The storms last night might have been pretty bad somewhere else, but the weather wasn't anything to be afraid of here in our part of Oklahoma City.  Oh, that sound you heard was a big sigh of relief from me.

Alice and I worked hard again today and got all my flower beds in the back yard mulched.  Now we just have to edge them, plant them, and finish the side walks. We're supposed to have bad storms tonight and I'm sure hoping that all that mulch doesn't blow away in the storm. Then I have 5 different fence companies coming next week to give me estimates on fencing my back yard.  It's really beginning to look like a yard instead of just a vast expanse of dirt.

At the top of the above picture you can see the lot just to the north of my house. They've just started grading the land and will no doubt start building on after this storm is over and the land has a chance to dry out a little.

And here is the view from my back patio.  They have begun building across the gulley as well.  Pretty soon there will be so many houses over there that we won't be able to see the horizon any more.  Too bad.

Alice and I went to Garden Club yesterday and our program was presented by a man who works for a wholesale florist and who demonstrated different techniques for creating lovely floral arrangements.  He made five different arrangements and we drew numbers to see which of the 18 members would win them.  I won this one.  It's setting on my dining room table now.  The pink tulips were just buds when he make it, but now they're beginning to actually look like tulips.  

Today we worked on getting my flower beds ready for planting since the weather has turned so nice for a few days. We made two different runs to Home Depot today (and two yesterday) in Alice's pick-up to cart home all the soil enrichers.  It's a lot of work and I'm sure we'll be sore tomorrow, but we did get a lot done today.  We still need to edge the beds, and of course plant stuff as well.

Are you ready for another "theme"?  How about variations on a purple and green theme?  Below are a bunch of Mandalas that I created all from this one photo. I DO love purple and green together and I am having so much fun (and wasting a LOT of time while I'm at it) creating all these mandalas.

This is a lovely flower that I bought in an attempt to spruce up my back yard when I was selling my home in Texas. I really liked the colors and the way each petal curled up on the edges.  Following are some Mandalas I made, all from this one flower picture.

I went down to Alice's house for supper tonight (as I always do on Wednesday evenings) and afterwards she showed me some Mandalas that she created using Photo Shop.  I just loved them; they remind me so much of stained glass windows, which I also love.  Soooo, she proceded to show me how to do it myself.   This is the one she helped me create. 

And this is one that I made as soon as I got home to my own computer.  I'm so thrilled that I can do this on my computer too and not just on hers.

Would you believe I was driving to church last night and saw 4 deer in a field not 50 feet from the street.  Unfortunately, I couldn't stop and take pictures, because not only was I in the middle of traffic, but if I'd stopped I would have been late for services.  You see, I live about 10 minutes from the church and had only left 10 minutes to get there. So no pics.  Then today I was coming home from doing mom's chores and saw about  50 to 60 Canada Geese setting in a field just a few blocks from my house, but again, I was in the middle of traffic and could not stop.  So far, I'm batting zero as far as pictures are concerned.