Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Grandson

Our youngest grandson, Mikey, graduated from preschool tonight:
Isn't he just the cutest in his little tux!  Actually, it was his brother's tux for a wedding a few years ago, so he was a little overdressed for the occasion, but might as well wear it while he can!

Until next time, blessings...

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Wednesday

We've had a couple of days of rain and a lot of wind, so not much has gotten done outside.  Today my lawn guys came and mowed, then I had a doctor's appt. and had to make a few stops on the way home.  One was a stop at the Farmer's Market -- picked up some home grown asparagus (boy do I miss my husband's asparagus plot -- we always had great asparagus in the spring and lots of it!).  Also picked up a good sized tomato plant -- called Crimson something or other -- produces normal sized tomatoes (as opposed to beefsteak which taste great but one is enough for a week's worth of salads or meals!).  So, stopped at Home Depot and picked up the pot and some dirt and now I have a patio tomato on the deck!

I had a hair appointment yesterday and my hairdresser is a treasure trove of information and business cards.  Most of her clients are long term and she's pretty good about remembering who recommended whom for certain jobs.  We were discussing the fact that I've emailed two companies to do some landscaping and neither of them have contacted me to date.  So, she gave me the name and website of someone one of her clients recommends!  I checked out his website yesterday afternoon, and emailed him and this morning I had an answer and an appointment for next week for him to come out and look at what I want.  Guess who's going to get my business (unless he's too expensive), but I will pick someone who actually answers me over someone who deems himself too busy to bother.

So, after my running around today, I decided to do some computer work.  Guess what else I need to do!  Clean off my beautiful desk -- the pile on the left is old mail and stuff that needs to be filed, and stuff that needs to be thrown out and/or recycled.  It's about 2 weeks worth and there is no excuse for it to have gone that long! Paper breeds when left too long -- that's why its imperative to take care of it right away!
So, I'm off to get busy!
Until next time....Blessings!

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Happy Mother's Day

From my youngest grandson - Mikey is 4. Daughter and grandkids took me out to eat on Friday night for Mother's Day -- it was very nice.
So, yesterday I was thinking about the problem I have with the landscaping around the house.  Here are two pictures of the rocks in the flower beds - just at the back of the house.

Apparently the guy that lived here before didn't ever want to have to mulch ever again, so he put down gravel all across the front, a huge area on the south side of the house (I'm sure he thought it would save him from mowing that area), and about halfway across the back.
I did go out yesterday afternoon and tried to rake the rocks out of the back of the house:
It's a whole lot better, but not great, still lots of rocks, and not enough good dirt, and the whole area needs to be re-edged and widened.  So I came in and emailed two companies to have them send out someone to give me an estimate on redoing the landscaping and removing all the rocks! It's probably going to cost me an arm and a leg, but I certainly can't take all those rocks out by myself and I hate how they look now!  So, decision made! Can't wait to get some ideas and see what they can do for me.

Until next time....blessings.

Saturday, May 09, 2015

May

Good grief, it's May already!  Last blog post here was January ....guess time just gets away from me!
Not much going on, but I thought I'd attempt to blog now and then. 
My niece and I are in the beginning stages of planning an European River Cruise for next spring/summer.  So, I was thinking that I need to try to learn how to take pictures.  She took beautiful pictures on our Alaskan cruise last year and mine were so-so.  I should probably take a photography class, but that's not in the cards at this time.  So, I'm just going to try to take a few pictures every day and see if I can improve my skills.  I do need to read the instruction booklet again -- and try to retain it this time!  So, here's today's pictures:  These are two hanging baskets I bought at Pepper Creek in Rockford -- love that store, lots of candles and gifty things and also beautiful plants. These have petunias and ageratum and I'm not sure what the little red flowers are, they look like small petunias.
 And this is one of the petunias up close -- it was a windy day, so I had to catch it between wind gusts!
 A shot of the back of the house where these baskets are hanging just off the deck.
 And a shot of the peach colored iris planted next to the house in the back -- by the former owner. 
All of the flower beds around the house need to be re-done.  The former owner put in rocks - as in pebbles, for mulch in the front and one side and half of the back.  It makes the ground like concrete to work in -- so I'm in the decision making stage of trying to figure out if I can rake/dig out the rocks a little at a time myself, or hire someone to do it for me -- at great cost, I'm sure.  Either way it's going to be a lot of work, but I'm leaning towards doing it myself and improving each spot as I go.  The only thing planted in the long stretch against the back of the house is this one clump of iris.  I'd love to dig out the rocks, widen the bed a little bit, and plant daylilies on both sides of the iris.  Hmmm, might have to start there, instead of in the front where there's a lot more work to do! I'll let you know.....

Until next time, blessings!