Sharing Flowers

I have not shared photos of my flowers this year as I did last year.
I do have to give credit to hubby for doing all of the watering this year. I need to get out there and weed. He's always timid to weed as he doesn't know what is a weed and what is not.

The backyard does not look as good as the front yard, so I am just sharing the front yard for now.

Here is a shot of the front of our itty bitty house where me and four men are jammed into.

Abbie Rae always enjoys taking walks in the yard with me to look at all the flowers. I have been too busy even to take 5 minute walks this year. I used to do it daily and she was always excited to walk with me every day.

I really wanted to take photos last week as this bed in the front of the house looked twice as good last week, but I just had no energy and was so sick.

I took a lot of close up photos of individual photos (it's so fun!), but will only share a few.

This is the sidebed in the front yard. It appears hubby is spending way more time in his brother's yard than our yard with all that grass that needs weed eat'n. We are excited though that his brother is due back from Iraq in the next few days.

There were tons of bees and here I stood, trying to get photos of them. Am I stupid?

I caught this one in flight and in the full version it is interesting as to how the wings look in movement when I zoom in. It's odd how you can see a leg to the right, but not the left.

If I invited you to my house, would you.....

If I invited you to my house, would you sit here? Hubby promises it supports his weight just fine.

Ugggggggggggggggggggggggg!

Sigh.

We cannot have cushions because the stupid squirrels de-stuff them for nesting material. So this year I decided I was going to cut wood slats and put them on our swing frames.

Hubby wanted to take the easy way out and use straps. He looks at me really badly when I profess this is totally wrong, that I cannot believe he thinks this is acceptable, and try to explain how it is supposed to be installed. He, of course, has his manhood totally insulted.

I try so hard to be a good wife and not knock him down (because we are supposed to build up our hubbies), but it is SO hard for me when I am always confronted with stuff like this! I want to be a good wife.

He won't do it my way because he wants to do it how he thinks is an easy way, but yet when I come along after him and fix it right, even if I say nothing, his manhood is totally deflated because a woman did better than him and...and....and.....we argue! Okay. This has been a repetitive pattern for the past 21 years. The boys even know to try to help mom and/or dad to avoid a situation like this. We can never work together because I want to do it one way and he wants to do it the other (wrong) way, so we tend to do our projects separately with one of the boys.

Poor son of mine who helped his father do this. Sigh. Now that's another problem of mine. How can I just let it go and let him think he's been taught right? I don't need him learning wrong. I need to say something, right? However, to say something is to put down his father, which is wrong. It's a catch 22. So I pulled up some photos and left them on the computer screen for him to see the right way.

I cannot win. Nope.

I think I'm going shopping for some wood tomorrow. Sigh.
On a good note, I have three rose bushes blooming so beautiful and both the front and back yards smell so good that I just want to linger and deep breath!







Most of them are not very photogenic though. I am wondering if it is due to the ice storm. This one was about the best to photograph.








Now, this one looks like I ever so painstakingly pruned it so it would bloom in a circle. Nope. It wasn't me that did it. It has a mind of its own.

Have a happy weekend, everyone! --and breath deep for me.

What is it about dirt?

After work today, I got on my bike to test it out for the long ride I'm due to take this weekend. We decided to take the bikes to the bike shop to ensure they are in good working order. Putting them in my vehicle was not an easy task.

I then worked on planting all those flowers I've been working on all week. I made a lot of progress, but I still have some left and only one more evening to work on them before I head out for camping and biking.

I had to push myself to get outside and work in the garden. The day is overcast and dull and semi-cold. However, once I got out there, I was glad I went.

What is it about having my hands in dirt that just plain 'ol feels good? I can never find the words to describe how it feels.

The birds were chirping, the air was fresh, and I was engulfed in nature.

May Flowers

I promised some photos of my flowers. Goodness, it is keeping me busy this week!


Here is a photo of some phlox that is blooming right now. Um....don't look at the weeds there! They got pulled last night.











My clematis is blooming beautifully right now too. I just love the duo color of pink and white together, don't you? Some day I need to scrap the story behind this plant that refuses to die!















