Piles of paper

Yesterday as I was cleaning I found myself moving piles of paper and miscellenaous items and wondering how in the world one can accumulate so much paperwork! It is just my husband and I living at home anymore so you would think by now things would be under control…. But not yet! There is rain in the forecast for the weekend I guess I’ll be tackleing piles of paper.

Ok, so the thing is….I read a lot of blogs. I just love to see how other people live, and they have me about half convinced that we are the only family that has “piles”. Even when the bloggers are taking a random photo of the dog in their kitchen the countertops are spotless….if I took a photo of my kitchen counters right now, you would see a pile of “stuff” next to the phone and an empty vase that hasn’t been put away and crumbs from my husband’s lunch…moving onto the island where we actually eat is a stack of mail waiting for Molly to come home for a visit (I’m moving her pile to a cupboard or somewhere out of site) and yesterdays newspaper.

I guess I'll go put something away... in the time it is taking me to list what is out of place, I could probably have it put away. So back to get the mountain of paper under control!

Poison Ivy

I started itching yesterday and by the time I woke up this morning I realized what all the itching was about!!! My annual bout with poison ivy is here. I've got it on my face and neck, waist and foot. When will I learn that I am allergic to the stuff and must take every precaution when I see it??

Every year as I am weeding my garden I usually see a small sprig of it growing somewhere...just a small sprig mind you....but instead of running to the house to get a plastic bag to put around my hand to pull it out and then contain the small sprig to transport it to the burn barrel; I tell myself if I am very careful I can just pull it out with my garden gloved hand and then simply change gloves when I take my next break. And in the meantime, I am very careful not to touch my skin.... Yeah right.... I do that every year and every year I get poison ivy....

So, for the next week or so I'll be applying the calamine lotion and kicking myself for not taking the proper precaution. Is anyone suffering with me?

End of Season Planting

Yesterday’s project was working in the garden and as I pulled weeds and dead headed I realized that I had quite a few empty spaces. I decided a trip to the local farm market was in order. When I arrived they were quite busy, I headed to the green house and noticed that they must have gotten a new shipment of stuff in because they had some lovely rosemary and other herbs in very good condition. I even found some very healthy looking pineapple sage which I haven’t had in my gardens for a number of years so I picked up one of those and a couple of wave petunias. There were no prices on any of the new stuff so I didn’t pick up to much.

I stood in line for a few minutes and when I got to the check out there was a man running the cash register who I was sure would not know the prices of anything…I was right…my bill was $1.50. I asked him how much the rosemary was and he told me 50 cents so I had him add 2 of those. When I went back out to the greenhouse for the rosemary I noticed some bacopa that I had looked for at a couple other greenhouses this year and couldn’t find. Also a Diamond Frost (Euphorbia), I don’t have any experience with that but I’m figuring as long as the same man is at the cash register I will be getting a pretty good deal. So I left with quite a haul for only $3.50…. I was feeling a bit guilty like I just robbed the local farm market as I left.

I brought everything home and got it all planted.

Coffee and Cupcakes

As an administrator of a church, occasionally I make time to do a fun job like making the arrangements for a reception. One of the members of our congregation died suddenly this week, she was a very vibrant and young 65 and loved people and entertaining. Her husband asked us to have some light refreshments available during the viewing which was held at the church last night. So…. I went through my stash of tablecloths and then baked cupcakes to match and ordered a veggie tray. This is what it looked like.

One thing I learned from the evening is that I need to get some mini cupcake pans… I think more people would have eaten a cupcake if they had been smaller and easier to manage. So, I’m putting that on my list!

2008 Summer Garden Tour

I’m excited to be participating in “Notes From A Cottage Industry’s 2008 Summer Garden Tour” today. “A Cottage Industry is one of my favorite blogs” so I wanted to be included. I think if you click on the Garden Tour sign you will get to her blog and see who else is playing and you will be inspired!

These are my gardens and outdoor living areas. This is outback, from a couple years ago.

This one is my patio area, black wicker love seat...the only place I use Red... Mostly I like a Little bit of pink, and blue, with some whites, and some yellow.




This one is the front of my home all decked out for the 4th of July last summer.





And this is the fernery planted on my porch this year, I hope it fills out soon. Now check out the other lovely gardens at Tracy's. at Notes from a Cottage Industry.

