Roses

This spring, we started a new flower bed and put some knockout roses in.  This picture has a couple of the roses and a few annuals.
The next picture shows the same view, today.

I am amazed at how much they have grown. 

urban dictionary

I was told I should look at urban dictionary because there are things I don't know.  Well.  I looked it at today.  It suggested I look at my city.  Lacking a city, I looked up my town according to the post office.  Not there, didn't want to define it.
So I looked at the county seat:  oh yeah: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Huntingdon%2C+TN

dot com

I got a phone call from somebody claiming to be "elder care" for helping people decide which company would be best to provide medicare supplements.
I asked who paid for the program.
She said Blue Cross, AARP, etc.,
So I still did not have any confidence in that call.
I asked if they had a website.  She said they are working on it and when it's finished it will be blah-blah dot com.
That was what I had been trying to figure out.  It wasn't dot org or dot gov or even dot edu. 
Not interested.  Thanks

Nonfiction is not necessarily true.

Nonfiction is not necessarily true.  When I was young, I flipped off a light switch and a loud clap of thunder happened.  Well, I stood there flipping the light switch on and off trying to make it happen again.  So two observations do not necessarily have anything to do with each other.
When I see that experts do not agree with each other, it frees me up to decide what I think...some expert out there probably believes the same thing.
So if somebody believes that people cause global warming, it doesn't mean they are trying to make a buck off of it.  The person may sincerely believe he is right and that, therefore, the right thing to do is combat it, only incidentally making a tidy little profit.  Neither view makes him right or wrong as the facts are what they are and we do not always see the correct connections.  It is up to us to do what we think is best without delegating our thinking to some expert.

Roasted Peppers

Today I added the roasted jalapeno peppers, diced, to cream cheese and smeared it on a ham and cheese roll-up.  That was my plan when I roasted the peppers.  The peppers were too mild after roasting and adding to the cream cheese.  I may have been too stingy with the peppers, but with jalapeno peppers, better safe than sorry.

Saving Seeds

When you save seeds for starts for the next season, make sure that they will actually grow from seeds.  Hybrids will make seeds, but they are usually sterile.  Also, make sure that you have no moisture in the container you use to store the seeds or they will mold.
It's easier to just deadhead the flowers you want the seeds from and toss them where you want the plants next season.  They won't germinate as fast as if you start them inside or in a greenhouse, but it is easier.  It's kind of messy-looking, though.

Tree Man

Larry bought the eyes, nose, and mouth.  I was curious about what he would do with them because he won't put a nail in a tree.  He made the background for it, stained and varnished it, attached the features, and put the whole thing up with wooden pegs. 

Roasted Peppers

I had a jalapeno pepper off the grill a long time ago and thought it was one of the absolute best things I'd ever stuck in my mouth.  For some reason the grilling took the pain out of the heat and just left a wonderful flavor with some spiciness.  So this year I decided I would roast some peppers in the oven.  Then I was going to mix roasted peppers with cream cheese, spread it on a ham and cheese roll-up.
Putting them under the broiler was quick and easy.  Letting them steam as they cooled so the skins would come out wasn't hard.  Peeling them and taking the seeds out wasn't hard but it wasn't fast.  I'm a fan of fast.  Well, it took three different sessions (three sets of disposable gloves, too) to finish skinning and seeding them.  Then I froze them on a cookie sheet.  When I bagged them up, it was such a small amount, I couldn't rake up any enthusiasm for using them up so soon.  I should keep them a while.
Whoever heard of becoming emotionally attached to roasted peppers?  What about my cream cheese, pepper, ham and cheese roll-ups? I think I'll mince a fresh jalapeno, mix it with the cream cheese and try that.  I'll keep my trophy roasted peppers awhile.

