More Storms.

Apparently, we had another storm last night.  About 2 inches of rain here at my house and no real damage around this part of town but a friend of my lost a huge limb from a heritage tree which they might now have to cut down.  It's sad to lose a 150 year old tree!  At least it didn't fall on her 150 year old house!  

Scott and I had a great time together over the weekend, pulling weeds from over-grown walkways and along the drive. Coco thought it great fun to grab the great long pieces of grass and play tug of war with them!  We laid out his front garden and he put in more castle bricks for the front garden wall, while I pulled grass from the new beds.  We trimmed his oak tree a bit and then decided he needed a pro to really get it up to shape!  Bonding over plants and weeds- how fun is that.  (I must me odd to find that fun!)  While we were weeding Bris was painting and decorating.  Lots of good visiting to be had!

Today, I'm tidying the house getting ready to pick up Kolby for the evening.  Hoping to get in a little stitching but it's too wet to work outside!

Caught up!

I have finally caught up on the inside work, as well as the outside work, whew.  I can even see the top of my desk! That's something I often wonder:  "Is there a top to this desk?  Is there a bottom to the piles?"  I have even begun typing in some of the materials I have collected for the Town of Kansas research.  No Sewing to report but I think that's coming.  The aches and pains are much better so I'm heading back to the gym on Monday, but I'll only be in the pool for a week, slowly, slowly is the way I have to go!

Tomorrow I'm heading down the road about 125 miles to Columbia.  I'll spend some time at the State Historical Society where they have pulled files for me, then I'm meeting some of my college friends for lunch.  After that I'll either go back to the library or to Scott and Bri's.  Saturday, Scott and I are going to do yard work-you'd think I would have enough already, but I volunteered!  Love being outside and it is still to be on the cool side-that being under 90 degrees.

Guess I'd best go get ready, I want and early start!

Storms in the night.

Thunderstorms in the night are not a rare occurrence, especially this summer, but rarely cause any damage so when I was awakened by a huge clap of thunder directly overhead all I did was look at the time, 2am,  roll over and go back to sleep!  One of the first things I do in the morning is open the  blind in my room overlooking the garden bench, this is what I saw:

The bench is very heavy and was lifted up over the pots on the right.  It appears unharmed by the adventure, it will be a while before I can tell about the pot on the bottom!  So because of that I decided I'd check for other damage.  This is what I found:

The dining canopy I had on the deck is no more, sigh.  I cannot keep anything up on the deck for shade! The canopy itself is light but each of the four legs was attached to one of these:

A gallon paint can nearly filled with cement.  Larry made these for use on handicapped camp sites, those are cement and you can't stake down the canopy.  Heavy enough that the leg left on the deck moved my stainless steel barbecue grill!  It's the trash for the canopy. Otherwise, the deck chairs and table have been moved around, one trashcan was across the street-lid is still missing-the others just moved about.
The worst of it, though, is that the oriole's nest in my neighbors sweet gum tree was knocked down and the babies are dead.  So sad.  Seeing orioles is such a treat, they are fairly rare here, and we had so hoped that this nest would bring others in the future.  Mama is still hanging around, I hope she tries again.

How's al that for a way to start the day?!

What a Week.

It's been a crazy week.  Just as I began to think I was getting it all together again, life struck.  I'm not even sure how!  I dropped my Kindle once too often and the screen is broken, sigh.  I have mixed feelings about the Kindle but there are some features I really enjoy:  1. It's great for traveling, small and light and capable of holding 1000's of books, easy to add a book to if you are in say, Ireland! 2.  I don't have to find shelf space for the Kindle books-which is no small thing. 3.  I can (and do) read the books over and over again, that would be harder to do if I checked them out of the library. and 4. I can make the print any size I want! Since I have quite a few books on the Kindle I'm sure I'll be getting a new one very soon!

Occasionally, I decide to run a test to see if I still need my anti-inflammatories and I did that this week  the first two days weren't bad so I thought maybe I could eliminate them.  When the third day hit, however, it was an entirely different story. Big Sigh!  I hurt.  Especially, my left knee and hip.  So I had to take a couple of days off the gym until the meds take hold again.  I think I'll be okay to go tomorrow, maybe.

This morning I did one of those things a Mother always dreads, I waved Rob off down the highway towards San Diego, trying not to let the tears get the best of me.  The job search here has been dismal (until yesterday and today when he already had interviews scheduled in San Diego for Monday) and we've always suspected that he would need to go to one of the coasts the find development work.  He will stay with his oldest brother, Steve,  there and look for work, if he finds something he will only come back to move.  Tanya is here with me as she had to work.  He's always said he wanted to live there, so if he really likes it and can find work than I am happy for him, but I will really miss him!

On a happier note, I did finish the mock up of a choir robe for Steve and Tanya's Christmas stocking.  I purchased the fabric for the back today, so when that is done I'll post a photo of the whole deal.  I'll be starting on Bri's July 1st.

