casual fridays

casual fridays are a two-edged sword. it's nice to be able to wear jeans, but it isn't always nice to see some other people in theirs....i don't think the public always appreciates seeing the tramp stamps and whale-tails "casually" running around the office, either.

i didn't care much for maxine when she first appeared years ago.

but now that i am that much older i am REALLY starting to relate to her!!

have a wonderful holiday weekend. maxine will be back with a comment on labor day....be well.....evie

before the fall

it's going to top out at 85 degrees today but there are signs of fall's approach.
in the last 10 days or so i've seen starlings and blackbirds starting to flock up and line up on the wires in the country. the crickets are extremely loud! (did you know that you can tell the outdoor temp by adding up a cricket's chirps over 14 seconds and adding 37 to it?)
there is a distinctive feel in the evening air.
i have zucchini the size of torpedoes as i can't give any more away!
tomatoes are ready but i'm not! still have tons of salsa from last year. at least i didn't plant 20+ plants like i did in 2006--i like romas for salsa--they're the meatiest, fewer seeds and juice.

the brown-eyed susies are also in their glory right now. when the dominant colors in my gardens turn to the warm hues of yellows and golds i know fall is on the way. summer is never long enough for me.

do you look this good in your jean jacket??

some of us can just throw on any old thing and look smashing!!

rear view

keeping an eye on his kingdom. i bet he's wishing that more people would leave comments on his mom's blog....sniff, sniff.....

cosmo-politan

if you are in need of an easy to grow, fills in empty spots well, blooms like crazy, goes till the frost annual, the cosmos is for you! it grows readily from seed, comes is several colors and petal designs, several heights, and is very forgiving. it just grows and grows. the foliage is very lacy, and it's a fantastic cut flower as well. vow to plant some next spring, you won't be disappointed. "sonata" and "seashell" are two of my favorites. oh yeah, the bees adore them too...

the front yard

this is what my front yard looks like--well, half of it anyway. the other half is grass. but this half is way nicer! i can sit on the porch, sip whatever, and look out over all my flowers. i created this garden last summer when i was on hiatus from working. i couldn't have done it without patrick's help. the garden is 2 levels; can't see that anymore as it's so grown up. the porch is also the perfect spot to watch the moon come up as it faces south. i love having a porch! i think there should be a law that every house must have a porch. it is impossible not to relax when sitting on a porch...

meet brodie

meet brodie, our 3 year old west highland white terrier. he is a fantastic dog. he is spoiled. i fell in love with him the minute i saw him at the breeder, who happened to live in marinette about 5 blocks from our house. the day i bought him i drove home with him in my lap. he was serene. "what a great puppy", i thought. then i felt a warmth spreading across my crotch and i thought i wet my pants with excitement--but no, it was him, just letting me know he had bladder control work to do....

do you believe?

i have a section of iron fence in my front garden. that is where this plaque is displayed. it's near the front sidewalk. one evening i was out pulling weeds and must have been looking pooped. a neighborhood family was biking down the street and as they passed the dad said, "Why don't you make the fairies do that?'

celeste

meet celeste. i named her that when i got her and she has graced my garden for about 20 years.
celeste has a story. my mom was always kind of partial to her. she'd always make a stop to see celeste out in the garden when she was at our house. during the winter she'd ask me what i did with celeste during the cold months, and when we were moving from appleton to marinette mom was very concerned about celeste moving with us. i always thought it was cute. in 2001 mom was sick with the lymphoma that would very shortly kill her. sister gina and i were at mom's house, and we were talking about funerals, cremation, cemeteries, etc. one of us asked mom where she would like to be buried--meaning, locally at forest home with dad or back in chicago with her parents. (she had already made it clear to us that she wanted to be cremated.) "well, she said, i'd really like to be buried in evie's garden near celeste."
my jaw dropped. i actually thought i had misheard what she said. finally, i managed a "that's fine, mom, it is your choice, but why my garden??"
she went on to tell us that in between the births of brothers joseph and kim, she had a miscarriage. this we already knew, although she never talked about it. apparently she was far enough along in the pregnancy to know that she had carried a baby girl and she had named her celeste. so my little garden statue had always reminded her of her little celeste that never had a chance to be a real little girl in the world and a member of our family. at the time i was pretty blown away and more than a little spooked by her story, but i have come to regard it as a little pearl of a parting gift that mom chose to share. celeste would have been my older sister, 4 or 5 years older than me. i wish i would have had the chance to know her.

monday, monday

my favorite working stiff cartoon. 'nuff said....

my first blue ribbon ever!!

