The local paper comes out every Thursday (part of the group of papers that Bri works for) and he said ‘hey Martha Stewart was in Delaware on Sunday at Point to Point’-(a yearly steeplechase horse event)held near Winterthur, less then 10 miles from here. Rats! My baking and gardening mentor so close and I didn’t get to see her!
Anyway, here’s a photo from another online paper, but this one’s from Delaware. I’m dying to know what MS is sipping. I’ve never been to this snooty event, but they have a carriage procession and the one MS was in broke down and she was rather annoyed.

…finally!
I think our sinuses are going to explode from all the tree pollen! Our vehicles are dusted lime green from it all.
Sean and I had a hankering for Olive Garden today and were going to go for lunch. When 1:30 rolled around, we decided to go for an early dinner. It was a celebration of sorts because Sean did well with his grades-3.3 gpa, pretty good. The restaurant wasn’t crowded and we were finished eating by 5:25. We went to Kohls where I got some sterling silver jewelry for $7.99-including 4 pairs (3 on one card) for my niece Tori who just got her ears pierced.
We headed for Boscov’s, but only the garden center. Sean went to Best Buy while I looked at their really nice offerings which were priced to sell! I got my mom beautiful flowers in one big pot- pink snapdragons, purple Johnny Jumps Ups, yellow petunias, ivy and maybe one or two other flowers. I got one with mainly yellow and white flowers for myself. Only $15.99 each. I also got some more herbs, red salvia, portulaca, hens and chickens and petunias. The annuals-99¢ a four pack. I better snap up the purse now as spending on flowers is getting expensive. The same store will be selling off their stock by July for dirt cheap.
So I will be happy for the rain as I refuse to dig in the soil right now. It’s just too hard. I will be mulching with the pretty red cedar (like Carol uses).
Stitchingwise-I’ve been working on the Neighborhood RR-slowly but surely. I am changing the design a bit to fit the square. I like how it includes meandering roads. Also am up to the letter ‘J’ on Walk in the Woods that I started last year. I really want to complete that this year.
The blacksplash tin arrived today. Seems we have to put up plywood before we can put up the tin. We don’t need that much plywood. And the new switch covers arrived, but we need longer screws for them. I can’t seem to talk to the carpenter guy from Home Depot to get him here for the sink base fix-up. He always calls when I’m not home. The floor guys are suppose to add a few pieces of moulding and the window guys will hopefully be able to install the new windows on Friday-crossing fingers.

Mister Dumpster guy pulled into the driveway at 7am this morning. I heard the telltale backup noises trucks make-beep, beep. There went my old cabinets forever. I feel like the new kitchen, though still unfinished, goes so much better with the house because it’s what I like and what I picked out-glad I got to finally achieve this makeover.
A few hours later Mister Plumber guy showed up and said he was taking out the grease trap/bucket and why was it inside the house anyway? We have a nice, new long plastic pipe and he had to take away the stinky bucket. Don’t you love when the parts are like $30 and the rest of the $230 is just stepping in your door and labor? I wouldn’t have wanted to do what he had to do and it’s still has that mucky smell down there-ugh.
Got to go food shopping too-checked out next to a lady from church who has one of the cutest husbands (next to mine of course) in the parish. She acted like she hadn’t seen me before. Who cares, I can admire her husband from a far.
The guys cut the grass, I potted up geraniums and a fuchsia. Also planted the wildflowers from the sale on Sunday. The one plant is coral bells. No way am I digging into that dusty earth to plant the rest of the annuals until it rains.
We had stew (the Banquet stuff) in the new crockpot and it worked like a charm. It wasn’t fun carrying the interior ceramic piece downstairs to wash it. Did I say how great it was to have a place for everything in the kitchen? No more piling up stuff on the counters or beverages on the floor. Heck I have about 25 assorted bottles of stuff in the frig now. Can’t wait to start baking out there.
BTW, got stash enhancement in the mail too. The ladybug gardeners and the plants on chairs which I saw over a buck cheaper at AC Moore. It’s so much fun to get goodies in the mail though.