For tonight, I'm moving the TV box into my office and then I'll clean it up--AGAIN!  URGH!!!
 

As requested the gardens from a distance.

Jilly has asked for a "zoomed out" view of my gardens so I'll try my best.  Blogger has changed something in how you can move photos around and I get a bit crazy!

My house from across the street-the curb appeal photo!

The garden to the right of the front porch from the drive.

Everyone's favorite part of the garden-my bench and pots!

The left side garden, this is full of ground cover roses in pink and peach.

The garden on the east, very green at the moment.

The hill garden, also very green.  I put this in because it was too steep to mow!

I really like the way these look this year, even though most of the plants are not mature yet.

Sunday in the Garden, Two

This sweet, and tiny, ground cover has blue flowers.

 Blooming in my gardens today:

Hostas in white.

For the first time, a pink lace cap hydrangea.

Butterfly weed in the hill garden.

The ground cover roses in pink must have hundreds of buds.

This is a peach ground cover rose.

Also beginning to bloom are white coral bells.  These plants are in the garden mostly for the color variation in their leaves, the blooms are underwhelming.  I have several varieties of hosta, again mostly for the variation in leaf coloring, they are mostly white with an occasional lavender.  The lavender ones are only thinking about blooming, I'll try for a photo when they open up.

I'm behind, again.

Life sometimes gets away from me!  It has outdistanced me for sure lately but I think I may be close to catching up.  I've been behind ever since Rob's graduation party.  It got worse when I joined the gym and started working out daily.  I took my brother's advice (he's been working out for years and years) to go first thing in the morning but that just didn't work for me.  Mostly, because I couldn't get there early enough to work out and then swim before classes in the pool, which caused me no end of frustration! Finally, last week I began going about 1:30pm and this is working much better for me-I get my housework/yard work done before I go then come home and fix dinner.  I have the gardens mostly caught up, except for trimming bushes and digging up oak trees (the never ending chore here!)  Well, I could dig up wild strawberries all day every day for a month (or longer) before I came close to getting them all out of the grass and then I could start on a multitude of other weeds in the lawn, but I won't.  For all the cool, wet weather we had in April and May, June is turning into a trip to the equator!  We literally went from the 60's one day to the 90's the next!  Along with the 90's came high humidity and air quality issues (which I have to heed as my asthma is trying to act up.)  So it's early morning for yard work, once it gets too hot I head inside.

I think one or two more days and I'll have the inside of the house caught up and I can work on projects again.  Most nights I've been too tired to even pick up a needle.  I am not a hot weather person, never have been, never will be.  I don't sleep well and begin to feel caged in when it's hot.  I like the cold, it was only in the 50's in Montana today-sounds good!  It's funny but in the cold I don't mind being inside as much as when everything is green outside my window.

I'm hoping for a few project updates later on, as well as another one on the gardens soon.  Just need to take the camera out for pics!

Wow, Where Have I Been?

It's been a whole week since I posted?  Can not be, can it?  So I've been up to the usual-housework, garden work, a little computer work and a very little sewing.  I'm beginning to find my groove with the addition of the daily workouts.  I added swimming every day to the whole (for about 20 minutes-when the pool isn't full), also stepped up the resistance on the machines.  It's still too early to tell any changes but I enjoy it.  That statement it really unbelievable!!  Me enjoy a workout?!  It seemed unlikely but it's true.  I really love the swimming-I'm way out of practice but I'm getting there.  It would be lovely to be able to once again SWIM the length of the pool.  The pool is also the only source of frustration with the gym, finding it with a lane open that is.  I think that when my two years is up I'll just put a lap pool in whatever house I'm living in, add an eliptical and a bowflex!  Ha-Ha, right after I win the lottery.

There has been some progress on some projects but nothing to show and I'm feeling overwhelmed by them again.  Really need to finish SOMETHING, that keeps me going, but all the things it would be wonderful to have done are a long ways off.  That makes it hard to not start something new but so far I've been holding off!

I'm really happy with the way my front garden is coming along this year.  After all the wall building and addition of new plants it is really looking nice, not yet mature but much better than before.  I filled some big pots with pretty flowers (photos later) and arranged then around the bench (which I really must clean when I finish this) and when the shade is thick it's a lovely place to sit.  The shade is less thick this year with two trees missing that used to shade the front of the house but it's still a nice place to sit and wait for Beth or perhaps to sit and read.  Now if I can get the grass to grow in the bare spots left by tree stumps. . .  .

Not much going on.  I really must get to work- my desk is a disaster (so what else is new?) and I have a choir robe mock-up to sew and get in the mail for Steve plus, plus, plus.  I keep thinking that my life will slow down and have fewer things on my TO DO list but it never happens, sigh.  Feel like I'm running in place.