Wish I was still getting paid $17 an hour.

Steve finally returned my calls yesterday and said he'd come by today to look at the flower bed. So today he did come and mow the grass. We looked at the flower bed, and he said he'd get some more garden soil to add to the bags I've got stacked in the basement, and would call this afternoon and let me know his estimate, and that he could probably clean out the bed one day next week.

I've ordered a whole lot of bulbs from Breck's, and they'll probably arrive next week. Some hard work ahead. I ordered daffodils, snowdrops, a pastel tulip mix, snowdrops, English bluebells, peonies, and a few yellow and a few coral-color hyacinths. In the spring I'll probably get Breck's begonia mix to replace the bloomed-out chrysanthemums at the east corner of the house, which I'm going to pull up in the next week. [Added Friday: I like them snowdrops.]

I dug the little cedar tree out of the flower bed yesterday and put it in one of those white plastic urn planters, and it looks great. Today I pulled a 5' tall sweet gum out of the flower bed against the front of the house, and tried to dig up the peony tubers but I only got three; they're too big and too deep. If I can save the little ground roses, I can put them in urn planters, too. I need to remember to get Steve to cut down whatever that tree is that's growing against my office window, right against the house. By the way, he did not call me back this afternoon.

I've got masses of stuff pulled out for the yard sale, and am thinking about having it Saturday. I'll have to go tomorrow and get my permit. Unless I decide to wait until next weekend. But if it looks like the weather will be clear Saturday, I'd rather do it and get it over with, and get all this stuff off the furniture and out of the corners. Many, many pieces of McCoy pottery, lots of odd dishes and glassware, piles of clothes (I didn't know I had that many clothes), two large bins of books, zillions of gew-gaws, etc.