Apr25

Ahhhh Lilacs!

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Happy Arbor Day!

It surely is spring when the Lilacs are blooming! We have an ancient bush next to our driveway that we were trimming back last year. Unfortunately, the blooms are way over my head as the top wasn’t trimmed off! I had to bend a few branches to get theses. Usually Lilacs remind me of May as that’s when they usually bloom. The Azaleas are getting ready to burst open next! I have one bush that looks like it is about to bite the dust as it is so scraggly looking. I’d love to tear out a grape arbor that is mainly covered with weeds and do an area of Azaleas.

And here’s an update on Plant Kindness:

I had this on the back of the sofa, so looks a bit bumpy. I am not happy with the legs of the chairs, but have given up on them! I figure if someone is using chairs to hold flowers, then they are too rickety for human derrières!

I may be going to Longwood…we’ll see. My allergies are behaving better today.
Mom can call here again! I guess me calling Comcast did the trick. : )

Apr24

Hoping for new flowers

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My friend Zoey over at Perennial Passion blog was nice enough to send me a package of Rose Campion seeds last year. I figured since the Lilacs are blooming and the Lily of the Valley are unfurling their leaves, I might as well plant the seeds. I planted them in three different areas to see where they would do the best-near the pond, in my grass and lily garden and in the iris bed. All between sneezing and blowing my nose. My neighbor has a ton of flowering trees and I guess they are bothering me, but I guess a ton of things could be outside! I also threw in some flower seeds I had gotten from eBay last year-Butterfly weed, Bee balm and Columbine. If they come up, they come up-they hardly gave me any! I was going to start them inside, but I have had Columbine that has spread by itself.

Thanks to Barbara for defining the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ in the last post. I had to chuckle because a local tv ad for a dept. store says ‘Did you Boscov today?’ They are using a noun in a verb position!

Here’s an odd thing-my mom can’t get through to me on the phone, but I can call her! It’s been like that for a few days now. We both have called our respective phone service (we use Comcast VOI) I even had her dial my next door neighbor and it went through. She can call me on her cell phone, not her land line.

I really wanted to go to Longwood Gardens today, but too much of the nose problem. Maybe tomorrow. I can do everyday if I wanted with my pass. (There’s a tv commercial for Longwood on right now!)

Apr23

Get out the weed whacker!

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It’s time for me to do a little trimming-actually a lot of trimming. I might as well get the hoe out too! The weather is fab, I’m feeling better good (except for an on and off itchy throat and post nasal), but it’s the spring and everything is blooming and leafing like crazy.This makes me think of Sean. Many of you know Sean is a Geography major with a climatology influence and he’s finishing up a 15 research paper on climate changes in the Northeast. I proof his papers and I learn a lot too. Actually what I proofed last night had to do with how early warming is causing problems with animals and their food chain. The example was saying that chickadee babies eat moths that need to hatch when oaks are blooming which are maturing before they hatch and destroying them and affecting the birds. (I thought it was effect and Sean’s prof says affect). Interesting stuff. He is going to be doing an internship nearby in Delaware at Ashland Nature Center where he volunteered in high school. It’s really pretty there. He tried to get in Longwood Gardens, but they didn’t need anymore interns.

I did make the pasta, arugula and cannellini beans for dinner. It really fills you up, but I was hungry at 6:30 this morning! I had to get a Special K bar then. I have to recommend this yummy peanut butter mix called Better n’ Peanut butter that I purchased at Trader Joe’s the other day. It’s not all peanut butter, but it’s only 2 grams of fat and tastes like roasted peanuts! I had some on whole grain bread this morning. I have to recommend their chocolate meringue drops again-if you love chocolate, these are a good fix!

Here’s a photo of our dinner from last night (with a topping of toasted walnuts):


It needs Parmesan to boost the flavor! Also, don’t overwilt the arugula as it gets stringy. The actual recipe looks like it uses more than I did.

Apr22

Hugging the earth

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Earth day just happens to coincide with the PA election and my first look at annuals for my gardens. It’s a sunny day with a little breeze stirring up the pollen (ah choo!) I have to go vote solo as Bri and I are different political parties and his candidate doesn’t have anyone running against him! I think I’ll head to Sean’s old elementary school around 3:30-3:45 when there is more parking space. I get all mushy when I go back there as I spent a lot of time volunteering there for 8 years. I was even the corresponding secretary for the Parent/Teacher Org for a year. One of the things I helped create was the butterfly garden at the school. I brought some of my own perennials to fill in empty spaces. I’d love to see how that is coming along. If I remember, I’ll go look.

As for flower shopping, I saw that my favorite garden place’s other nursery (on the way to my mom’s) has a bunch of flowers for sale. That peaked my interest, so I’ll go take a look down in Delaware at the closer (and better) nursery.

Down at mom’s, brother #2 was doing some landscaping. Some was ok, but I was having nightmares over the placement of some big rocks right next to a path he was putting in. I could see my mom losing her footing and tripping. Seems bro #3 agreed and they are moving them. #2 also replanted daffodils and hosta under one of the front windows. The hosta are too close together and I think daffodils need to rest and get replanted in the fall so their bulbs can gather energy for the next bloom. This is correct I believe. I do have to thin out some of the lilies I planted along the one side of mom’s house a few years ago. They love the location! I’m about to order a mock orange bush and will have to order mom a new butterfly bush as #2 yanked up the one that we all loved.

So, do something for the earth today. Every little thing helps!

Updated:

I did some flower shopping! What a great selection too! For some reason, the nursery switched sides and the perennials were where the annuals use to be. Of course the perennials cost more and they are the first plants people see. I saw a perennial, Barrenwort, I have had since I lived here for $10.99-ouch!

