Twelve Days Old

Well....it's been twelve days and the grass is coming in pretty good where the tree was removed. I plan to leave the little string up for another week so that the mowers don't go over it just yet. It will probably require another seeding of grass soon too....but, so far, so good. It isn't a bare stump at least!

Stump Grinding

Remember back when this happened about a week before Christmas.

Well...yesterday this happened. Stump grinding. Man, the wood chips flew everywhere, but it only took about 25 minutes to get it GONE!!! The guy was super nice, cleaned up the mess pretty much entirely, then re-ground some spots he had missed. Very reasonable. He left me with about 20 of his business cards to pass around. He's got my vote!

And today, after the yard guys had been here and mowed, I dumped 80 pounds of topsoil and 1.5 cubic feet of MiracleGro garden soil in there and planted a bag of grass. Now it's water, water, water and hope it takes hold a little before next Wednesday so it doesn't get sucked up in a mower. I've cordoned it off, so hopefully that will help prevent it's demise.

(Just as a little side note of humor: last evening while at supper with the homeowners' group I mentioned that I'd had my stump ground today. One of the fellas said, "Well, I thought you seemed in a pretty good mood!!!" Hmmmmm.....whatever could he have meant?!?!!?)

Tulips - Tulips - Tulips

What She Said

Yeah...what she said: http://fromchaoscomeshappiness.blogspot.com/2011/04/shutdown-are-you-kidding-me.html Too good not to reference!

It's All Done With Mirrors????

I'm feelin' guilty. I put up a new header yesterday...more experiment than anything...will probably change it before long....but I've already had several emails about how cute the picture of Schiz is. Sorry, folks, it's not Schiz...it's a google picture!!! It really does look like her (and every other Shih Tzu with that coloring), but Schiz is in short coat right now. Too hot for that much hair for her! Here's yesterday's shot of her checking out the new pavers. The header picture will be there for awhile...until I find something I like better.

Outside Activities

For over a week now it's been too windy to bicycle ride (at least for ME to bicycle ride) so I've been trying to do a few things outdoors.

I still haven't given the inside of the fence a second coat of paint...but I did do the outside. And I spent several hours for each of three days digging out all the rock and dirt so that I could lay pavers in the entrance to my patio. I'm barefooted too much to deal with rocks! Still not perfect by a long ways, but suits me fine.

Also I have a LOT of flowers blooming and coming up. I not only have jonquils and hyacinths, but now red tulips and yellow tulips and lots and lots of sprouts that I'm pretty sure are hostas! I love hostas! And of course the knockout roses survived (darnit!) and even the coral bells are beginning to feel a little alive I think.

And the Bradford pear tree is almost done blooming and is getting green now. The lawn guys have mowed twice.... I do believe Spring is here!!!

Today the wind died down quite a bit, but I was kind of committed to other things so I didn't get out and get my bicycle ride. Maybe tomorrow..... or not....listening to the weather forecast. Oh well...we need rain.

Count your blessings!

As I Remember It.....

Well...blogger has decided there's no such thing as paragraphs....so that's why these are all ran together. I tried to separate with dots and spaces...didn't work well...here ya go!! These might not be perfectly verbatim correct....but they're as I remember them. Several commercials just crack me up. Here's three of my favorites: ..... The first one was a Pic-Quik commerical. Picture a man waiting for his daughter. She comes trotting down the stairs in this horrible "get-up" and he says "No way..." and she goes back upstairs. Next she comes down in another clown suit get up and he says "You're kiddin', right?...." and she tromps back upstairs. Meanwhile the commercial is telling how if you don't have the time to spare in the mornings you can get one of their breakfast sandwiches. Third time...the daughter comes down the stairs in a fairly normal looking outfit. The dad says, "Now that's more like it!" The daughter gives the typical teenager "eat sh-- and die" look and says, "Awesome...." and heads for the door. As she passes her father you can see the seat of her pants and it says "Hot Stuff" (or something like that)...and the father says, "OH, HOLD IT!!!!!!" ..... Then more recently I heard this one of the radio...again I think it was for Pic-Quik. They're again selling sandwiches...how the guy doesn't have time to wait for someone to make a sandwich because he needs to get home on his lunch hour to let his dog, Tina out. If he doesn't get there, Tina gets testy and does "bad things".....and the commercial goes on. Finally they say that he doesn't want Tina to do bad things. Tina is part Mastiff, part Great Dane, and part Kodiak...and she's already the size of a caribou!!! ..... And then just last night I heard a commercial on tv for an upcoming "Alaskan Highway Patrol" or something like that. They have this VERY scruffy looking guy standing beside his car. He has on a floppy hillbilly hat, long grey hair and long beard. Clearly he's DRUNK!!!!! The officer says to him, very politely, "Count backwards from 69...can you do that for me?" And the drunks slurs out, "Like WHO could???" ..... My life is simple...I enjoy the little things.. Hope you enjoyed these. I know Pic-Quik isn't everywhere so not everyone gets to view or hear these. Thought you might enjoy them. ..... Well...the sun is shining....the streets are dry...and temperature is good...time to go outside and do something. Count your blessings!!!! I do!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation..or Something Like That

