Sean and I went to my mom’s with the intention of putting in a shade garden under her lamp post and next to her driveway. It was a bit of a belated Mother’s day gift, in addition to the other things I already gave her. Anyway, it turned from about an hour project to a 3+ hour one! Mom’s neighbor, who is a gardener herself, came over with clippers and tripled our plans. She was cutting down Japanese maples and branches; dug up daylilies and moved them next to a shed and replanted them! My shade garden did get pretty much finished (I forgot my camera).
First we stopped at a nursery and picked up 2 bags of top soil and some impatiens (light pinks and lilac-I wanted white, but they didn’t have any) and begonias. When we got to mom’s, Sean dug out orange daylilies (different ones from the ones I planted last year) around the lamp post. We dumped in the topsoil and then I started planting-first the barrenwort wild hyacinth(?), and hosta I brought from here. Then the impatiens and begonias. I dug about 10 pounds of stones out of this bed-it is next to the driveway! Mom started digging out daylilies in another garden and Sean took over. Sean worked really hard and I am so proud of him. I hope our work gets my mom outside more as she’s been staying in bed a lot lately.
After Wendy’s, we hit Boscov’s garden center (like the one I went to last week with the great prices and plants) and we loaded up on much more for mom’s gardens. I got some white bleeding hearts and white astilbe for the shade garden along with red salvia, and other colorful shade loving annuals. They will go in next visit.

Glad to get home as we are both exhausted and I have a swollen gland in my neck-I get it off and on and it feels weird. I think I’ve had that problem all my life and finally figured it may be from allergies. I took Claritin too and may use a spray of Flonase.

My ‘hippie boys’ won The Amazing Race-woo-hoo! Remember my previous post about them? They beat out the jerks who everyone called ‘the frat boys’ even though they stated at the end that they were college drop outs. They couldn’t figure out the flags from the countries they had been in, (to get to the finish line first)in the right order and that’s how the hippies won as they were smart fellas.
Off to take a much needed shower. Ahhhhh…

These are the three projects in my rotation. The top is A Walk in the Woods by Cross-eyed Cricket (stop cringing at my narrow borders. I think I picked up the wrong piece of evenweave when I started this one. I have the edges securely sewn). Then the blue is Cape May, depicting the local seashore resort in New Jersey that I love. And then you see Rachael’s RR which is nearing completion for it’s June 15th (or before)send off to England. I definitely have some embellishments for that in mind.

Sean and I have been watching King Kong the new version from last year. There is a lot going on in this one and the special effects are good. We have an hour left of the three hours. Sean saw it last year in the theatre with his friends. Not recommended for young kids.

You know this is my niece Tori, right? You should by now. ; )

We had a nice Mexican dinner last night at a place that seems to have replaced Chi-chi’s called Don Pablos. The guys had shrimp fajitas and I had fried lobster ones. Before we went to din din, we took back moulding and under the counter lights that we didn’t use in the kitchen and got a $146 credit to our account at the Home Depot. : ) We did manage to blow another $100 on stuff we needed for the tile and tin work, plus we bought more plants, grass seed, a doorbell (I am sick of people pounding on my screen door) and a new mailbox. Gotta get the place all spiffy. I completely forgot the stain for the wood on the new windows, but I can get that nearer to home. We were also looking at toilets as the one we have is approaching 50 and it looks it. That’s another project for the future.
Sean finally used some of his graduation money (from last year!) and bought a Ipod nano. He was tinkering with that most of the evening. I worked on ‘Cape May’, my piece on the pretty Ocean fantasy Silkweaver fabric.
Looking for a ton of rain tomorrow.

All the ‘season finales’ are rounding up this week-mostly the reality shows. I know, you can love them or hate them. I’ve watched Survivor from the ‘get go’ and what’s cool-so does my brother Don in Florida. So Aras Baskauskas,25,a former basketball player and now yoga instructor won Survivor. I like Aras! He always came in 2nd losing out to Terry, a 46 yr old Navy fighter pilot. That always bugged me. Danielle, who came in second, only won the ‘lily pad’ challenge because she was lighter than the guys and we all know the guys on Survivor can never keep their balance well.
So here is a photo of Aras, the grandson of McDonald Carey (late soap opera doctor on Days of Our Lives).