Here I am with some of my new flowers:

And the mentioned Barrenwort which is spreading nicely


You know I was going to buy coleus! I was only able to save one plant from last year by rooting it in water.

I did vote, it was a great time to go. I was voter #277 and it was 3:30 in the afternoon. Not such a great turn out, maybe it was better in the evening. We had Obama ‘call’ us a few minutes before 8 which was pretty comical. Brian didn’t vote.

Apr21

Busy Monday

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I usually keep Mondays for myself, but decided to go see what I could do for my mom. As you may have guessed, not sure if I sprang it on you, my #2 brother has moved back up from Florida. I won’t use his name here, but he’s come into my mom’s house and turned it upside down, thinking he’s ‘helping’ her. Mom has a lot of things in her house-she’s a buyer and hoarder. We all are to some degree-look at people who don’t move for many years and you know we are keeping too much. But mom has enough of everything to give everyone in our hometown a gift of something in her house. #2 is being rash, and to clean up a big house takes more than a few weeks. Mom never invited him to come into her home and start all this (brother #1 hasn’t become involved). Older folks aren’t use to a big upheaval and my mom looked so bad today, I decided to take her out to dinner, which I did. She really enjoyed it. And I wanted to run into Macy’s (next door to the restaurant in the mall) to look around as I don’t have one near me. Well, mom goes and tells brother #3 that I took her to dinner and Macy’s and almost as soon as I walked in the door tonight, #2 calls to lecture me about taking mom shopping! She happen to be with me, she didn’t act like she wanted to buy anything, so what’s the problem? What do you think? I don’t think she’ll be shopping that much anytime soon. I was with her (she usually went on her sprees solo). Most of our family is being effected. My sickly uncle, me and now Bri was yelling to get off the phone. He can’t take hearing about this everyday.

I’ve been trying to watch my eating better. I had tapalia fish on salad at the restaurant-skipped pasta! If I had been home I would have tried a new recipe-arugula, cannelini beans and pasta for dinner from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine (I’ll have it Tuesday). My goal is to try one or two new recipes a week that are lower in fat. Mom and I also ran in Trader Joe’s grocery store and I was getting some low fat snacks. I got some chocolate meringue drops-no fat, low sugar-very yummy.

Please keep my little mama in your thoughts and prayers. I hope we can all treat her with the love and respect she deserves (and live in the present, as the past is being brought up so much) to help her get her place in shape.

BTW, almost broke my left big toe last night because Cosmo the kitty had kicked up a throw rug and my toe got caught right in the big bend of the rug and got bent back. It’s a bit sore, but I really want to do some serious walking this week.

Apr20

Scenes from the front door

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Late this afternoon, I was getting ready to run down to the grocery store to get a few items. I heard terrible thumping on the roof and heavy rain and opened the front door to find hail!

It was really pouring! I was hoping the bleeding hearts seen here were still intact.

And for the heck of it, I took a photo of the pond out the dining room window. Not much happening there and this shot makes it look tiny-there’s a little waterfall piece at the top there. We need to build up the sides a bit as they are collapsing on us. Next shot will be the pond at night as the lights look neat-like a little landing strip, so Bri says! I even have a floating ball that lights up at night.

Apr20

Yard clean up

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We had that extremely summer-like day on Saturday (over 80), so Brian mowed the entire lawn (we have over an acre). It looks so much better-all nice and neat and velvety green! I know I’ll have to get out there with my trusty weed whacker sometime in the coming week. Not to say I don’t have some hand weeding to do and to place out my 4 crates of lawn decorations! The little gnomes and fairies take up a couple, so don’t think I’m one of these woman you see who has decorations you can’t poke a stick in between! And I know some have seen better days, so they will get tossed. Also if I buy something new, something old and worn out goes in the trash can. I wasn’t good for much yesterday, I was fatigued and it so isn’t like me to not do stuff outside when Bri is doing stuff. But I did a lot of yard work on my own a few days ago too. I will report that my irises and lilies look good. The iris bed will be getting mulch in it (making mental note) as it just gets too overrun with onion grass and weeds in general. And when I was admiring the pretty double red tulips, I see that the allium did indeed come up again! Around the base of my big evergreen, on the other side (not pictured below), I noticed some mums have really naturalized and spread at least 5 feet! Love my birth month’s flower!

So as we get the yard tidied up, we need to work on tidying up our own diets. Brian is really stubborn. He was raised with the option of eating all that was on his plate and getting seconds, which he still does. Only 3 people in his house growing up. I grew up getting what I was offered and making sure there was enough for all 6 of us. I rarely take seconds here. I have to work on simple sugar consumption. I am pleased to say I can eat the yogurt cheerios again with rice milk for breakfast (lucky me). Cereal had been bothering me when the vitamins were upsetting my digestion. I’ve only taken a few of the new vitamins, and every other day, so I hope I can handle them. If not, I’ll have to get more in touch with bunny foods. Luckily, one of my favorite restaurants makes awesome salads, a few award winning ones. : )

Apr19

Photo Hunt-Thirteen

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PSHunt
Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.Photo Theme. Join the blogroll. Visit participants.

With Pope Benedict here for a visit, I picked out thirteen of my favorite cross necklaces. I get lots of necklaces for gifts as you can see! Since 13 is suppose to be unlucky, I picked these because they at least bring me comfort when going to the dentist or doctor or when I feel like wearing one. Speaking of the Pope, there was just a special mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where my family and I got to go last summer.

And a board I made to hold most of my thin chained necklaces. It is padded with ‘T’ hooks at the top. So far it hasn’t fallen down.