Long time gone by

I realized the other day that I had not blogged anything for several months.  I guess I haven't been doing anything worth chatting about.  I have been fairly busy this spring, especially with the Senior Chorus at the Bain Center.  We've been busy rehearsing for our spring concerts.  The first one was a concert with a student chorus at Howard Community College.  We sang some numbers by ourselves, then they sang with us.  Finally, they sang some numbers by themselves.  I have to say that those young people were quite a bit better than we were.  Of course it helps to be twenty-something instead of seventy-something!   In addition to that concert, we also sang at a Senior apartment complex and at the Bain Senior Center.  The group will start up again in the fall.  I've enjoyed singing with this group.  The music isn't very difficult, but we have an interesting variety of songs.  And, best of all from my point of view is that we rehearse during the day.  I find it very hard to go to night meetings, even for something like singing, which I really love.

This spring I finally got most of the deck cleaned and re-sealed.  It is a bit of an undertaking, mostly because I have about 30 pots (full of dirt and plants) as well as a metal table and 4 chairs, a stepladder, garbage can, recycle bin, yard waste basket, and small shelf unit - all of which have to be moved from one side to the other in order to work on the deck floor.  I cleaned the deck using a long-handled brush and a mixture called Outdoor Clorax.  I have to cover the plant below the deck so that the stuff doesn't drip onto them.  It burns the leaves if it touches them.  Somehow I managed to do all the heavy moving without messing up my back!  It took weeks to complete the job (actually it's not quite done) because for the sealing/staining I had to have 3 days in a row without rain.  We had a lot of rain this spring, so this prolonged the deck work.  A couple of weeks ago, I finally did get the flat surfaces done, but the stairs still await my attention.  I ran out of sealer too.  However, the deck looks much better now and I noticed that the rain now forms puddles on the surface, rather than soaking in. One of these days, I will get the stairs done.