Thaw and Blogroll

Yesterday everything finally thawed. With my deep-seated hatred for winter, I should have been thrilled. I would have been except for three reasons:

1. It’s a tease. Tonight it will grow cold and snow again. I can’t stand this sort of torture, not after this horrible awful winter. I’m starting to feel like I live in the world that Beira from Wicked Lovely desired. *Shiver*
2. The world is ugly beneath the snow. I live on a busy street and the part of my lawn nearest to the street is covered in a thick layer of asphalt bits because the road got so torn up by all the salt this winter. Even my new baby tree is surrounded by asphalt and it’s so depressing to look at. (My new baby tree is my pride and joy. I found out that in the spring and fall, you just have to call Village Hall in my town and ask to be put on the tree list and then will plant a new tree in front of your house. I wonder if I can request another to make the whole busy street living experience slightly less ugly)
3. The basement flood redux. There’s a crack in the foundation of my house. A crack that had been patched, but apparently the patch has given out. The previous owner lied about there not being any leaking because I’ve dealt with four separate leaks in four years (three in the basement, one in the shower). About two years ago the whole basement was covered in a couple inches of water and my roommate at the time and I never figured out the source. I’m guessing now it was this crack. Two weeks ago during a partial thaw, we found about an inch of water on the floor (fortunately just in a closet and laundry room this time). This occurred when I was trying to finish Book 2, so it was highly upsetting, but my darling and extremely handy boyfriend called into work and went out and bought some concrete and spent the whole day trying to apply the concrete to the leak. It took all day because the dry, supposedly waterproof concrete would just liquefy in his hand. But it was fine until yesterday. When I went downstairs to find things for re-potting plants (see, trying to participate in coming of spring activities) and found a puddle emerging from said closet yet again. Sigh. Boyfriend came home. Boyfriend patched. Boyfriend planned with his father to apply the more permanent patching stuff (an epoxy I think, it’s his area of expertise not mine, so I mostly stay out of it). But still I lost sleep last night.

I tried my best to enjoy spring though. I repotted some plants. I went to the conservatory and enjoyed the delightful smell of orchids. (Orchids are my favorite flower. Perhaps someday I will be daring enough to try to grow them). And I did some much needed spring cleaning of my office.

That put me in an organizational mood and as part of it I have created a blogroll on my main blogging site (which is this one). This way I have a convenient place to go to read my fave blogs and can share them with people who read my blog. I want to add as many interesting blogs to the list as possible, so if you want to recommend a blog, either yours or someone else’s that you think I would enjoy, please leave it in a comment. Though I actually have a bunch more to add so go look at my list, but know it is a work in progress.