After a long weekend of late nights, early mornings, and two time-zone switches, I think I've managed to reset my internal clock, though it did require sleeping through the alarm. Now I'm groggily peering though the downstairs windows . . .  thinking mostly about coffee but also a little about George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss, which I'm rereading because the volume was the perfect size to bring on an airplane and also because I adore it, though lately I've given up rereading the ending because it upsets me too much.

I'm back on the classwork train--online poetry class in full swing, Saturday's essay workshop to prep, next Friday's poetry workshop on the horizon--but I have a brief editing hiatus. Yesterday afternoon I went out into the barren muddy back yard and began to mark the borders of perimeter beds--using old bricks, broken limbs, rocks. The future beds are layered with last fall's leaves, and now I am beginning to sprinkle them with the compost I've been saving all winter. My plan is to sow shade wildflowers and plant some annual seedlings as I gradually build the beds into viable ground for perennials and shrubs. I can't do much more back there until Tom gets the deck built, but something is better than nothing. Meanwhile, scylla is budding in the front gardens, the first lily sprouts are up in the side garden, and I am getting excited about my second spring here. What I need to do today is buy squirrel-proof clothesline. No more clothes in the mud. I've had enough.