Well, I have all my cabinets hung, but I am waiting for a replacement door and a pantry drawer too. The Home Depot guy Bob came today and it took him an entire hour to hang 1 door and put in about 6 knobs. I was suppose get to my mom’s by 2 and Bob left at 1:45. The guys went over to Bri’s dad’s for a visit and to give him our old microwave (that he is ‘scared’ of-he prefers his 23 yr old one) and Bri planted some tomatoes too.
I quickly ate lunch, put on a little makeup and loaded mom’s planter and gifts for Mother’s Day in the van. I was in a good mood and called from the bank parking lot to say I was on my way. I was headed north and in front of me were menacing black rain clouds. It dawned on me that my windshield wipers had been acting weird and I got a bit nervous. I had every right to feel this way as I drove right into the rain and had to pull over twice because my left blade just flopped around. It was quite scary. I called the guys up on my cell and told them what happened. Thank goodness I was headed to my brother’s house-the mechanic bro. After the rain eased up I finally got on the road and landed in a traffic jam and more rain. By the time I got to my brother’s house I was strung out. Ken’s kids were cute and I enjoyed spending time with them. Also got to see Ken’s handiwork-his kitchen is shaping up! Most of the cabinets are in place!
Brian and Sean decided to come down. On the way from his granddad’s house, Sean’s windshield wiper blade, on the same side as my broken one, started to flop around!I couldn’t believe it! Sean had to pull off the road about 5 times. Ken got out his wrench and just tightened the mechanism under the hood (in like 5 minutes) and they both were fine.
We went out for brick oven pizza and ran into rain on the way home. The wipers were fine! At home, it was rather dry and I watered my newly planted garden.
So check your wipers if you haven’t used them for a while!

Update-Su, my pal from England, is sending me the cross stitch magazine that I thought I was getting my photo printed in. Unfortunately I’m not in it, they picked an English lady. Not surprised, but Cyperstitcher.com got some nice coverage.

That is the name of this iris. I think it’s totally awesome.

We were blessed with some rain last night. The weird thing is we lost power twice the night before-right in the middle of ‘Invasion’ the only show Bri and I watch together. A few hours later the cable modem pooped out. It was working by the next morning.

I got my herb/veggie/flower garden planted tonight. A total joy to plant as the dirt was moist. I have 3 eggplants, one purple pepper, a lilac aster, a pink carnation, red salvia and assorted herbs.

My gladiolus popping up-I think I see about 8 grass-like sprouts now. They will be intermingled with marigold, cosmos and zinnia seedings that are coming up from the ‘crop circle’ of last year. I plan to do another crop circle. I need Bri to rototill the garden where the ‘purple’ (not blue) alliums are. I will sprinkle some zinnias behind the iris in the older circle. I am thinking about making that a box hedge garden there. I know it takes a while to get it to take shape, but they are so visually interesting.

Nancy wondered if I got my green thumb from my mom (thanks for your sweet comments, coz). Mom isn’t a big gardener, but she loves certain flowers like lilies and her hanging baskets. She tries to dig up gardens, but they usually fail as she needs to enrich the soil and use a mulch. I want to do a shade garden for her under her lamp post where I see mostly hosta. I want to give her some delicate heart-shaped barrenwort and maybe some white flowering plants to brighten that space up. I’ll probably see mom tomorrow. Bet we go to her Boscovs (I am loving what I got there). My gr grandmom Caroline had the green thumb and her daughter Ruth was a fair gardener (from what photos I have seen of her).

See how the little windows open on the sides? I need a step ladder to use this inside.

Oh Cos, what am I going to do with you?

You can see ‘the red firecracker’ (because it makes popping sounds in the warmer weather) with the red M&M guy on the antenna.

This makes the living room look larger and the house look newer.