~FLOWERS~

I have worked harder than usual in my yard this year for reasons that I can't explain.  Perhaps it is because Steve keeps threatening me that we are going to sell our house and move to a condo where all the yard work is done for us.  He has never caught on to the concept that "you can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl".  I like to dig in the dirt, get my hands dirty and then wait to see what grows! ( or doesn't )

I water, oh how I water.  City boy does not understand why I water so much...He thinks that if you water once every few days " a little" it will be enough.  Not being raised raising things I can sort of see how he would think this but, I think that it is more a $$ thing for him.  He has to pay for my watering  things :)  See for Steve it is never a matter of  "Stop and smell the ROSES" it is all about how much did it cost to get them to bloom!                 ANYWAY...

I went out last night at just the right light and took some pictures of a few of my flowers.  For all of you that love them as much as I do I think you will enjoy the pictures.  I even got the Spanish Lavender to bloom twice this year!  I am working now on my hydrangea .  If I can get them to make it through the winter I will be SO excited!!!  My neighbor has one that made it so I know that I can too. I have been wanting to grow those for SO long.   It is in the ground now and it takes two years for it to establish and bloom. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

~IT MUST BY SPRING~

Sorry, my pictures didn't stay.  I will post them again soon.  I really did have a picture of my bench and the garage floor. They just disappeared!

 I saw my first yellow butterfly yesterday!  Spring IS really here.  I immediately started thinking about all the things I wanted to do when the weather was warm enough ( is 46 degrees warm enough).  Today it is supposed to be in the seventies!  AMAZING. I may play outside all day.


I started off the warm weather "get 'er done" phase by painting my poor 'ol bench.  It has been purple for the last couple of years so, I changed it to yellow this year.  I think that butterfly had something to do with my color choice.

Last night when I got home from work I looked at my garage and knew that it was time to do a little cleaning in there too.  I filled up a five gallon bucket of soapy water and threw it all over the floor and scrubbed.  Steve and I could have eaten dinner on the garage floor last night!  I didn't want to pull the cars in...No, we didn't eat dinner out there and yes, I did pull the cars in. The cars did leave some tire marks on the floor ( breath Joey breath) but, I did wipe them up with some cleaning wipes after they were both in :)

Today I am not sure what my choices will be.  The day promises to be gorgeous so the possibilities are endless. If I can stay focused I may try and do some much needed yard work, if not, well I'll take pictures and post my adventures!

~ :) ~

              This made me feel better about today.

~HAWAII 2013~

I think that the thing I love the most about Hawaii ( besides the ocean) are the flowers.  I am pretty sure that it is mostly because we go over when the snow covers the ground here and we haven't seen anything colorful for months.  It still amazes me that even the weeds are beautiful there. That everything grows bigger, brighter and better. My dad would go nuts over the soil! Such a rich brown, no worries of frost and NO irrigating! The Lord takes care of that at about 4:00 everyday.

,

We decided to ditch our comfort zones and try the new Zip lines up near Hilo one of the days that we were there. I have always LOVED jumping off stuff so this was right up my alley. It was great fun. Ann was SO brave. Jumping off stuff is NOT something that she loves, in fact,  she doesn't even LIKE it but, she did it, 9 times, over gorges,  waterfalls, treetops and cliffs! What a trooper! When we were done she even admitted that it was fun and that she would do it again!

The rest of our vacation was spent soaking up the sunshine at all of our favorite beaches. We were lucky to get into some of them before they closed them to work on the roads...The roads to them are four wheel drive roads but, usually you can make it in with a "rental" :)

Sure do wish we could have stayed longer but, real life tends to tap us all on the shoulder at some point and makes us return to reality so, tomorrow it is back to the OR for me and back to work for Steve.  All good things must come to an end.  Hopefully, we can return again next year and add to our list entitled "Out of our comfort zone" because not only does it make life interesting, it makes us "feel" young again and gives us great memories to talk about for a long, long time!

~FLOWERS and DRESS-UPS~

Steve had flowers delivered to my work for our anniversary.  He does it every year. It is the only time I will let him give me flowers because, I just HATE to watch the week long process of them shriveling up. I always feel like I should be doing something more to try and save them... There is this flower shop in The Riverwoods called the Veranda that does the most unique and beautiful arrangements and they actually last a pretty long time compared to most!  He is so thoughtful to always send them and I really do love them. I just wish I could keep them from dying.

Mostly, I love that he remembers every year! It is getting harder and harder for both of us :)

I threw in a couple pictures of Charly because she came to visit while my camera was out. She loves to play with the dress-ups.  Not so much the dresses but all the accessories. She will put on every bracelet, crown, and necklace she can find.  

I remember dressing up when I was little.  I remember dressing my little brothers up too. Bruce was always a fairly willing victim, Shane, not so much. So many times Bruce turned into my little "sister"

I still love him for that. There were just times that I needed a little "sister"!

~REMEMBERING IS HARD WORK~

So, I decided that I would try out that supplement everyone has been talking about that helps you focus and stay "clued in" better.  I thought that it might give me a slight chance of keeping myself from going completely crazy... I read the directions carefully to make sure that I would reap the full benefits of this AMAZING "natural" substance and took the first bullet sized tablet. I then laid the other three out for me to take to work so that I could take them during the day as the instructions had indicated.  I continued to get ready for work thinking that as the day went by I would surely feel like a new woman. What a relief knowing that I wasn't going to be so forgetful and scatter brained  anymore. Every one that I have talked to love the stuff and say that it has really helped them.  I am really excited...Except:

A.  I forgot to take the other three with me to work...

B.  For the last three days... and

C.  So far,  it is not working on only one, tablet a day :) 

Truly pathetic!

~LOVE THIS~