Christmas Swap

Hey everybody,

I hope you all had a nice weekend. They sure go by too quickly, don't they?

I got most of my fall decorating finished, with the exception of my front porch. It should be ready to enjoy by this weekend - I sure hope so anyway.

Remember when I was asking about joining a swap of some sort? Well, I found a Christmas swap sponsored by Jane's Fabric and Crafts . This will be my first swap and I'm really looking forward to participating. I bought some Christmas fabrics a few weeks ago and have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to make for my secret partner. I might have to get a few more (darn!) but maybe not. The pictures don't do it justice. These two fabrics are rich looking in person.

When I saw this fabric, I grabbed it! I love almost everything with birds, feathers, trees or leaves on it and this so gorgeous!





And good news - I started a week long temp assignment today. The pay isn't anything to write home about but it's more than Gail can pay me and is a big help. I'll still be working for Gail, but will take any temp assignments that come my way. You never know what doors will open from meeting new people.

Well friends, it's late and I need to go to bed. I haven't had to get up this early in months and months!
ttfn!

Almost Finished

Here is the table runner I've been working on sporadically. I wanted to get it finished today but didn't get to my sewing machine. I did make myself a yummy yellow cake with chocolate frosting though - my favorite. It'll be gone in a couple of days! It's been a relaxing day...very nice!

Note all the cat hair - Smudge has been laying on this (up on the ironing board)!!



I hope the week is going well for all of you.

Seven Years Ago Tonight...

...I planted this tree to commemorate the birth of my first grandchild. I wasn't ready to become a grandmother yet. I've never been a "kid" kind of woman. But I sure do have fun with this little girl - my Rosebud.


How she and her tree have both grown!!





Happy birthday, Alissa Rose!!!

What A Week!

Hey everybody,
This has been another roller coaster week. I didn't mention it earlier, but Gail had a heart attack 2 1/2 weeks ago! It scared all of us; she's only in her 40's and very trim. It was all very sudden and threw all of us into a tizzy.

The good news is that she will be fine; she just needs to take it easy and do only as much as her body will allow. She came into the store a couple of times this week and is starting to look like herself. So...I've been trying to take care of as many things as I could for her.

In addition to all of this, I've been dealing with insurance issues (don't you just l-o-v-e dealing with insurance stuff?) and job hunting. Job hunting - talk about the emotional roller coaster. You talk to a recruiter and get your hopes up...then nothing. I have nothing but sympathy for all of you that are in the same boat, or knows someone who is. It's really tough now with all the competition and the companies can be extremely selective. Enough of this crap; it's too stressful!

I got to have this weekend all to myself. I was ready to pull my hair out after the last two weeks and didn't want to go anywhere or have any obligations - just have some peace and quiet for 48 hours. And I got it. I worked outside all weekend doing more fall clean up. There are still several areas in the yard that have blooming plants, but for the most part, the plants are tired. I cut back bushes, ivy, perennials, and more bushes. The wax myrtle out in the field are so tall I have to get up on an 8 foot ladder to reach the tops with the loppers. Now I have a couple of beds ready to plant some pretty mums in. And I can't wait to get some pumpkins and gourds. Oh, and I got the barn cleaned out too.

This bed beside my driveway was crawling with hummingbird vine. I hated to pull it all up but it had just about smothered my beautifuly muhley grass, which is getting ready to bloom. Next year, I'll keep the vines under control better.

My little deciduous holly tree is beautiful right now. The birds will feast on the berries in late winter.
And how those black eyed susan vines grew - all volunteers!
My miscanthus and other ornamental grasses are in full bloom now. This isn't the best picture, but this plant is huge - and perfectly rounded!

Remember when my big, round flower bed was ruined by the deer and I planted a few more coneflowers and covered them with deer net? Well, the bed is overgrown with annual salvia volunteers (which I love) and behind them all is my tomato plant that grew back. If you look closely, you can see one lonely tomato beginning to ripen. Out of four tomato plants, this will be the only tomato I've been able to harvest. I'll have to make myself a tomato sandwich on white bread with mayo and salt and pepper when this baby is ready! The last of the summer :(



I left the gate to the little pasture open and Tinkerbell and her friend, Little Mama, decided to come out and see what I was doing. They are so used to me giving them some sort of treat that if I have anything in my hand, they think it's food for them!! They are such funny birds :)


Well, I'm going to cook myself a yummy dinner and then take care of some dreaded insurance business. Then I want to finish my little autumn table runner I showed you a peek of a while back. It's turning out pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

I hope you all had a nice weekend, whatever you did. :)

Autumn at The Garden Market

Gail's shop looks especially good right now. I thought I'd share some pictures with you.

















