PHILLY

The Liberty Bell.

Lots of eating, of course

These photos were taken at Valley Forge in Washington's Chapel.  It was a beautiful building.  The craftsmanship is incredible.

Replica buildings of the cabins the soldiers built to spend the winter in. More soldiers died that winter of hunger, disease, and exposure than died in battle.

And, now I have become irritated by trying to place pictures.  ;-)  More later

GARDEN UPDATE

 Because Heaven only knows when Denise might decide to blog anything again, I had to put a pick of little Kenny on the blog.  He is the sweetest little thing ever.  Poor baby has a broken pelvis (and a mean mommy), so he isn't incredibly mobile.  He do enjoy his bottle though, he really do!

 She has also acquired one of the ugliest dogs I have ever seen.  He is in the same category as a Cabbage Patch Kid, so ugly he is cute.  Hi Noozle!

 My veggies are coming along very nicely.  This is my very first little jalapeno.  Not sure what I will do with it, but whatever it is Rick will enjoy it without me.  I never have developed a taste for spicy.

This one is my green pepper.  He has a few friends hanging out with him now, so I might actually have to start cooking so I can use them for something.

 We planted 3 tomato plants, and probably have a dozen tomatoes in various stages of growth now.

 Here is my first little guy that I plan to ingest tomorrow. :-)

 I put in a red pepper too.  He is looking very pretty.  Almost good enough to eat!

 I also planted 3 zucchini, I guess because I lost my mind, so if you start receiving boxes of them in the mail, don't be surprised.

Lastly, I have been waiting to use my new hedge trimmer until my Texas Sage bloomed.  I love this hedge so much.  It does this several times over the warmer months.  This is the first time this spring that it has bloomed.  It smells soooooo good.  The blooms only last about a week and I have trimmed it since taking this picture.  I can't wait for it to bloom again.

Spring Update

 I thought it might be time for a little spring update.  I was talking with a friend the other day and we were looking at google maps of my house.  You have to go do that before you continue here to get the big picture.  Even though our little ghetto-hood house is nothing to get excited over, after looking at the 'before' picture on google I don't feel as bad about the 'during' pictures here.  It is still a little house in the hood, but it sure is looking more homey these days.

 I have constructed some raised beds in the front and have transplanted the veggies from my hanging garden to the bed.  They were doing great in the hanging garden, but it was becoming a challenge to keep things watered.  This is much easier.

I have lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, a green pepper and a jalapeno here in front along with some asparagus.  Down at the far end you can see the broccoli, which has done fantastic.

Sitting on my porch looking out, this is the view of the yard.  You can see the tree stump from the cottonwood we cut down, and then behind it my baby willow acacia that I paid $4.50 for last fall.  It is doing fantastic and I hope to have a good size tree there soon.

 Along the front fence the red bush is a bottle brush.  There are 2 of them that are in bloom right now and they are so pretty.  The taller green spikey thing is called ocotillo.  I love these.  They get a really pretty orange flower on the tops of the spines a couple of times a year.  We bought one a couple of years ago at Home Depot, but it died.  A neighbor gave us this one and it is doing awesome.

 Here is my cute little baby orange tree.   I am quite tickled with it.  I'm sure the landscaping looks really freaky to everyone, but it really is quite cute.  Desert landscape takes a lot of getting used to  but I am finally there and quite happy with dirt, rocks, deadwood and such.

Here is a close-up of my little tiny oranges.  I will, of course, be pinching them off for a couple of years to let the growth go to the tree.  Eventually I hope to have oranges for everyone!




I lost track of my boy dog a couple of days ago.  I had let him out in the front yard, which we don't do very often.  Usually he patrols in the perimeter in the shrubbery but I couldn't see him anywhere.

It took me a while to see him, but right in front of my nose laying on the black weed block I found my boy.

 

Losing my girl dog is rarely and issue as she is pretty content to sit on the chair next to me.

 I have been shopping around for a little piece of furniture to put inside the front door where Rick can store his 'property' and allow me to reclaim the kitchen table.  I had been hoping to find something with a couple of drawers for him to stash his stuff, but I hadn't been able to commit to anything yet.

The furniture store where be bought our bedroom furniture was having a customer appreciation night last week, so we wandered in to check things out.  I found this secretary that matches the bedroom and fell in love.

It cost me a little more than I was wanting to spend, but it is
really nice and probably worth the money.

I also won a $50.00 gift card to TGI Frinday's

in a drawing that night, so with the 10% customer appreciation discount and

the gift card I saved $100.00.  Then, the delivery

was messed up and it didn't get on the truck

the day it was supposed to come, so Rick

negotiated a new delivery date and no delivery fee.

Another $90.00 that didn't come out of pocket!

Now if we could get the living room redo done, it would have a nice place to live.

My Garden

 I had to take a minute to show off my pretty broccoli plants.  I am just days away from harvesting my first 3 heads.  It really is lovely.

  For some reason the radishes really didn't fatten up.  Not sure what that is all about, but my carrots and onions appear to be coming along.  I realized right after my zucchini plant froze that the reason none of the blossoms ever set was because I needed 2 plants for them to pollinate, so today I went over to Lowes and got a couple.  Hopefully I will soon be giving zucchini to the neighbors.