Book Review

God, No!: Signs You May Already be an Atheist ...by Penn Jillette
OK.  I get that he is a magician and humorist.  I am pretty sure I shouldn't review a book I quit reading after chapter three.  But here it is:
"A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."  So Shakespeare already said that...about something else.  But he said it so well.
If a person says, "F*ck you, God!" that does not imply that he doesn't believe in God.  It means he is angry with God.  If he is angry with something that does not exist, that isn't the least bit logical. Showing defiance, disrespect, anger towards something that does not exist pretty much disproves his premise.  It doesn't imply that there is or isn't a God; it implies that he believes there is one.  That's why I stopped reading it.

Greenhouse

My new starter trays arrived.  Lee Valley calls them deep root cells.  They aren't as deep as the ones I'd gotten from them last time.  I've been filling them with potting soil in preparation for my cuttings for next spring.  I will save a few for starting seeds in February.  The white powdery stuff is diatomaceous earth.  I have seen slugs and want to make sure they don't survive if I bring some in with my cuttings.  What you see is two of those trays.  I bought fifteen of them to go with the ones I already have.

Bio Bags for Compost Pail

I bought a stainless steel compost pail and bio bags so my husband wouldn't have to keep buying ice cream by the gallon to get the plastic tubs for holding kitchen waste.  I was about out of the bio bags and instead of buying more, I decided to try the brown paper lunch bags that come about 50 to a pack and are cheap.  Well, they are biodegradable, too.  I don't just pick up the bag to take it to the compost bin, but I didn't the bio bags, either.  Both are wet between the bag and the pail.  But without a bag, tomato skins, etc., stick onto the pail and are really hard to clean off.  With a bag, it is easy to just rinse out the pail.

Drive Slowly

Yesterday a couple of horses got out.  We don't have any horses, but our neighbors do.  I didn't know for sure whose horses they were, but it was dangerous.  People know to drive slowly in Yellowstone because of buffalo and other wild animals.  But cows, horses, deer, and dogs are also dangerous on country roads.

Harry Dresden Series

I really like the Harry Dresden Series by Jim Butcher.  But if you ever decide you've been a bad person and should be punished, I suggest you read them out of order.  I am.  Not on purpose, but still.

Great Quote

I was watching a garden show on tv last night and this quote showed up: If you have a garden and a library, you have everything.
I couldn't remember the author so I looked it up.  http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/13755.Marcus_Tullius_Cicero 
The goodreads link has a number of excellent quotes from Cicero.  I just may have to learn more.

Multi-tasking

Multi-tasking allows me to mess up more than one thing at a time.

Fairy Ring

Only part of the fairy ring shows up from my porch, but I saw somebody stop her car, get out, and go into the fairy ring to make a wish:)

praying mantis feeding

We have both green and brown praying mantis.  I looked it up and it is camouflage...the green ones are in a wet environment and the brown ones in dry. The female may eat the male when mating if she is hungry.  We have seen them mating, but evidently she had already eaten. When I published this post, a link to "female eating disorder" appeared:)

Greenhouse

We have been working on getting the greenhouse ready to winter over some cuttings and start seeds.  It is almost ready.,,one more tray will finish the trays...and one more shelf will finish the new shelves.  I've painted the storage shelves with exterior gray.  It isn't gorgeous, but it is cleaner than it was, plus we already had some.  I want to paint the other side's storage shelf (it's already been scrubbed and wiped down with Clorox).  Then all I have to do is find more liners for the baskets so I can dump this year's flowers and start next year's so they will already be in the baskets in the spring.  It is hard to dump them before a killing frost, but if I don't, it's such a pain to do it all at once in awful weather.  I think I'll be ready to put plants in by October. 
It's nice to go out to the greenhouse when the weather is awful and be surrounded by plants while I have my coffee.

Lucky

I see forwards that say if I do this so many times I will have something good happen to me or I'll be lucky.  I have to say, I feel that I am extremely fortunate every day.  I could have more money, sure.  I could be surrounded by my family and friends.  But I manage to get by with the money I have.  My family and friends aren't within walking distance, but they are within email or phone reach.  They are doing what they've chosen to do.  What more, really, can we ask, but to do what we've chosen to do?  Is there some other form of happiness I've missed? 

