Excuses, Excuses

Hi Interwebs, did you miss me?
It takes more than one reason to keep me off the computer for this long and here's my list of excuses:

1. Kim, my audiophile husband has been researching, buying & selling stereo stuff (don't ask me, I don't even want to know) so he's been hogging the computer and I haven't bothered shoving him off because....

2. I buggered up my shoulder (again) and it's really aggravated by our computer set-up here so I'm trying to limit my home-computer time. Shoulder was, and keeps getting, hurt by all the digging, raking, & hauling around of dirt because...

3. We've been spending all our spare time landscaping our front yard. Took a couple weekends of shopping to find and buy some very pretty trees that should be big enough to satisfy the city's requirement as replacements for the ones we cut down to make room for our house. Now the top-soil's on and shaped, trees are planted and I've been shopping, shopping, shopping for plants (I've been shopping for plant bargains since January) and our courtyard looks like I'm opening up my own nursery. No lawn for us so we need a lot of plants. I've been having fun re-arranging all the pots, designing the layout and now can't wait for a free, rain-less day to put the plants in the ground. Which can't happen tomorrow because...

4. I'm working again you know, at a job, every day almost. And am still trying to re-adjust my after-work schedule to fit in everything that used to take me all day long. And the gardening won't happen this Saturday because...

5. It's the start of our annual birthday frenzy: 6 birthdays in 6 weeks. Plus a wedding reception to attend and Mother's day's in there too. Cole's is the first. My baby's going to be an adult. 18 years old.

6. But the main reason, the biggest time-sucker-upper in my life is of course:
We have SIX five-week-old kittens. 6 master escape-artists; 6 bundles of non-stop entertainment; 6 always-hungry eating machines; 6 mess-makers that need to be constantly cleaned up after because they're just learning you know and if they have one paw in the litter box when they do their thing they think they've done real good.