The Hit Gift

More Birthday Pictures

Birthday Pictures

My blog is boring. Everyone else seems to have all these thoughts and discussions of big ideas (or at least little ones). They discuss the topics on the news or in books they have just read or from classes they are taking.

Mine is just a badly kept journal.

Oh well.

Still addicted to it.

Anyway, I've got a lot to do today in preparation for heading to Ohio on Saturday morning. A bucket of orange cannas to get planted. Some of that pretty purple groundcover (no one knows what it's called) to plant after I figure out where it should go. An oakleaf hydrangea to plant (again, after I figure out where it should go). Red canna tubers to box up for Jessica. Three more mums to get into a pot on the front steps. LOTS of housecleaning. Need to water everything inside and out. Oh, and laundry and, of course, packing for the trip. Lovely.

We had a birthday party for Autumn (and her grandpa) last night at the coffee shop. Turned out to be the perfect place to have it.

Right around the corner, but not at home--convenient, but didn't have to clean up for company.
Quiet--we pretty much had the place to ourselves until the shift change at the hospital when it suddenly filled with nurses.

Friendly baristas--the fact that we had 9 people there all ordering meals and drinks in the evening and leaving nice tips probably had something to do with it.

It was nice and very simple.

The best thing though--the coffee. This place has better coffee and espresso drinks than anywhere I have ever been before. A zillion times better than Starbucks. A zillion times better than any of the local places we used to visit in NoVA and DC. It's weird because no one is really into coffee down here. If they want coffee they go order some at Burger King. So I'm not sure if the local place here will be able to stay in business--but I HOPE so. I LOVE THEIR COFFEE.

And the odd zombie horror dolls are gone now too. So the ambiance has definitely improved. Oh, speaking of which--we stopped by The Joshua Cup near Matt's work the other day. He wrote about it on his blog. But their decor was really cool--they used old wood doors, minus the windows and some panels, and hung from the ceiling as room dividers (something I've always wanted to do). Anyway, the decor was really good, but the latte was icky. Tasted like milk and vanilla with maybe a tablespoon of watery coffee. Definitely not like the place around the corner--their lattes make you sit up and take notice.

Well, I'll try to get some party pictures posted at some point today--that was a lot of p's.

A few pics

Firefox keeps crashing on me lately, so we'll see if I can manage to get these up before it come down again.

Summer Reading

I'm sad to say that most of my summer reading plans remained just that--plans.

I did read 1/2 of Of Mice and Men, but after East of Eden, I just couldn't finish it.

I have The Kite Runner sitting on the bookshelf, but have yet to start in earnest.

Pretty much all of my summer reading took place at the beach. And pretty much all of that was nice brainless mysteries.

We did finish Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner--reading aloud together when putting Autumn to bed. I always forget just how funny these are. I think Matt really enjoyed reading them for the first time, too.

I somehow have to come up with the time to keep reading and keep my brain alive, but lately there have just been so many things that are so much more urgent, that I haven't been able to get around to it.

Anyway, Autumn should be up soon, so I'm going to start some coffee and maybe start some bread to bake today. ttyl

Very little sleep last night, since Autumn couldn't breathe if she had her thumb in her mouth--and as a result, could not sleep. I brought her into bed with us. Where she determined that the only place she was interested in sleeping was on top of my face. Meaning I couldn't breathe either. Lovely.

She's finally fallen asleep. And of course it's morning, so I've woken up. But I'm still feeling very much asleep.

Gardening

Tomorrow I'm going to be SOOOOOO sore. Matt had the day off today, so we dug a new flower bed--in extremely hard red georgia clay. Man! Very difficult. Had to use a pick. But we got it done. (Though I'm going to have to make it bigger.) Added a couple hundred pounds of manure, lime, and ferilizer. And then started planting cannas.

Also got one of those big rotating compost bins from a FreeCycler. Haven't got it set up yet, but I think it will be very useful.

Oh, and when we went to Lowes to get fertilizer, etc. I got 56 mums. Yup, that's right--56. They had a couple carts of them on markdown--tiny ones were 10 cents and the small ones were 20 cents. All that was wrong with them was that the flowers had gotten dried out. The leaves and the rest were fine. So all we had to do was deadhead them and now they look great.

I'm going to be busy with gardening work for a while. I think the dining room is going to be waiting for a while to get painted. But when someone gives you a who bunch of NICE free plants--other things get put on hold.