Flower Boxes

These flower boxes are on the southern exposure.  The Tumbling Tom tomatoes have exceeded my expectations.  They are covered with yellow blooms and green tomatoes.  As they ripen, I pick them so they don't make a wonderful showing; but I'm quite satisfied with the lush greenery.  What does not show is a bunch of strawberries.  The runners are twined with the tomatoes.  I plan to save the strawberries, but it will be interesting separating them.

The flower box on the front left is the one that fell off when we had so much rain.  Compared to the flower box to the right of it, it is pretty damaged, but a lot of it survived the fall.

Decisions

Some decisions are not very important ones, but still have to be made.  Throwing things away is an example of an annoying decision.  The season is changing so at this point I would normally change out my clothing from hot weather to cool weather.  But this year it is even worse because typically I am looking for casual clothes for cool weather as well as work clothes.  But I've retired and really only need a couple of nice outfits just in case.  So what do I do about the nice things I have been using but don't really expect to need?  Well, if they are huge, I can toss them.  If they are stained, stretched, whatever, I can toss them.  I still need to decide what to do with stuff.  I went through four sterilite tubs today.  One was easy.  It didn't have my stuff in it.  However, I'm making progress.

Atkins Diet

This is an amazing recipe.  It's Muffin in a Minute.  I got it from the Atkins website.  It uses a fourth cup flax meal, an egg, a tsp butter, splenda, cinnamon, and a tsp baking powder.  It goes in a cup for one minute in a microwave.  It is very filling when coated with cream cheese.  It's healthy, easy, and it's filling.  It isn't delicious but with the other three things going for it, I've had it three times now and will continue to consider it a quick, filling snack.

Plaque

The school board presented this plaque to me this evening.

The presenter said nice things and ended it with, "And on a personal note, you taught both of my kids, and they love you."

Suicidal Flower Box

Last night we had 2 and 5/8 inches rain.  This flower box couldn't take it any more and jumped.

The Help

Today I saw The Help.  I had read the book and liked it.  I remember those times and it was a lot like it was portrayed in the book.  Oddly enough, one of the things that bothered me was the dialect.  It was right in the book which means the author got it right, but many times hearing actors trying to get a Southern dialect right is just annoying.  These actors did a good job with the black and white southern speech.  The movie and book were both well done.

Art Room

I've worked several hours for the last three days cleaning up my art room.  It took a while to clean out my car, but most of the stuff went in the art room.  Now I've thrown away stuff, given stuff away, gone through and separated stuff into what should be in my office and what should stay in my art room.  It looks much better.  Hopefully I will be able to actually do some artwork soon.

The Barge

A long time ago a bunch of us enjoyed going to the barge on the Rhine.  After a while the barge didn't survive a flood or storm or both and we went to the Rhine Cafe after work on Friday.  A bunch of people would join us there and it lasted different lengths of time for different ones of us.  But it was relaxing and fun.
Today we went to a barge on the Tennessee River.  We enjoyed the food and location.  I wish we'd had a big crowd of our friends there, too.

To Do List

It is necessary to have a "To Do" list.  I enjoy not doing anything so much more when there is something I have planned to do.  I can also get a good bit done if more than one thing is on my list...because there is always something I don't want to do to the point that I'll do something else on the list to keep from doing THAT.

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds are busy little birds.  We have a good many.  They dash around and frequently investigate things with bright colors.  Once one hovered over a yellow fly swatter daintily dipping its bill in the little holes made by the cross-hatching.  Last Saturday one zipped through a visiting friend's car's open windows.  Today one flew into the storm door and collapsed to the floor.  I took a picture of it on the floor of the porch with my phone.  My phone isn't as easy to transfer the picture as my digital camera.  So as I stepped around it to go in the murderous storm door to get my camera, the stunned hummingbird swooped away.

Frogs and Flowers

I guess it may be a toad instead of a frog, but I think it is a tree frog not a tree toad.  Anyway, it is in a pretty good place to feed.  The begonias and dichondra are doing well even though a wind went through and pruned some of the begonias.