This interesting flower is blooming again. I took better photos of it last year and I believe somewhere in the comments here on my blog I was told what it is. I'm too lazy to go look for that info right now.










Saturday I went shopping in anticipation of having all my men helping me plant my flowers on Mother's Day, only to have the weather be windy and cold and mess up all my plans. So this week I'm rushing every evening to get them planted myself before they die. Some of them are already taking a toll.

I got one bed planted Monday night and Logan helped me plant some of the ones that needed a big shovel last night. The rain this week is making it hard to get out there. We did get a little wet, but had to push on. I hope the weather cooperates after work today so I can get more planted. Of course, I will show you the beds on my blog later. I do so love my flower gardening!

I bought a lot of perennials this year. I am getting tired of spending money every year, so I am trying to fill the beds with perennials to save money in the future.

Since I am going camping this weekend and also have to test my bike which I am taking along, I feel the pressure to get these planted. I won't be able to work on them this weekend, so I only have two more evenings to get it done! Oh my! Stress!


Every year I hit the sales at the hobby store and pick up little things for my garden. It seems that they never last and I have to throw them out and get new decorations. Many of the decorations cost only $1 to $2.50, so it's a nice way to bring some points of interest to the flower walk down the garden.

Here is a little butterfly that hangs from a flower basket. I'm sure it will look better if I can get the flowers planted in the basket!




My flag which hangs from a pole finally got so bad that I had to throw it away. I got this little butterfly mobile to hang from the pole. It bounces up and down and is kind of cute!

















I have a lot of stone walls with great space to place things upon the walls. However, every year, especially during the winds, the items do not withstand the weather.

I found some wrought iron statutes and am hopeful they will last longer. They are quite heavy and did not cost much. This bird is cute, but I think I need to find some time to paint it. I do not feel confident to paint it well enough though.



This wrought iron frog prince reminded me of the silly bits of humor hubby comes up with about being my frog prince. I wish I could remember the humor to share with you now, but it is so unique its hard for me to remember.











This little pail was only a few dollars, so I bought a few flowers to add to it. I am hopeful that the metal will not rust and it will be resilient to be tossed about by the wind.










Here is another wrought iron item which is new. The basket is heavy enough to resist the wind and I think the flowers look cute in it.












I had a glass ball a few summers ago that lasted only a matter of weeks. It was one of the kinds that you can see yourself in.

This time I got a wrought iron stand to hold the ball, so it should be more stable. In addition, I put it in a low box where Abbie Rae generally does not seem to traverse when chasing rabbits and squirrels. I like seeing the sunlight catching in the pieces on the ball.





This ball is rather small, but it sure does add some color to the garden. I can spot it first off from my bedroom window.

In general, I do not like a lot of gaudy things about my garden. I try to choose the items carefully to enhance the garden just right without making it look odd.

Of course, I'll be do a video tour of my gardens again this year, so you can let me know then what you think of these types of things in my garden.

Garden Journaling

We had a great time over the weekend with a family gathering for my brother-in-law who is on leave from Iraq. We are greatful that he is looking well. Hubby and I took him out for dinner last night and had an enjoyable time.

I am excited that my son will be coming home from college soon for the summer. I am anxiously waiting.

I am frustrated a bit lately that my desktop is running out of room. All of these videos I am recording for the site are taking up a lot of space and I am not sure what to do about it. I only had 7% disk space left and it would not let me defragment the computer yesterday. I spent a lot of time moving things around to a backup drive so that I could reach the 15% free space needed to run the deframenter. Now with the room and the deframentation, the computer seems to be running better--for now.

My processor on the computer is from my original very first computer from sometime around 1999. My computer guy has just upgraded my computer and kept it going well (he's awesome!). However, the processor will not work with Vista and eventually I will need to upgrade. I'm not sure if I should just start out with a whole new computer with a lot of disk space or just get some EHD's for storage (which would be much less expensive). It seems this website of mine keeps sneaking in costs the more I go along.