Very Sick

All of us. Even the dog. I haven't been able to sleep much because my throat and ears are so sore. Wondering how other moms do it--taking care of the other sick people when they themselves feel so awful.

In other news--we have probably around 100 cannas waiting to go in the ground. They're sitting in Autumn's pool in the back. We just got them from a guy in Macon who was thinning out. They still have all foliage intact so they're around 6' high. I was SOOOOOO happy to get them. He also sent some other goodies--a spreading hydrangea, some ground cover I've been wanting, a few other sub-tropical things. Very cool.

Problem is going to be getting them in the ground when all of us are so sick and just too weak to work on it. It's got to be done though. They're gorgeous and I don't want them to die.

Coolest thing about Cannas down here--no digging them up unless you want to. And you really can plant them this time of year.

okay...

Jess, I don't really have any new new pictures of Autumn. I've been too preoccupied with painting, tearing up carpet, and scrapping like mad. But here are a couple of her eating chicken. I'll try to take some more soon.

The living room is mostly finished. The only thing left in the hallway to do is right around the bottom of the baseboard where it was covered by the carpet. The dining area hasn't been started yet. I have to wait for Matt to help me move some of the heavier furniture before I can begin over on that side of the room.

So far the floors look pretty good under the carpet. Which is a happy thing. Oh, and I found an area rug that I like. Far out of our price range, of course, but I like it anyway. Oddly enough, it's a traditional rug--I NEVER like traditional ones. I usually just like contemporary or jute or sisal ones. But there's this traditional one at Linens and Things that really appeals to me, for some reason. It's got the cranberry and olive and brown colors I like, all nicely faded to the shades we're using.

I did about 17 or 18 pages this week--and 6 or 7 last Saturday at the crop. (And projects piling up--but that's a good thing. :-)) It really helped to have Gma K visiting, so I didn't have to watch Autumn the whole time. And Autumn enjoyed the extra attention. She doesn't seem to be feeling too great these last couple days--I think she may have a bit of a stomach bug again. And she's just finally been recovering from the last one.

Gotta run--a couple more things to do online, then need to clean up some more. Then bed.

Not a whole lot going on right now--once again waiting for lbl to show up. Hopefully he actually will this time.

I'm going to start a blog for "work" stuff over on WordPress. I like blogger, and I think it's easier to use, but there are some aspects of WordPress I like better for posting layouts, etc.

Reagan is having a FIT because I had to lock her in the kitchen. She was getting a bit too aggressive with Autumn. She forgets that Autumn isn't another puppy with fur and tough skin to protect her. Autumn doesn't help much though, because she acts like one. :-)

Gotta run and find Autumn some breakfast.

By Popular Demand

Autumn was playing and then Reagan decided to try too. They were standing there together for a few seconds, but I wasn't able to catch it fast enough.






Puppy Pictures...not good ones, but pictures none the less...

Birthday ideas

For those who have been asking what Autumn needs for her birthday--BOOKS! (Or anything off of her wish list on Amazon.) Things like diapers, diaper genie refills, etc. are always good, too. But not very fun to buy. :-)

p.s. she's also in need of a new album--there's a particular one at michael's i have my eye on. ;-)

Weird, I guess Jeremy is alive after all.

Finished painting the hallway except for the baseboards right along the floor where they're covered by the carpet. Those will have to wait until I pain the dining room and living room and pull up all the carpet. I'm now looking for an area rug for the living room, but discovering that my tastes are just too expensive. All the ones I like are just WAY too much. And the ones in our price range--YUCK!

Planted a few mums yesterday. (Autumn picked out a purple one at the store.) Also transplanted some vinca. Need to see how they take and then maybe dig up some more. They've come up all over the vegetable garden since I let it go to weeds. Supposedly we can do a second crop of some veggies here, so I need to get myself motivated and get out there and clean up the garden area again. (Allergies not withstanding.)

Someone is going to give me some cannas!!!! YAY! She's about 40 minutes away and we'll have to drive there and dig them up. But it makes me very very happy. I've been wanting them for a long time. I've said it before and I'll say it again...Freecycle=awesome!

Speaking of Freecycle--I've been using it a lot lately in de-cluttering areas of the house. Mostly clothes. But it's nice to feel that things are clearing out and someone else is actually going to get use out of it. Someone even came and dug up some of our monkey grass the other day. :-)

I'd better go straighten up the house before Autumn wakes up.

Priorities for today: babysitting and getting a photo order in (there's a crop on the 9th).