Farewell Mr. Burns

Molly's favorite high school teacher retired after teaching as the band director for 35 years. On Sunday his wife pulled off a huge surprise for him. She had a retirement party and roast and invited ALL his former students, etc. to join the celebration. A group of alumni (all ages) got together one last time for a quick song or two at the party. The photo shows him joking with Molly in the flute section before picking up the baton one last time.

I enjoyed 2 trips to DisneyWorld as a chaperone while she was in the band as well as a lot of fun raising money for those trips. So, farewell Mr. Burns, enjoy your retirement!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

My sister was here last weekend and I left her unattended for awhile while I did some shopping. When I came back she had transformed my mantle. I like to change my mantle with the seasons and I've never really had anything that I really liked for the summer so a month or more ago I found two nice prints that I liked at Target that shouted "summer" but I really didn't know what to put with it, so I found some bottles and I filled a jar with seashells but the mantle was pretty bare. I put it all on rate my space and got comments such as move the prints closer together, etc..... so I took their advice even though the mantle looked pretty bare to me....

Lindy, really stepped it up a notch....or two and now it looks better to me. So I put it back on rate my space and the ladies think it is much to busy and have given me all kinds of ideas of what to remove. So I posted it to the shabby cottage group I am on and they mostly liked it, their theory is that "more is better"..... So I guess that just proves that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder...

Cupcakes for house warming

I had a lovely day on Saturday…. I got up early and headed to a craft show... the weather was predicted to set a record high for the day at 97 degrees! I stopped for some herbs at a lovely greenhouse and then to my favorite thrift shop…I bought everywhere I went so I came home happy… Then I took cup cakes that I had baked to Molly for her “house warming” party for Saturday night. The cupcakes have a banner on with their house address so that their friends can take the banner home with their new address! While there I took a photo of the curtains that I quickly made for her earlier this week.

The curtains are a pink frog print. Her sorority mascot (I think that is the correct name) is a frog so when she saw the pink frogs she had to have that fabric. I’m going to make a valance for the bedroom window, it is much wider than this bathroom window pictured so they put up mini blinds in that room and a valance should finish it off.

My sister Lindy was here visiting and when she saw my rosemary plant that I found for only $1.99 she wanted one too, so I made a second trip back to Mifflinburg to the green house so she could get one too. We met Lindy's daughter, Megan for supper over there and she came back with us and spent the night and will be here again tonight. Lindy left this morning to go back to Conn..... So actually I had a nice weekend! It was to hot to do anything except shop and be inside. Oh! I almost forgot I visited with my nephew and his wife and their brand new baby!

Relay for Life

Friday from 4 p.m till Saturday at 4 p.m. is the Relay for Life in our town and you know what that means!!?? Of course the obvious is that teams of people will be raising money for cancer. Yes, that is correct, however it also means that for 24 hours people will be walking by my house with nothing to do but critique my yard, gardens and front porch!!! So the pressure is on to get the front yard mulched and flowers planted and porch spruced up a bit. I have been working on that project all week. I am also working on the inside of the house because my sister will be here this weekend, so I should probably even have some food available… And since it is so hot my sister will be spending the night, she usually spends the night at my parents home when she is here but they don’t have air conditioning upstairs so she will be here….using Molly’s bathroom ….that would be the one that looks like a tornado when through it… Yikes, I guess I better get off the computer and get busy!

Today's photo is of the bed at the lamp post. I planted begonias in there today after I brought home a couple flats of flowers from the somewhat local green house. It is REALLY hot and humid here and there is no break in the weather forecasted but I got everything planted.

Bitter Sweet Ending

I got home last night at about 9:30 p.m. after helping Molly all day Sunday and Saturday as she moved into her first apartment. It is brand new and nice. She will be sharing the three bedroom, two and a half bathroom apartment with a friend from high school who also goes to her college. The roommate had an apartment last year and already has some furniture. I’ve enjoyed shopping for her and with her. We are doing the apartment on a tight budget since her father and I are committed to tuition and not necessarily making sure she has the latest gadgets in her kitchen.

Somehow I volunteered to make curtains for her bedroom and bathroom… she picked some fabric for her bathroom and I worked on them this afternoon. First off I measured and cut and measured and realized I cut on the wrong line so I took the 30 minute trip to Walmart again today! She hasn’t decided what to do about the bedroom curtains yet, she didn’t find anything she really liked. Here is a photo of her apartment, the one on the right and one of her using a power tool (very out of character for Molly!).