Let there be light.

Not too long ago, our neighbor's tree came the rest of the way down.

It took our power line down with it. And damaged the entrance cable. And other stuff that I don't understand.

This happened on a Tuesday. We were without power from about 2pm on Tuesday to about 5:30pm on Wednesday. And hosted a party at 8pm on Wednesday. It was CRAZY, but everything came together just in time. I am awfully grateful for electricity. I really take it for granted, but laundry, cooking, keeping food fresh, having light in the bathroom, cooling the house ... all these things are pretty essential to my everyday life.

I don't have much to report these days. Nothing new to the house, except the new electrical service. But I've been taking pictures of my garden, so that's what you get today.

That's a carrot.

A black-eyed Susan, transplanted from my sister's front garden in PA.

Begonias. (Still waiting to be planted.)

Lettuce. I like it.

Mother's Day rose. Still lovin' it.

A tomato blossom.

An eager cucumber vine.

If I can just keep Lily from destroying any more plants (current count: one bean plant, one squash plant, one leek), I'll be in good shape. The rope fence is not entirely reliable at keeping her out. We're looking into other options.

Change is in the air.

Bob has accepted a new position, and it was announced yesterday at work. He's excited about the new position but sad to leave his current one. He's been there for over six years, and though he's staying within the same company (and in the same building!), he's still grieving .

I understand how he's feeling (well, as much as I can, I suppose), but I'm excited. And the people that we've built relationships with are still going to be there. We'll still get to see them.

BUT...
Bob won't be on call 24/7/365.
He won't have to leave parties that we are hosting (though, to his credit, he did make it back by midnight on New Year's Eve), or dinners with friends.
He'll be able to choose his hours, work from home if he wants, and figure out how he wants to do this job.
And get paid a little more, too.

I am THRILLED that he'll be working less. As the application/interview/second interview process went on, family time definitely became the biggest plus for me about this job.

He starts July 5th. Bring it on!

Gardens make me happy.

My garden is starting to look like a garden, finally, instead of three burial plots.

Most of my vegetables are up and recognizable, but a couple things are looking like they're not going to sprout, like peppers and spinach. (I should have started both much, much sooner.)

I'm going to take you on a partial tour of the garden today.

Lettuce:

Cucumbers:

Leeks:

Carrots:


And now, we'll move on to the rest of the grounds. Last summer was our first summer in the house, and Bob wanted to let the garden area around the garage do its own thing, so we'd know what we had there. Ooh, boy, did it look junky in all its glory. Tons and tons of weeds, with a few flowers thrown in.

This year, Bob's worked really hard (with the "help" of the girls) to weed the bed and prepare it for new flowers. We left the flowers that were there, of course. And by "we," I mean "Bob."

Some orange lilies:

Pink lilies:

Yellow and red are still waiting to bloom. They're gorgeous. Last year, we put some of the orange & red ones on my father-in-law's grave for Father's Day. I plan to do that again this year, if they're still blooming.

This hydrangea was part of the Easter flower arrangement at my mother-in-law's church. She gave each of the girls a plant, and I put them in the ground in front of the garage. I did a poor job of tending them, and we weren't sure they'd come back ... but they did!

My Mother's Day gift that keeps giving.

2010 is the Year of the Coupon at our house. This tree was free, using a coupon. I thought I'd killed it, leaving it for too long in our refrigerator, and not planting it in a big enough temporary pot. But when I finally put it in the ground, I started really faithfully watering it in, slowly & deeply, so the roots will grow well. And now I'm beginning to see little green buds on what was once a glorified stick. (By the way, these are the first pictures for which I've EVER used the manual focus option on our camera. It's a learning process.)

The first blossom on my new geranium.


The funny thing is, though, that as much as I love plants and flowers, I don't like to have too many in the house. I get overwhelmed by too many houseplants. My kitchen/sunroom have been overrun for months, and I'm dyin'. I'm moving them out. I can't take it anymore. Good thing they can all go outside, this time of year...