So, a couple of weeks ago out of nowhere I was hit with a full blown spring allergy attack. I know what you are thinking, "SPRING!##%#@??!" "Where the heck on the planet is someone experiencing spring?" Crazy, isn't it? It was so bad that I hustled myself over to urgent care for a kenalog shot. It is amazing how quick it dries up the nose and relieves the itchy eyes, nose, throat, ears, etc. ANYWAY, I was thumbing through a magazine and came up this really neat product for vertical gardening.  I know, you are asking yourself, "what is she talking about? vertical gardening".  Check it out:

http://www.woollypocket.com/wally/wally-one/?gclid=CO_96dqgz6YCFRiAgwodonnhJQ

Well, after doing a little googling around, I found another site that had an idea for a way more reasonably priced method.  Behold my $6.95, on sale at Lowes, vertical garden!

As it turns out, one of those 'over the door' shoe organizers is a WAY cheaper way to try it out.  I have romaine lettuce, spinach and asparagus planted in this one.  Now, I need to figure out a way to keep it watered without relying on my own bad memory.
If I can manage to keep this alive, I need to find a more permanent home, and add a couple more organizers.  Those of you who have nice tall fences might want to give this a try.

THE DREADED COTTONWOOD TREE

This is the cottonwood tree in our backyard that I have hated since the minute we moved in to our house. It is a dirty, nasty tree that drops leaves all year long. In the spring, and by spring I mean any minute now, when the new buds come out it drops this sticky ooze that sticks to your shoes and gets tracked in to the house.  It is covered with bees and I have been stung more than once.

This is that same cottonwood tree as of Sunday afternoon.  Laying on it's side in the yard, dying a slow, well deserved death.

This is the aftermath of the chopping up of the tree.  If you ever need to dispose of a large tree, I have become an expert at getting rid of one with no other device than a pruning shear and weekly garbage pick up.  Let me know if you need to know how it is done.

These, though you can barely see them are the desert trees I am hoping will thrive to replace the shade we just lost.  Two desert willow acacias, and one tree I have no idea what it is.  The desert willows I bought at Lowes last fall for $4.50 a piece and the other one I dug up out of the wash up the street and brought it home and planted it.  The large tree at the far end started as a seed right after we moved in.  We decided to just let it grow, and it has turned in to quite a nice tree. So, for the gigantic price of $9.00 I hope to have 4 trees replacing the 1 that we just killed.  I am cheap.

This is the man who, although he hated to do it, finally gave in and let us cut the dirty thing down.  Notice his slim, svelte figure. 

MUSINGS

Can't sleep tonight.  We are starting HCG tomorrow, so I picked up a couple of hot fudge shakes at Dairy Queen.  As it turns out, I may be lactose intolerant.  I am tired and my eyes feel like they are coated with sandpaper, but the tummy just won't allow me to get comfortable.  Of course that leads to my brain going 100 mph with no where to stop.

It occured to me that it was the waning moments of Jan 1 2011 and it is the first day of the rest of my life.  The years seem to go by faster the older you get, and it is kind of scary.  There is still so much I would like to do, places I would like to go. 

I want to see Boston.  I have been there a couple of times, but never had the time to see the sights.  I want to feel the history. I would like to spend more time in DC and go to Colonial Williamsburg.  I have never been to Mt Rushmore, and I hear that Arkansas is beautiful.  I would like to hike at least part of the Appalachian Trail.  I would love to go to Maine and see New England in the fall.

Thanks to Nate and Angie moving, I have experienced Niagra Falls with the added bonus of Wegman's.

I would like to go to every NASCAR track at least once, and each of the US Virgin Islands.  Oh, and Key West.  And maybe Fiji.

All that, and of course still get rid of all the carpet in my house. Hard floors are colder, but so much easier to keep clean.  All I need it time and money!  LOL

I need to make some space in my yard for a vegetable garden, and maybe some fruit trees.  My little neighbor man has been bringing us oranges, lemons and cilantro that he grows.  He is so cute. I think he is 74ish.  He walks and rides his bike everyday.  The dogs bark at him, but he doesn't mind. He says they are just doing their job, and when we pass him on our walks he always says hello to Whiskey.

I would love to be a stay-at-home grandma and be able to shuttle between grandkids with real quality time to spend with them.  I am so grateful and appreciative of my job, but a girl can dream can't she?

It would be nice to be one of those people like Oprah or Glenn Beck who can roll on 4 hours of sleep every night.  There are books I want to read and so many things to learn. Those would be valuable hours.  Unfortunately, I am more of a 7-8 hour a night gal. 

It's hard to live away from family. You miss out on so much, and there is so much you would like to do with and for people. I hope you all know how much I love you. Please forgive me for my many mistakes and shortcomings. I have a lot of personal work to do.


I'm hoping to have the fortitude to do some of that work in the coming year.  2010 was an interesting year.  I learned some things about myself and the things that are important to me.  I have realized that if I believe the things I say I believe, I need to walk the walk.  Talking is just lip service.  But that is for another time.

Thanks for listening.  I'm going to try that sleep thing again.

A Little Rooooing

OK, so I need to learn how to do this if I am going to record video's.  I am seriously technologically challenged, so this will have to do for now.  Jen, this rooooing video is for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__8e-_UiL-4

I took Cynthia's approach and uploaded to youtube to get it here.  I would love for it not to be a link.  Nate, Angie, instructions?