Clean Out

I cleaned out my car today.  I took the stuff in that was the last load I'd brought home from school.  My trunk was pretty full and the back seat, too.  All I did was take it in and pile it in my art room, so I'm not finished putting things away.  But at least it was cool enough that I didn't hate doing it.  I've given a lot of stuff away.  I'm going to have to give more away or something.  But it's out of my car:)  Finally.

Good Neighbors

I was walking toward my car in a large parking lot.  I always keep an eye out for men or groups that might be too close to me.  There was a large guy pretty close by heading toward my car, too.  Well, it turned out his car was parked in front of mine.  I waited for a car to pass and started to back up.  The guy I'd been keeping an eye on honked loudly and pointed at me.  I stopped and looked behind me.  I was about to back into a truck that was backing out of his space at the same time!  I'm glad he was aware of his surroundings, too.

Misunderstood

Today we went to Lowe's to buy a new grill that was on sale.  While they were getting one from the back, Larry led me around to several rakes.  I made sounds.  He gave encouraging comments, "That would get a lot of leaves," etc.  I remained noncommittal.  Finally he said that since I didn't like our rakes, he was showing me different ones.  I told him I like our rakes just fine; I don't like to rake. 

Walking Stick

This walking stick is in the back of the gator.

Labor Day

Today I had French toast(low-carb wheat bread) with sugar-free strawberry preserves and orange-flavored crystal light for breakfast.  Notice, no Kindle:(

Then for lunch we had canned green beans from our garden, squash from the garden fresh, a roast cooked on the grill, tomatoes and onions vinaigrette (tomatoes from our garden).  It was a nice holiday meal and totally low carb.

Larry's Kindle is fine.  He offered to let me use it.  He said I won't last ten minutes without it.  Not true.  I remember how to live without a Kindle.  I don't like it very much.  Amazon said the refurbished one I'm getting will get here either Friday at the earliest or Tuesday at the latest.  I was pretty pleased that I managed to get free standard shipping instead of paying more for quicker delivery.  I got a replacement like the one I have because the DX uses Sprint which gives me better reception here than the AT&T that the newer generations use.  I'll probably end up with that eventually and just move things via USB from my computer.

Kindle

My beloved Kindle has lost its mind.  The cursor wanders at will and doesn't allow me to select anything.  So apparently the toggle button is defunct.  I hadn't dropped it in the tub or done anything to make it stop working.  I'm really unhappy.  The insulation on the cable expired one day and my Kindle the next:(

Flowers

Today was a busy day.  I hired a kid to finish putting out the mulch, dig up day lilies, dig out some forsythia, chop off weeds in the flower strip beside the road, etc.  Next time I want him to dig out more day lilies, irises, and monkey grass.  The big clumps need to be separated.  I couldn't get the shovel to go into the ground.  A fourteen-year old Amish boy is pretty strong.  His brother weed-whacked.  Lots got done.  I spray fertilized all the flower beds on the ground today and plan to get the ones in the baskets and planters tomorrow. 
The boy said he wished their flowers looked like mine.  I've seen their flowers.  Larry suggested putting the two little ones out to water them as they would enjoy playing in the water and the flowers would get good and wet often.  Also, the little ones would not forget to water them because they'd want to play in the water every day.  I think it is a really good idea.
Maybe it will rain tomorrow.

Kindle

I am a fan of Kindle.  I use it every day.  I bought my husband one, and he loves his, too.
But.  My cord cracked.  Then it disintegrated all around the crack.  I unplugged it and the other end had done the same thing.  I accused my husband of abusing the cable, but then I went online to buy another where I read a bunch of reviews from people who had the same problem.  I also read that if your phone cord will fit the kindle, it works.  I wasn't interested in buying another faulty cord.
I was disappointed that such a wonderful product had such a sorry cable.  Now it is old, but not old enough to have problems with the insulation on the cable.

Hummingbird Feeder

So, is it waiting for a bug or a hummingbird?  The hummingbirds don't seem to want to go near him.