The evolution of a geranium

I like geraniums a lot. So I was really disappointed to discover that one of my children had broken off a huge bloom from one of my geranium plants. I put it in a vase with water and left it on my windowsill for a long time--longer than I should have ... but then I noticed it had developed roots! So I planted it and tried again. And again.

This is a newly vased set of four geranium cuttings (actually from one long stalk that snapped off, and then I cut it into sections).


This is a cutting that's been in water for a while. See those roots?

This is a geranium that was one of the centerpieces at my baby shower for Caroline, in 2006. Still going strong.


This is a pot of two geranium plants that I bought at the farmers' market last summer. These things are taking off. (And the pot itself was the first Christmas present I ever bought for Bob. He admired it at a museum, and I went back later and bought it.)

And this: this is a pot with some geraniums that I started in a vase. Yes, that's right. See all those new leaves? And those flower buds? I'm awfully proud of these little guys.


And, because I know you're dying to see it: the pulpit in our foyer. The story on that will have to come another time.

Telephone

Do you know the children's game Telephone? Everybody sits in a circle, and one person starts a "rumor." They whisper it to the person next to them, who whispers it to the next person, and so on. The last person to hear it says it out loud, and then everybody laughs at how different it is from the original.

Well, this story may be like that. I don't know.

This is a true story. It happened to some friends of the in-laws of a friend of my sister's. (Got that?)

So the family is in Chicago for a day, and they decide to go to the aquarium. They've heard great things about it, and they know their kids will have a good time there. But, they've only been there for a little bit when they realize that their four-year-old is missing. They look for him quickly, don't see him, and grab a staff member from the aquarium to report that he's missing. The staff shut down the aquarium, and they find him THREE HOURS LATER. Ellen, my sister, was telling me this, and I was practically hyperventilating. I cannot even imagine the fear and panic those parents must have been feeling.

So, they finally find him, and they're so relieved that they just leave. The older siblings are a little annoyed because in the midst of all the panic, they never really got to have fun there. They've been on the road for just over an hour, and everybody's kind of zoned out, and the little boy says, "Daddy? Getting lost wasn't the worst thing I did today."

And the dad, only half paying attention, says, "What was the worst thing you did today?"

"I have a flamingo in my backpack."



No one's quite sure what to think. But they have to check. They pull off the road. The dad hops out, runs around to the passenger door, and opens the backpack.

There's a baby flamingo inside.

They turn around and drive back to the aquarium.

They return the flamingo.

They are asked to never return.



True story.

Growth & the Color of the Day

My garden is growing. And, we had to install a "fence" to keep Lily out. After the weekend's rain, though, the rope had stretched enough that she just jumped over it and ran through my garden beds, so Bob tightened it up on Sunday afternoon.

The girls helped me label the seedlings coming up yesterday.

This little zucchini sprout makes me happier than I can say.

And my tomato plants (which, apparently, my dad didn't think would make it!) are doing just fine, thank you very much!
This is my Mother's Day rose. I can't wait to get it in the ground. And I didn't even attempt subtlety when we were at the greenhouse picking it out: this is what I would like for Mother's Day each year. A new rosebush.


Changing the subject: Lucy has been having trouble identifying colors, so I decided we should make flashcards.

Necessary supplies: paint, paper cut to size, paintbrushes, baby food containers for the paint, tape to hold the paper in place on the table, and Caffeine Free Diet Coke.

Caroline was very focused and methodical, covering every inch of her paper.

Lucy's still working on finding a comfortable grip on her paintbrush.

The finished products:

Today's color of the day:

Quotes from my house:

"I'm just going to put this beer on top of the frozen breast milk." --my husband, on chilling some beer in the freezer

"Not everyone has a pulpit in their foyer." --Bob again. And I want to know, if you don't have a pulpit, why not??

"But I've had a hard day, and I need to snuggle." -- Caroline, on why she didn't want to get up from her nap yesterday.



And, I'm sorry for this, but every time I think about my garden, in my head I hear "Plants in the ground/ Plants in the ground/ Looking like a fool with your plants in the ground..."