SPRING IS HERE! Sure, there might be a few more snow flurries in April and some cold and windy days ahead of us, but for the most part, it is finally SPRING! And that means digging in the dirt with my bare hands! Here is a tip for anyone who forgot to plant daffodils and tulip bulbs last fall. You can buy them now in containers, ready to plant and in full bloom—instant color and rewards in your flower garden with just a little bit of fuss.

THIS AND THAT You don’t need to buy those expensive cleaners to clean your house. Here are a few tips to save money and skip those chemical-laden oven sprays and fancy sponges.

HAPPY TENTH BIRTHDAY, TESSA ROSE! Tessa, you have been thoroughly loved for ten years, 120 months, 520 weeks, 3,650 days, 87,600 hours, or 5,256,000 minutes, and still counting! You are a perfect ten! Congratulations on your first two-digit birthday! You are now a teenager in training! To the coolest ten-year-old in town! You are now in the cool double-digit club. The judges all agree you have scored a perfect 10! May your tenth birthday be as unique as you are! At your birthday party, let them eat cake! Come on, Barbie, let’s go party! Here’s to the most awesome ten-year-old I know! Slay, girl, slay! It’s your tenth birthday! Wishing all of your wishes come true! Here’s to a double-digit birthday! May your year be full of fun, joy, love, laughter, hugs, squishes, and magic wishes.

MARCH RELIGIOUS FEAST DAYS We all know the month of March is most often associated with St. Patrick’s Day.

Nancy: I’ve enjoyed your articles and always look forward to the next “Notes.” Wish you weren’t throwing in the towel, but, wish you well and a blessed retirement. You will be missed “for certain.” Thank you, Jeral Cooper Tonganoxie.

THIS AND THAT * Can you believe it’s March already? * Nancy, I will miss seeing you at the Sentinel, but I know you will drop by once in a while because YOU WILL MISS US! I enjoyed our years working together and being part of this crazy newspaper family. Wishing you all the best.

Hi, Sentinel Staff, Please accept my apology for being late in getting my renewal check off in the mail to you. And no, I can’t blame Uncle Sam’s system of transferring objects from one place to another.

I always thought I would know when the time was right. And now, even though I feel that time has come, it is still a difficult decision. This is my last editorial as I will be retiring from my job at Sentinel at the end of this week. I plan to continue my morning job at the Stockton Housing Authority. This decision did not come easy as I love working with Susan, Virgi and Bart, and have had a great time working here for almost 15 years—they are like family to me; and I love them dearly.

THIS AND THAT * About forty years ago, Tom Jones wrote a song called “She’s a Lady.” * I can’t believe the backlash actress Candace Cameron Bure is getting for her remark that she hopes to keep traditional marriage at the core of her movies after moving to the TV network “Great American Family.” One writer, Carly Silva, wrote the following: “The actress opened up about how difficult cancel culture is amid backlash of her controversial ‘traditional marriage’ comments.” What is controversial about her comments? She has a right, just like everyone else does, to her opinions. Social media was outraged by her remarks because “it seemed to shade or invalidate same-sex marriages.” Read what she said again.

There was an interesting story in the Salina Journal recently about personalized license plates and the approval process each state has to go through before approving and creating them. Surely you have followed a vehicle, or sat behind a vehicle at a stoplight, and played the game of trying to decipher what the combination of letters and/or numbers stand for. Rarely did anyone know what my father’s plate meant: “XZDGOHT,” and I don’t know what kind of hoops he had to jump through to “prove” that it was not a “bad” combination of letters! Each state has their own rules and regulations for personalized plates. To have a personalized plate in Kansas, it cannot have more than seven letters, numbers and/or spaces for autos and trucks, and no more than five for motorcycles. The Kansas Department of Revenue runs each personalized tag request through a massive list of 28,562 objectionable combinations. The list grows each year as people come up with new ideas and combinations. I’m not going to waste my space or time listing some of the personalized plates that are banned; I’ll just let you use your imagination. I’m just glad to know there are strict rules that KDOR has set. In the case of my dad’s license plate, it is a “low German” slang expression for “I love you.” Seriously. It is pronounced “X-Z-D-GOAT.” As siblings, my brothers and I fought over ownership of my dad’s license plate; I lost out.