This is the stuff that somehow stays in our fridge even though it expired last year or the year before. There must be something about keeping it around for a year or two even though some part of my mental inventory had written it off and was just too damn lazy to throw it away.

Vince and I have two anniversaries we celebrate each year. One is when we met (February 14, 2000) and one is when we held a private ceremony with close friends (April 20, 2002) in Washington. Both come close to each other and are always a nice way to go into Spring. I took a couple of days off with the weekend to spend time with Vince to celebrate.

When we first came to Murfreesboro, we spent a lot of time at Sushin eating sushi as we closed on our new home. In the short time we’ve been here, Murfreesboro has grown up all around the restaurant in the Medical Center Parkway and Thomspon Lane area. This time we tried Asa. We went there after finding out the Japanese who visit Nissan go there. Sushin will always be my favorite, but the Asa experience was interesting. The owner took our picture and said they were putting on their MySpace page.

Besides sitting around recounting the years and gazing into our future together, we stopped and smelled the roses so to speak. We planted the last Red Sunset Maple. We did a lot of yard work over the past four days, as the photostream will tell you. I spread some of the Hens and Chicks and added a Delosperma to the rock garden. I also transplated a couple of the Don Juan rose bushes from the North arbor and replaced them with a couple of spectacular pink Mandevillas. One nice surprise Vince discovered was a ring of pink flower buds appearing on an old cactus we brought here from Virginia.

I am worn the hell out. Vince and I have been in the yard since 8:30 this morning and just called it a day even though we aren’t nearly done. We mowed, and the yard looks amazing. We also planted three Yoshino Cherry trees and one of the Maples. We still have to cut down two cedar trees, plant the other maple, much and tie them off to the stakes we hammed into the ground.

When mowing, we saw a bunny had made a home in part of the tall grass, but something found them because there was a dead baby bunny rabbit no bigger than the palm of your hand lying nearby. There was fur everywhere. We burried it under one of the Yoshinos and pledged to name that tree whatever the Japanese translation is for “sleeping bunny.”

I’m so proud of Vince. He’s one of those kind of people that is never mad about anything. He’s always smiling. He has a magnetic personality, and is always the life of a party. He puts up with my bad moods like it’s no big deal even though I wouldn’t put up with someone like me. You know the type. I really admire that about him, and in the 8 years we’ve been together, that has never changed about him. I wish it came that easy for me.

So I wasn’t surprised today when Vince called me to say a customer of his wrote to his manager and the owner of Dell about what a wonderful experience they had when the got him on the phone. Vince said his manager later read this email from a customer to his entire team in a meeting today, and then later on Michael Dell himself responded and CC’d Vince. He and his manager were shocked, but I’m not. It makes me happy when other people see what I see in him.

Vince is going to pick up three Yoshino Cherry trees and two Red Maples for us to plant in the yard. I think that ought to do as far as trees for the house. We may remove a couple of cedar trees that are getting wind damage. We have about 15 cedars that were part of the original growth on the land.

Here are a couple of pictures of the sugar maple and pin oak buds. I didn’t take photos last year to compare these to. I wonder if the exceptional drought conditions last year harmed them in any way. Throughout the summer, I kept 5 gallon buckets with small holes in them on the mulch around their base. I’d fill them with water every other day or so that would then take about 30 minutes to slowly release the water.

Since we don’t have the Jeep anymore, Vince is going to see if he can borrow a truck from his sister who lives a few houses down from us. We have a rough idea where the trees will be planted, but we’ll figure out exactly where once they get here.

The pot roast is slowly cooking in the crock pot, so it’s chicken and beer for lunch.

The rain is moving back in and the thunder is getting closer and closer. We sure can use the rain, though. 

I can see buds forming on the pin oaks. The buds on the sugar maple are getting larger. I’ll try to get photos after the rain passes. I wish I had a few photos from last year to compare them to this year. I’m concerned about what the exceptional drought conditions last year might have done to them despite us keeping them watered.