finished...

... working for this week: for some unknown reason my employers' work week starts on Saturday and runs through Friday night. I have put in two nine hour days yesterday and today, and have completed my assigned responsibilities. With travel plans for several days this week, I had requested to have three days off - and got a little surprise when it became five days instead. Which suits me perfectly, other than the part where the paycheck will be very slim for less than twenty hours of labor.

Upon discovering I have plenty of opportunities to keep myself busy on Monday and Friday, I kept my mouth shut, and no effort into badgering the schedule guy for more work. There are several things on my calendar for Monday, as well as Friday, so it appears I could not possibly work 'working' into my busy life even if an opportunity should arise for a paying job to ensure ongoing prosperity. There are likely plenty of substitute teaching slots awaiting some hapless volunteer, but my life has too many other demands for squeezing that into the upcoming week.

One of the things to do on Monday is to meet a friend who volunteers at the local botanical gardens. I met her some years ago, when we were donating our time together. We began to talk (S.is very chatty) and established a friendship with planting things and a history of Presbyterianism in common. There are pairs of people, often members of local garden clubs who growing/nurturing plants around their homes. Folk who have agreed to on a specific week, once a month at the botanical gardens.

S. and I will make some decorations, fresh flower arrangements to brighten the various rooms in the restored farm house that is the base of operations for the gardens. For some time we were getting donations from a local market when the flowers were not fresh enough to sell, the culls were pretty shabby. Then the retailer did not make the donations any more. Fine with me, as I am not accustomed to working with trash. Other volunteers bring blooming things and greenery from their home gardens. I usually purchase a couple of fresh bouquets to work with, as I have nothing flowering: the deer think the buffet is open here.

I enjoy visiting with S., the opportunity to be creative with fresh flowers and greenery, making the rooms there in the hundred-plus-year-old farmhouse more attractive. It usually takes us a couple of hours to dismantle, dispose what was done the previous week, put together several arrangements for mantles, table tops, etc. Then we clean up our own mess and depart, on to the next project....