexico we can't afford to replace things, so we know how to fix them." And he then promptly shaved down the tip edges of the plastic yellow female connector and voilà! Given that repair, I could up the stars on this item, but I won't, because we dumbed-down Americans evidently need a break - how about you hire a smarter-than-us Mexican to shave the tips of all of your yellow female connectors!! Then we'd all be raving and no more single stars!! The increase in happy referral customers might offset the cost, and at least we could consider your operation one of integrity!