Michael Matz living an improbable dream
BY JOHN CLAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – You wouldn’t believe his story unless it were a movie, and in that sense, Michael Matz has a celluloid quality about him.
See, some of us live lives, and some of us live lives.
“So far, I’ve lived a full life,” the modest trainer admitted in the week leading up to the world’s most famous race.
Yes, winning a silver medal and carrying your country’s flag in an Olympic games, marrying the King Ranch heiress and saving three young lives in a horrific plane crash qualify as an existence rich in experience for many, let alone one.
So why wouldn’t he win a Kentucky Derby?
And Saturday, Matz did, when the magnificent horse he trains, Barbaro, made a shambles of a top-flight field in the 132nd running.
“I really don’t know what to say,” Matz said, shaking his head.
It has to be real, because you wouldn’t believe it unless it was.
This particular Derby cup runneth over with great stories, starting with Dan Hendricks, his spirit resurrected by the California juggernaut Brother Derek. That was the Santa Anita Derby winner Hendricks trained from a wheelchair after a motocross accident rendered him paralyzed from the waist down two years ago.
There was Lawyer Ron, running for the estate of the late Jim Hines, the Owensboro businessman who drowned in February and whose children hoped he would be honored by his prize colt winning the roses.
There was Lawyer Ron’s trainer, Bob Holthus, in failing health at 71, hoping to cap a long career with his first sip of Derby champagne.
There was Beverly Lewis, the owner of Point Determined and part of racing’s first couple, in her first Derby without her husband, Bob, who died of heart failure in February.
And there was Matz, 55, an Olympian and true-life hero rolled into one.
There was good reason to root for them all.
But when the gates opened, sentiment was trumped by mass and muscle, by a beautiful animal schooling a tough field in head-turning fashion.
“It’s obvious,” said Matz, “he is a terrific athlete.”
His domination was obvious in the reaction of Hendricks, watching the race on a 13-inch NBCmonitor in the Churchill tunnel with his three young boys draped around him. Hendricks’ shoulders sagged when it became clear that Brother Derek, a dead-heat fourth-place finisher, was not Barbaro’s match.
Neither was Steppenwolfer, who finished third.
“He’s better than I thought,” said Danny Peitz, Steppenwolfer’s trainer. “Ithought Barbaro was a very good grass horse and a good dirt horse, but he’s obviously better than that.”
Perhaps as good as the Matz story itself.
Yes, in case you’re wondering, Matz did get to see the three Roth children, whose lives he saved during a United Airlines plane crash in 1989 that killed 111 people. The Roth siblings, now ages 26 to 31, were guests of Churchill Downs.
While Matz and his wife, D.D., both passengers on that plane, have stayed in touch with the Roths, it was but the second time they had met in person, the first being at a hometown ceremony in West Grove, Pa., ( A few towns over from us!) honoring Matz for his 1996 Olympic team equestrian medal.
“It was nice to see them again,” Matz said, “and it was nice to see that they’re doing so well.”
Although maybe not as well as the trainer himself, who had the added satisfaction on Saturday of proving his detractors wrong.
Matz had encountered critics who doubted a horse could win the Derby off a five-week layoff, the time between Barbaro’s win in the Florida Derby and his entrance into yesterday’s starting gate. Matz didn’t disagree with the argument so much as fail to understand the logic.
“He’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever known,” said Billy Glass, Matz’s friend of 40 years, who wore a Barbaro hat and a steady beam. “There’s no compromising with him. That’s the way it’s always been with him. If you don’t want to hear what he thinks, don’t ask him.”
Barbaro did the talking, and afterward, as Matz himself smiled in the spotlight, it hit you that the handsome trainer looked a little like English actor Ralph Fiennes, a former Oscar nominee of class and distinction.
Maybe Fiennes can play Matz in the movie.
But first, a Triple Crown awaits.
Who among us can say Michael Matz, or Barbaro, can’t accomplish that?

Pennsylvanians again have Kentucky Derby-winner to root for

LOUISVILLE, Ky. Pennsylvanians again have a Kentucky Derby-winning horse to root for.

Barbaro, who is owned by Roy and Gretchen Jackson of West Grove, Chester County, blew away the rest of the field yesterday in Louisville, Kentucky.

