My sister Alice has now finished the website on our recent sister trip to Seattle, Washington. I must say she has done an absolutely fabulous job. I invite you to visit the web site and share our wonderful vacation. http://www.woodrome.com/WashingtonState/index.html 

I started an experiment early last year and it's really paying off THIS year. I planted little sprigs of sedum all over the flower beds because I was hoping that it would become a "living green mulch". You see, my yard is not flat. It slopes seriously, and I was getting really tired of picking up the mulch each time we had a heavy rain and redistributing it where it belonged. I figured a "living" mulch, complete with roots, would stand a much better chance of staying in place each time it rained. It kind of worked last year, but BOY, it's really working well this year. All those little springs of sedum have taken off and spread nicely. So now I really do have living mulch that stays in place.

I am really glad that spring has come . . . I was so tired of winter, and although the predominant color at this time in my yard is green, I DO have a few things blooming. Here's a sampling.

Miniture yellow rose, white columbine, violet and "Tiny Rubies" dianthis.


Scabiosis, red roses, quince and purple homestead verbena.

Another experiment . . lilies in pots, pink columbine, a peony bud (no bloom yet), red roses.

Grape hyacinth, Easter Lily (freshly planted after Easter services), dianthis and daisies.

Daffodils, coral bells and Nandina Domestica . . . well actually the berries are from last fall, not this spring. But it's COLOR and after a long winter any show of color is welcome.

Now, I can hardly wait until all the lilies start blooming.  
 

I'm really angry. Someone broke into my house today . . . they kicked in the front door. It ruined the door jam and now I can't lock my front door. I can't even shut it. If a gust of wind blew against it, the door would blow wide open, so I have to keep a piece of furniture in front of the door just to keep it shut. The alarm must have scared them off, because they didn't take anything valuable like TVs or a computer.  I should say they didn't take anything THEY thought was valuable. As far as I can tell, the only thing they stole was my late husband's cap. I had it hanging on the hall tree in my entry way.  You can bet your sweet bipee I'll be on the look out for anyone wearing his hat.  We have a lot of construction going on in this neighborhood and so a lot of construction workers coming and going all the time.

Here's a picture of the purloined cap.

Let me know if you see anyone suspicious wearing Mike's cap.

Alice, Gill and I go somewhere each month for an outing together and this month we decided on going to the Oklahoma City Zoo, but first we had lunch at the Lakeside Restaurant at Lake Hefner. It was a little chilly but we had a lot of fun.

I caught Alice playing a game with one of the bear cubs.  It looks like they're both having a good time.

After walking all around the zoo for a couple hours and what seemed like 2 or 3 miles my legs were killing me. I think Alice's were too, but I think Gill could have gone on for hours. . . she IS a lot younger than we are. I went home and took a looooong hot bath.

This is one of the pictures from our weekly "Digital Nuts" challenges. Digital Nuts is a group of people who love nothing more than fiddling around with digital pictures. . . you know . . . enhancing pictures digitally into something that doesn't actually look like a photo anymore.

I'm so tired of winter I could scream. And we haven't even had a bad winter at all, it's just that I'm tired of my yard looking so blah, so brown, so dead.  I ordered 15 new Orienpet lilies. They haven't arrived yet, but I have to figure out where in the world I'm going to plant them. I should not have done it, but I just got carried away when one of the new lily catelogs came in the mail. Shame, shame, shame.

 
YIPPEE.  There WILL be a spring again. I have daffodil sprouts coming up all over my yard and I consider them as an "earnest" payment guaranteeing there will be a spring.

I have crocus planted all over the my flower beds too, but so far only one has poked it's head through the ground, but it is so refreshing to see color again. The yard has looked so drab and barren for what seems like an eternity. It's beyond me how this winter has seemed so very long. I mean, it's only been . . what? . . four months?  Anyway, I am anxiously waiting for the arrival of spring and the REST of my flowers.

This is an enhancement that I did as one of our weekly "Digital Nuts" challenges. I tried using some new tools and was pleasantly surprised by a couple of them. I liked the outcome. You can see the original I started with below.

I'm kind of glad that today is over with. I have a short (very short) solo part in our Christmas cantata and now I don't have to worry about it any more. I also don't have to practice the cantata every day any more.  Now . . . let Christmas commence.

As promised . . . the original of the little girl in red.

Here is what greeted me early this morning. They're building a house across the gulley from me, and I loved how you could see the sunrise through the rafters of the unfinished home.

I'd gotten up early so that I could get a good start on the day. It was to be our annual Candy Days and we were going to try to get everything done in just one day rather than 2 days as in years past. We had pared down the amount of candy we were going to make this year so it would be just possible that we might actually accomplish everything in one day.

This isn't all, but it's the majority of the candy that we made yesterday. There are white chocolate covered pretzels, Craisen bark, white covered cashew clusters, peanut butter balls, coconut bon bons, Oreo bon bons and chocolate covered toffee.  We'll be cutting down a even a little bit more next year as well. Gill participated with us last year for the first time and surprisingly enough . . . she was game for it again this year.

Then shortly after we finished dividing up all the candy and after Alice had gone home to take Rosie Joy for her walk, I got a call from Alice on her cell phone. She said, "Quick, go look out back". 

 
I went to look out the back window and immediately ran to get my camera. There was a hot air baloon that had just landed across the gulley from my house. It caused quite a commotion . . . there were probably a dozen people clustered around it.

Then a minute later it lifted off and I got a movie of it as it rose into the sky.

 

                    Enhanced                                                Original Photo

Here's another picture from my Greek Cruise. Actually this is a shot I took walking on the streets of Patmos. I'm a sucker for unusual doors . . . and sometimes just OLD doors.  I think this one falls into that category.

It snowed here just a bit last night. Not a lot mind you . . . just enough to leave a little dusting in grassy areas. It all melted too fast on concrete, so it was only in the grass and flower beds. But, it does count as our very first snow of this season.

This is a shot I took of Kavala Harbor while I was on a recent cruise called "The Footsteps of Paul". We were gone for 10 days and visited many ports in Greece and Turkey. I feel so very fortunate to be home safe and sound, what with all that's going on over in that part of the world right now. . . . rioting in Athens and pirates trying to board cruise ships. Pretty scarey stuff.

Actually, taking a cruise is really a great way to get the "flavor" of region. Your ship steams on to the next port while you're sleeping, then after breakfast you leave the ship and get on a bus to take you to all the sights there are to see near that port town. Repeat the next day, and then repeat, repeat, and repeat again.

I'll share more pictures in the weeks to follow.