I am really pleased with the way the flowers and shrubs are taking off this year. It’s bloom city here! From the viburnum to the magnolia and dogwood-they are loaded with flowers. Though the peonies and azaleas must need food because they are straggly and didn’t bloom much. I just happened upon a box of Miracle Gro for azaleas and rhododendrons (they bloomed fine).
The petunias are making a nice show and are so bushy rather than leggy. I have them in beautiful shades of pale yellow, lavender, pinks, purples and red and white striped.
I planted two ‘crop circles’ as everyone is calling my seeded gardens. Both are doing excellent! Nothing is eating anything-yet that is. My flower seed garden is loaded with zinnias, cosmos, marigolds and other wildflower seeds. It really needs thinning in the wildflower part of the circle, but I can’t seem to get myself to pull them out.
Portulacas came up by themselves in many places. I salvaged some from off the top of my plastic strawberry jars (planted with lime green and purple sweet potato vines on the tops and portulacas in the holes). The sweet potato vines are doing great also-I have never seen them any so bushy before.
I am disappointed in the moon flower seeds I planted. I soaked them as instructed on the package and only three of the 8 seeds emerged. I am hoping a good rain will make them pop.
Did I say how pretty the snapdragons and dianthus are too? Gorgeous rainbow shades. And my roses that didn’t die bloomed like champs.
The lilies are taking their bow next. I love them too.

The birthday boy (Uncle Don) is in the hat next to his sister my mom (Jeanne). 

Three handsome young men- David (20); my Sean and Patrick(16).

The immediate family minus two of my three brothers came out to our house to celebrate my Uncle Don’s birthday (a week late)/Father’s Day/Sean’s graduation (he got 2 gifts). I worked my butt off as earlier described so the yard would be a nice place to sit and walk around in. Everyone remarked about the flowers, which I appreciated.
At the picnic we had three scares. Brian’s dad had a choking/panic attack. It seems when he is around a lot of people and eating, this happens once in a while. Brian said he almost had to do the Heimlich maneuver on him, but I believe he was just panicking so much he ‘thought’ something was still stuck. I didn’t see all this as when Brian was helping his dad, my mom said food was sticking in her throat! It wasn’t something I made, but both people said it was from the same food that someone else brought. Then later mom was bringing around a flower planter for Uncle Don and she tripped on one of my flowerpots and went forward and skinned her shin a bit. She is more achy today from driving out here. So we had some excitement to say the least.
I look out at Sean’s old swing set which got a workout yesterday and miss the little ones. They had fun out here and I’d wish they’d visit more often.

Thanks for the blog extra Mindy : ) This doesn’t seem very flattering in some things, but if you check out any other month for the 19th, I bet it says the same thing. I do believe I am ‘an original’ and may not like the same thing the majority of people like. I am alone a lot which is true. I do not feel I am an angry person. Wonder if Jodie Foster and Meg Ryan would like this intepretation of our shared birthday?

A little late…
“Do you feel the need to stitch a specific design from a specific designer just to say you’ve experienced stitching one of their designs?”
This is a difficult one to answer.
I collect certain designs that I love like The Prairie Schooler charts.
I get the yearly Just Cross stitch ornament magazines which contain lots of designs from different designers. I would say they make me curious to stitch from them because of their different styles. I definitely wanted to stitch a Teresa Wentzler design and did her ‘Celtic Cross’ from one of the Christmas issues and saw how difficult that was.
I may shy away from designers if they use all overdyes or too many 1/4 stitches.

Sean rented 5 DVDs this week. One or two seems to be enough for me in a month’s time. A few of them I watched from the corner of my eye like the one called ‘Team America’ with the foul-mouthed 2 feet tall puppets. I really don’t need to see puppets ‘in the act’ in various positions. I am sure Sean learned a lot from that one. The other was a Bill Murray movie called ‘The Life Aquatic’. He was like Jacques Cousteau and the marine life were computer enhanced enough to look like they were swiped from ‘Finding Nemo’. The funny thing was seeing Owen Wilson playing Bill’s long lost son from Kentucky.
We watched the last one tonight ‘Secret Window’ (based on a Stephen King short story) starring Johnny Depp (I’m a big JD fan) and it wasn’t too bad. A ‘mild’ thriller. JD had that longer hair with the blonde highlights and the Clark Kent glasses.

We are still getting ready for the party picnic. Yesterday I did 1.5 hours of weed whacking and went grocery shopping in the early evening. Today I was tidying up the family room. I am all ‘tidied’ out. I am so tired of trying to get things in order and the guys leave newspapers on the floor. All Brian does is complain about having people over and he doesn’t even ask what he can do. I would have more parties if I had more help.
More to do tomorrow-cooking corned beef and making potato and pasta salad. I have to get lunchmeat, tomatoes and rolls for hoagies too.

Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum

Ok, I have a little more time here. Heck, I’m tired.
I watched the movie ‘Phantom of the Opera’ last night and enjoyed it almost as much as I did the actual stage show that I got to seen back in 1992 in Philadelphia. Nothing really compares to seeing a stage show and the excitement of sitting in great sets and seeing the director Hal Prince a few rows ahead of us is a special memory for me. I just love the music and I was singing all evening. The costumes and scenery were spectacle too. Emmy Rossum made a sweet Christine. The Phantom, Gerald Butler was a little too good looking even without his mask. There was a little more to the story line. I’d recommend it for all the above.

The Jon Stewart show is on and a ‘reporter’ just did a story out of Cape May, New Jersey, one of my favorite spots. But he was talking about men being able to wear speedos there again. And he had a ‘ball’ camera in his speedo (tacky) to get people’s reaction to his ‘pair’. When they came back to Jon, his face was red as a beet.

I do not recommend having events two weeks in a row. The graduation was one thing, but getting the house ready for a party is another. I will never have my house in ‘apple pie order’ because there is just too much in it at this given point in my life. I did an excellent cleaning job with the bathroom closet. I hauled out 4 bag of old stuff-first aid, old reusable razors, towels and sheets (and tons of junk). I didn’t do the tippy top shelf yet. Yesterday was the kitchen, and I still am working on that. I did toss out some old plastic stuff though.
Bri and I got the bloodwork donethis morning and it was a problem not having ‘orders’ first. The lab tech got pissy, but I told her we’ll do an appt for next week. I don’t think they tested me for my liver enzymes. I can see another trip in for that.
My schedule is screwed up, but I have to food shop later and get gas for the can and van. Yesterday some guy who said he was our neighbor asked if we had gas as he had run out. I had Sean check and we had half a can and he took it and brought it back empty! I know it’s only a few dollars of gas, but that wasn’t cool. I didn’t tell Brian as we went against his rule of opening doors to strangers. First, I had a locked screen door, then I had Sean get the can and watched him while the guy stayed around the front. If either of us were alone, we wouldn’t answer the door. I couldn’t see out the peep hole in the door, so I probably wouldn’t have opened the door. It was around the time Brian comes home, so I thought he was just coming home early. I learned my lesson, but I also was the good Samaritan too.