We got some mums in; we'll be getting lots more next week.



I hope you all are having a good weekend!

EightYearsAgo

We need to remember for so many reasons...

ViewFromFrontPorch

Help - I can't enter a title for my post without it translating into arabic when I hit the space bar! How do I get rid of this? And when I logged on this morning, my time stamp was in the wrong time zone. Wonder if I have a virus of some sort?

Anyway, here's what I wanted to post - a picture of the view from my front porch yesterday morning. The weather is beautiful right now! And yes, I mow all that field beyond the bushes by myself on my "monster (lawn) tractor".
Here are Alex and Sarah - Sarah is on the nest and Alex is grooming her.
Here is Cocoa, who is in a smaller cage. I've moved him inside to try to tame him.

Nothing on the job front to report at all; I'm very disappointed and starting to sweat.

Have a good day, whatever you do with it.

Fall Clean Up

I hope everybody is having a nice Labor Day weekend. I had to work after all yesterday so haven't gotten very much done, but I got to stay home today.

I worked out in the yard most of the day. I wanted to paint, but the yard called me so out I went. I did some hard pruning of some shrubs I allowed to get too tall. It looks much tidier now. I also got the front yard mowed.
I don't know what's wrong with my cherry tree; it's dropped most of its leaves. I hope it doesn't die.

I moved my American flag to a post on the far side of the driveway. Water had collected behind the holder and rotted a piece of my porch post off :( The post the flag is on now was intended to hold a large decorative birdfeeder, but I haven't re-built a new roof for it yet. It's only been in the garage waiting for nine years... I need to paint this post white.
I wanted to make one or two wood sunflowers but didn't get to it. I did put out the wood pumpkins that Alissa and I made last year.
I planted a variety of sweet potato vine next to them. These plants grow as fast as kudzoo and will look nice in a couple of weeks. They are annuals and will be ruined with the first frost but Gail was throwing them away since it's the end of the season and I wanted to see if the deer will eat them. If the deer leave them alone, I'll be planting them all over next spring!

My arbor is looking great with three different vines growing up it. I planted jasimine but have some volunteer black eyed susan vine, as well as some hummingbird vine.

And remember the new bed I put in earlier this year? Well look at it now...

The weekend is over for me. I'm expecting calls from a couple of agencies this week about some temp jobs, so keep your fingers crossed for me. In the mean time, I'm thankful for being able to work at Gail's store.

I hope you all have a nice day tomorrow - stay safe!

Happy Weekend

Yipee - it's Friday and I have this weekend off! I still work at Gail's shop on Monday but it feels great to have the weekend off.

There are so many projects I want to work on outside now that it's a little cooler. I finally bought supplies to build a cage for Coco - the young dove. I read that unless you have mated pairs, they can't be housed together, so it will be a large cage and not an aviary after all.

And I'm in the autumn mood so much that I want to make some wood cut out sunflowers to go with the pumpkins I made last fall. Plus, all I've been thinking about this week is painting some little pumpkin scenes. So many things to do...I get so energized after the heat of summer starts leaving.

You remember how I've been trying to keep the weeds at bay in my front yard? Well, I've neglected the back yard, which is much smaller. The wild morning glories have covered the fence and some plants. Here is my beauty berry bush, which is so heavy with berries that it's weighted down to the ground.

Being covered with morning glory doesn't help...

Here's a picture of my "hummbrella". My patio umbrella was broken in a storm last summer so I removed the fabric and wired the broken spines together so that my hummingbird (cypress) vine could cover it. This is several vines; I didn't pull the seedlings as they came up and just let them run rampant. They've covered the entire bed and fence. If you plant just one, it's more tame looking but will still get quite large.



I hope you all enjoy a nice weekend and get to do something fun! I'm off to clean my friend's house and then home to start having some fun of my own.