One Day in May

Just as good a place as any to start again.  I hate reading journals where there are huge chunks of time missing.  I know one day I will regret being so lax on writing.

I did take the camera and walk around the house and yard today, taking pictures, thinking of things I wanted to remember,

And this ended up being a WAY too long blog entry.

This what's happening.

1.  Our house is for sale and has been several months.  We will have a flurry of folks look at it and then no more for weeks.  Our realtor brought a group of realtors over to look at it and had absolutely no suggestions to make about making it more favorable to buyers.  Guess that would be lowering the price a lot.  Two realtors who couldn't come the first time came later and asked us to walk around with them and talk about things they should point out.  They were very enthusiastic and again could offer no suggestions on things we could do to improve it.  So that means we've done all we can, and the things that can be changed have been the things that can't be realistically changed - I guess we'll just have to find people willing to overlook the flaws and find enough to please them in the rest of the house.

2.  Mike had his 3-month screening last week,  We had to wait a week to find out the results - which is sort of cruel.  We went in on the 11th to see Dr Reardon, and he does it right.  He walks in the door saying, "Scans are clear.  Everything is good.  Labs are good."  Another sigh of relief for now.  He is to have them done every 3 months for at least a year and then maybe the next year if the insurance agrees.  The Montgomery Cancer Center has been so far so good.  Lots of nice people but lots of sadness passing through there.

3.  New Baby now has an appointment to be born on May 28th at 4:00.  There is some chance that it won't happen then, but it's funny to me to arrange things that closely.  No name yet.  Emily will work 3 more days and then be off for nearly a week.

4.  I'm scheduled to fly there Sunday, May 24th from Atlanta.  Mike will take me and drop me off, and it will be a direct flight.  Happy day!  He'll follow when he decides to and whenever he can get arrangements made to have the dog boarded and cat feeders and petters lined up.

5,  Mama had her 92nd birthday, and we had a party for her at the nursing home.  Lots of family and friends joined us, and it was a fun day.  I do have some pictures for another time.

Here are some picture of things I saw today as I wandered around.

The Texas vine never fails to appear in late spring - and attempt to take over the fence and yard.  It will be beautiful when it blooms, but sometimes I wonder if it's worth all the work of trimming and then prying it off the fence in the fall.

We stood in the outside storage house and actually made some progress this time.  I was able to say the words.  MOVE.  THROW AWAY.  YARD SALE.  I said the last two words more than I needed to just to hear what imaginative exclamation Mike would come up with.  We were able to get some things to the trash and other things to Uncle Bob's storage.

I walked around to the patio which is a pleasure nowadays.  It's nice to just sit there and enjoy the beautiful days and the birds singing.  Watching the miracle of things growing.  Spending quality time with the pets.

I hate to play favorites, but this is my best pot.  I found a ready-to-plant pot of the red verbena and purple plant with maybe another one thrown in.  I divided the plants and stuck in some lime-green coleus, cosmos, and perennial salvia along with some decorative grasses.  It just seems totally happy and thriving and therefore makes me happy.

These cosmos returned this spring in full force.  I even plucked half of the little plants when they first came up and transplanted them into the side yard beds and in pots, and they're still too thick.

This is not the best picture, but the flower of the zucchini is so showy it overshadows the actual zucchini itself.  There are 2 as of this morning about 6 inches long.  May be more now.

I'm not sure which 2 of Miké's prized tomate plants there are, but we're not going to be lacking this year.  

I bet this one is ready now.

I love seeing the little baby peppers emerge a little better than I like eating them, but I know they'll be good.

It's been years since I've planted nasturtiums.  I started these inside and transplanted them outside and thought they were orange and yellow.  I love the pink.  It shares the pot with a yellow Gerbera daisy and more of those cosmos.

My sweet Japanese maple.  I could have sworn it had died last fall when we were gone and no one watered it for weeks, but here it is in its lacy glory.  Purple petunias, ivy, more of that little purple plant, verbena and cosmos fill the other pots.  There is a clematis, but it seems to struggle, which is par for the course with me and clematis.

The clematis growing on this optimistic trellis actually did quiet well in early spring, way before we thought it was warm enough for anything to bloom  It's resting now and hopefully will bloom again.  Darby is ever vigilant for lizards and bugs.

I had about given up on the plumeria.  It's 19 years old this year and spent the winter as this sad forked stick.  I kept on watering it and waiting, and it rewarded me with these leaves and maybe one of the pretty pink flowers soon.

My "old ladies'garden."  Bits and pieces of everything.  Herbs in the middle with 2 hostas, crazy cosmos and zinnias randomly scattered around.  

Going back inside, I can see the pile of repairs and projects I'm working on.  

I made this Raggedy Ann for Emily one Christmas.  I think I did a pretty good job, considering all that must have been going on in my life with 3 children and a job.  Living in attics over 2 decades had destroyed the elastic in her pantaloons and dress sleeves, so I spent a lot of time sewing that teeny 1/8" elastic back around those little openings.  I just have to put Velcro on her dress to finish up.  

Emily said she wanted the Raggedy Ann but that the other 2 dolls were "scary."  I guess I'll donate them along with the Cabbage Patch and all her clothes. 

I found this pillowcase that Mama had embroidered some time ago.  It has a stain on the side, but I want to made a pillowcase dress for Graysen from it.  

I've been working on these designs from Embroidery Boutique.  They're cute but that "sister" section is impossible to trim neatly with all the letters running together.  The Lil Sister one is a bib, and the Big Sister is actually a size 3T shirt.  When that that happen?

I have to get everything I'm taking in these 3 bags and another small one.  

Back out to the side yard, it's really looking a lot better than it did last year.  Mike has worked hard on it, and the only thing I would change is to hide those electrical boxes somehow.   

I found these little zinnias at Home Depot last month, and they have not stopped blooming.  It seems impossible, but I think these are the original blooms.  Wish we could find some more.

I just threw out a few packets of zinnia seeds behind them, and I think it's going to be nice a little later on.  Probably while we're out of town.

Mike's sunflower lineup.

This doesn't look like much, but if it can be fixed like I plan, it will be a cute little  bunk bed set.  Elise and then Emily played with it for many years.  I have to make mattresses and 2 little quilts and pillows.

As of this morning, I had labeled and recorded the contents of a whopping 5 boxes.

All the empties waiting to be filled.

We took a visit to our suite at Uncle Bob's storage to try to make sense of what was in there.

When we finished, we had looked in and written down the contents of 47 more boxes and articles.  Mike only exclaimed about 20 times about having too much stuff.  "Do we need 8 boxes of Christmas decorations?  How about all this yarn and fabric and batting."  But not a word when he found boxes of HIS stuff.  "Do we really need to move boxes of denim and "work stuff?"  

We were able to bring back a few empty boxes, a few boxes for the yard sale - more muttering - and some things to look at to make decisions about.

After all Bob's hospitality, one of my boxes made a mess.  I had a box of serger accessories and corduroy in a cardboard box, and when we found the culprit, I knew it was machine oil that had leaked.  Luckily, it was on the bottom, and didn't get on any fabric or thread.  Mike stopped by and confessed, so maybe no one will slip down.  

This probably took more time to write than to do all the work and take the pictures.  It's coming.  Just hope in the next few months we have a reason to pack the rest of the boxes and get underway.