had to share this dorky photo with you all. in june i entered the creation you see on the right in a garden art contest for our master gardener garden fair. it is a metal bustier that i found at tj maxx(my favorite store). it is hollow so i did all kinds of things to it involving stuff like dental floss, landscape fabric, cow manure (composted of course), sweat, a few choice words, and i came up with a winner. she has flowers overflowing from her bosom and a skirt of flowering vines growing from her hips. just for fun i measured her waist when i was working on her. i couldn't believe it--19"--just like scarlett! (and myself--ha). so she became "scarlett o'hara's dress form". i displayed her with a tape measure around her waist and a photo of a scene from the movie--the one where mammy is pulling onscarlett's corset strings before the big barbecue at twelve oaks plantation. all the entries were displayed in the herb gardens at the harmony arboretum and the fair goers cast ballots for the winners. it was the first blue ribbon ever for me. the family had me pose for this pic--i look a fright as i sweated out there all day wearing my chic aussie anti cancer/heatstroke chapeau. the pink petunias were my prize. i hate petunias. almost as much as i hate glads. glads remind me of funerals. petunias are just sticky, leggy, and smell bad. it was a fun day! i also gave tetanus shots at the fair and met some fascinating people. i hooked up with some nice folks from the valley who are giving me pointers for our trip to ireland next may. you never know what your day will bring you. ps--dennis, bless his heart, helped me haul this creation and set it up so the strong winds out at the arboretum wouldn't tip scarlett over.

saturday morning

it is saturday morning and i am alone in the house. except for brodie, of course. dennis is working today, doing his dialysis nurse thing and calculating his overtime as it has been a very busy time for him. for his sake i will be so glad when the new clinical manager is on board. he wants to go back to being a worker bee. which is a very good thing to be in the grand scheme of things when you really think about it.
as i sat sipping coffee and enjoying the prospect of a day with no commitments of my time, i recalled thursday night, lying awake worrying about my children. i gave them all equal time, of course, but what got me started was molly. she had put in her first evening at her new job as a nurse's aide at a brand new assisted living center in bellevue, about 10 miles from her new e-partment : ) (that was her toddler word for grama's apt. and we all tease her about it).
i was worrying about whether she had gotten home ok, etc etc etc....all the while telling myself that her safety is out of my hands. after awhile of this nonproductive toss 'n turn, i got up to collect myself and settle down. had some tea (white, my new favorite) and got to thinking about parenthood, motherhood, and from there went to my books. i read some thing that helped me put everything back into perspective. it's a section from" the prophet".
it's a favorite and to me puts a healthy child/parent relationship into crystal clarity.
after reading it again, finishing my tea, i curled up into my usual fetal position and easily drifted off...and here it is:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life longing for itself.
They come not from you but through you,
And though they are with you, they belong not to you.
You may give them your love, but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children, as living arrows, are sent forth.
The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with all His might so that His arrows may go swift and far.
So let your bending in the Archer's hand be with gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

What did I tell ya? Happy weekend. Be well.

funny girl

aren't daisies just the audrey hepburn of the flower world? charming, simple, but still sophisticated.
they are in my top 10 favorite perennials.
to make my top 10 a flower has to be long-lived, attractive to insects, pretty to look at, easy to maintain, and tough enough to bounce back every spring. oh--and not yellow and red as that is ketchup and mustard to me and i can't stand that color combination.

painted ladies invasion

the last week of july i had a daily horde of painted ladies enjoying the coneflowers along the driveway garden. there were usually 6-8 of them at any given time, in the heat of the day, moving lazily from flower to flower. you can barely make it out on the upper right of this photo. i do need a new camera....anyway, i've had a ton of at least 5 different kinds of butterflies almost every day, nectaring and socializing. weightless grace and beauty.

a small validation?

after work today i sat in mickey's drive-thru line, getting a cafe to go with me to my library board meeting, where i serve as secretary. we are in the midst of a huge renovation of the public library in town here, but that's a different story.
i look at the parking spaces nearby and spy a little beagle, looks just like snoopy, being tended by its' owner. as i watch, enthralled, the owner whisks out what can only be a baby butt wipe from the glovebox and proceeds to gently, tenderly wipe snoopy's hinder before lovingly picking him up and putting him in the backseat of his car. aha, i think. i can't wait to tell my kids about this little slice of life; they tease me mercilessly about treating brodie like a baby and doing similar things for him. this means one of two things: i am not crazy-- there are other people out there who are canine hygiene literate, or i am crazy-- because now i notice that the guy drives a brand new sleek black audi, and maybe really cares more about the dead cow hinder that covers the interior of his car than he does about snoopy's. i guess we'll never know....tgif tomorrow

no more evied@squarespace

oops, forgot to read the fine print re the monthly fee to blog on squarespace.com.
$7 a month? i think not! so here i am, a convert to blogspot.com.
it's early evening, a lovely one, and we just finished supper on the patio--grilled chicken and sweet corn, fresh strawberry salad...wonderful but for the insistent begging of the dog, brodie.
who taught him to do that???
dennis made the comment during supper, "well, here we are, empty nesting it", but not really with the whining 3 year old wearing the westie costume!!
but he's a wonderful boy, and we are going to walk him at red arrow beach tonite.
greetings and i hope you saw last weekend's meteor showers! magic.