Lots of ballgames on tv today...too windy to bicycle ride...so I decided to paint. I've been needing to get this horrible looking patio fence painted for some time...well, ever since I moved here last September. I will tell you this...these pictures don't do the "ugliness" justice.

It was light turquoise, with lime green stringers and posts. AND....so you can fully appreciate the talent of the #&^%$# that lived here prior to me, it was also INTERIOR paint. And she's a school teacher...that's what our kids are learning from!! (And yes...I did just end a sentence with a preposition BUT I am aware of it!) Anyway...I digress...back to the fence. On top of the turquoise and lime green were white plastic lattice panels. Truly a lovely picture.

BTW, the entire fence...all three sides were like that....this first photo I'd already painted a good deal of it white...but ALL of it was turquoise and green!

Yesterday I bought a gallon of exterior white paint and started wire brushing and scraping today. I probably didn't do as good a job as I should have but look at it this way: my thoughts were how I could just replace the entire thing!

So mid-afternoon I decided it was time to do something. I haven't painted a fence for a long long time. And I don't see me wanting to do another one real soon either. I do still have to do the outside, but it's already white and will be much simpler.

These photos also don't do justice to how poorly my white paint job looks. It definitely will need another coat...again, much simpler than this first coat I'm sure.

Next projects out there: repaint the hinges on the gate, put down plastic and rock between the fence and the patio, and put down some pavers going out the gate. Another day, another dollar.

Good day...got something done that I can actually SEE the improvement! I like that! Hope yours was as good and as productive.

Spring's Lovelies

They're up and blooming beautifully!!! Aren't they pretty? Surely this is a
positive sign that Spring is here. The weather in the middle of Kansas has been absolutely gorgeous (other than too windy!)...warm and sunshiny. That's all supposed to end this weekend I guess. We need rain...just hope it doesn't bring severe weather with it.


As I look at these lovely flowers I also see the remnants of last year's knock-out roses. I cut those back....WAY back....with the comment: If they come back, fine. If they don't, that's fine too. As I look at these (and at the pokes I received on the side of my hand today while trying to pull a dandelion) I question whether they're worth it. I've never been a real fan of roses. They simply aren't pretty enough to warrant their thorns. They may or may not make it through this summer. We'll see. They were about four feet tall in places and very "wild" looking when I moved in here last September. They'll be kept short this year.

But I really do like the jonquils or daffodils...I don't know the difference and the grape hyacinths...or whatever they are. I like these yellow and purple flowers. How's that?

Also I notice my pictures loaded backwards (don't think that's the pictures' fault!). First picture was to show that there's still more to come.

Hope your weekend is great! Don't forget to count your blessings...and ask for help for all the people in Japan...what a tragic mess.

Has Spring Sprung???

Has Spring sprung???? I sure hope so!

Last night I went into the kitchen and before I switched on the overhead light I noticed how bright the room was. At first I thought someone must be sitting out in a car with the headlights on, but I took a quick peek through the blinds to see SNOW!!! The yard was completely covered with snow! The driveways never did cover, evidently warm enough to keep the snow melted.

We got only a trace and it was pretty much gone before noon today.
Blessings....my friends at Salina had about 5 inches of snow!!!

While outside this afternoon I noticed these grape hyacinths(?) beginning to bloom. Two so far. There are about seven or eight plants with larger plants alongside them (daffodils???). We'll see when they bloom I guess.

And speaking of "blooming"...here's a blooming idiot!!! She'd been "burying" a milk bone (you can't see that, can you?)
When she turned back toward me (to check to see if I could see it) I moved to get a camera. Her hair had actually settled down quite a bit, but she had a halo of hair for awhile. She works so hard to get those bones hidden...and then stands and barks when she wants them out. Her nose is too flat or short or something to get back in the crack of the sofa. Duh!!!

Count your blessings!