The undefeated three-year-old is also trained by Collegeville trainer Michael Matz.

Barbaro becomes the sixth undefeated winner, following Philadelphia Park’s Smarty Jones in 2004. Next up for Barbero in the Triple Crown quest is the Preakness in two weeks.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

No rain for 12 days now-that’s not good. I worked inside anyway.
I really hate changing my clothes out for the different seasons because of the attic hassle. I have too many of everything as I take care of my things and they don’t wear out. Sean’s running into the same problem-he isn’t growing anymore and keeps buying new things.
I got Space Bags a few years ago-they are ok, they need to make the closure sturdier as it sometimes won’t stay closed or tears and all the air re-enters them. Brian didn’t like lifting the heavy plastic boxes up into the attic. It looks like besides the 5 Spaces Bags, I will need to use a few boxes. One box is mostly Bri’s things, so I don’t feel too bad. And I did get rid of about a dozen things-that is a rule.
Is anyone else hating the Capri/bicycle pants that seem to be all the fashion this year? I do own some, but I much prefer the above the knee shorts for the summer and am having trouble finding them. I think the Capris only look good on thin or tall people, which I am not.
I loaded up the dumpster with two more cart loads of flowerpots from ‘tick country’, next to the shed where we always seem to get a tick on us if one of us ventures over there. It looks neater there.
I threw in an OnCor dinner and it was so bad, Bri went and got us hamburgers. It was their enchilada-beware-it’s just lasagna noodles and hamburger sauce with too much chili powder in it.
We have a leak down the basement in the ‘grease trap’. It’s like a metal bucket with a lid. It not a big leak, but enough to have Bri tell me to call a plumber in here to look at it. I do wish we could replace that, the water heater and the water pump. Bri has the ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’ philosophy. I believe new is better. Our electric bill was only around $100 which is not bad. I bet it’s the new appliances. : )
I forgot to mention that I went to AC Moore yesterday and got the 5-$1.00 DMC (bought 15 skeins) and a Mouse in the House kit called Hot Fudge. I just wanted a cute kit to do if we go down the shore in a few months or a change of pace piece.
It’s been a year already since we were in Orlando. Saturday Night Live, the tv show had a Universal Studios skit on the exact day we got to that area last year. Talk about a funny coincidence!

That seat was screaming out for someone to go sit on it-

So Sean did!

I did buy a few wildflowers, but I can’t remember the names of them right now. The one has a spikey white flower and the other looks like a cross between a coleus and coral bells. The flowers were pretty much picked over and rather pricey.
Earlier, after church, Brian had taken me to Avondale Gardens and I got some gorgeous peachy flowers-I’ll let you know what they are soon. I remember the Lantana and diascia, coleus, ruffled white petunia and burgundy salvia. I made up several pots and put two on the front steps.
We’ll get some rain tomorrow so I can switch over my winter clothes with my summer ones and clean up some of the mess Brian left behind in the basement. I think I almost have room for a craft table now!

Yep, Bri spent the afternoon tossing in old doors, drywall, my Bruce Jenner piece of crap treadmill and most importantly, the old riding mower into the dumpster we rented. It took 10 days to get one as the next town over had rented dumpsters from the same company and moved 34 tons of rubbish through their yearly clean-up. Bri had ‘parked’ the mower next to the side of the shed and never moved it again. Well it would hardly budge. After hitting it with a sledge hammer, he knocked one of the back wheels off. Sean and him managed to push it around to the dumpster with the wheel-less side supported by Sean’s old wagon! I could not let them toss the wagon, I plan to use it somewhere in the yard. I know all the happenings because I was outside planting pots of flowers. I could not enjoy it as much as I usually do because Bri was so grumpy and complaining the entire time. We still have to rake out old flowerpots and stuff next to the shed that have accumulated there even though I toss out dozens of them each year.
Sean went to church tonight and had to sit through First Communion (whew for us). After I took a shower, Bri and I watched the running of the Kentucky Derby and a local horse won (from the PA-DE border area). What gorgeous horses! The winner-Barbaro (I think) was way ahead of the others.