Spring is really in full bloom here. As I've often done on my blog, I share photos of my flower garden as a journal. Some day I hope to make a scrapbook of them.

The azaleas and the Irises are so beautiful right now.











I love studying the details in the Irises. There are so many varieties and each is so unique.















As my regular readers know, due to the ice storms, we cut down the trees in our front yard and were looking forward to not having all of those helicopters to hand pick out of our gardents. Much to my dismay, all of the neighbor's helicopters blew right into the gardens anyway. At least they are not as thick as if we had our own trees.



A few weeks ago we replaced a walk in the backyard with new basic stones. Some of my handmade stones had been covered in mud. I moved them to just lay them in the front bed and I am enjoying the change. I like changing things up a bit as it makes things seem new.






I found this interesting as it is my Burning Bush. It appears that it also blooms and I had never seen it before. Aren't they dainty and cute?










I also love these every year when the bloom. Someone told me what it was on last year's blog post, but I'm too lazy at the moment to look it up.


I hope everyone is having a happy Spring! I so enjoy watching things change and all the surprises anew when flowers bloom. I don't like the surprise weeds though!

Soggy Spring

I don't know where my weekend went? What did I do? I have to think?

Yesterday I guess I got some work done around the site and put up some new challenges. Oh, I did the clipping mask tutorial in video format for Photoshop Elements.

I spent time Saturday with my Little; we went out to eat and saw raptors at a presentation. The Eagle up close was awesome! I spent some time car hunting with hubby as he wants a more economical car than his old truck. Grocery shopping finished off my day and nearly wiped me out.

Today I just wanted to be home. I spent a little more time checking out chatroom software and finally took the plunge and spent a lot of money on one. I'm waiting for people in China to wake up and see the payment and send me the license so I can set it up. I thought I was going to be spending time today working on setup myself, but didn't realize I'd have to wait after making a purchase.

So, instead, I made some yummy white chili and worked on the designer color palette challenge in the forum.

I also worked a short while helping one son with FAFSA and a longer while helping the another son complete his first taxes. I almost forget he had to do his too. Did you know that here in Missouri we have been granted an extension to get our taxes done because we were declared a federal disaster area due to all the ice storms and/or flooding? It was quite a shock and seems like the news has been quiet about it.

By the way, we also had the other half of the tree that fell during the ice storm and another tree cut down last week. I'm behind on my blogging! We now have no more maple trees in the front yard and the view out the kitchen window is hard to get used to. The service cutting the trees down did a good job, but they frustrated us by not communicating well. It's hard to take off work when needed when they don't come with they say they will or leave in the middle of a project because they have forgetten a doctor's appointment. It was, needless to say, very stressful for me.

Can you believe that after we spent nearly $400 on just a new themostat (yeah, we were gipped), it wasn't working? We were getting cold once again and had to have a weekend call to the place (which costs more) to have yet once again another temporary themostat put in. Sigh. They had better not charge us for the service call for something they installed that didn't work right. So, we have to once again miss work on Monday to have another new one installed.

Last week the Bridal's Wreath was blooming. It looks so pretty.

I sure wish all this rain would stop. We've had a crazy amount of rain and storms in recent weeks--more than I ever remember before. First all the ice storms and now all the rain. What's up with our weather? It's a little scary to think about what the cause might be.






Have you found the Soggy Spring color palette challenge yet?

There are a whole bunch of freebies from all the ladies! Feel free to join us in making and sharing or just find some great things for your pages, but please do remember to thank the ladies for their hard work.

I know many of them put many hours into their creations.

You can find the thread here.

You know you live in Missouri if...

You know you live in Missouri if the weather is totally different every day.

Sunday--I was out in the yard doing work wearing shorts in 72 degree sunny weather.

Monday - It rained ALL day.

Tuesday - Ice Storm

Wednesday - Overcast and 40 degrees--everything melting.

Thursday - Sun is shining and signs of Spring abound, only to turn to snow showers by nightfall.

Friday - No school --too much snow.

I was so excited on Thursday to spot my first Spring robin! Yep, March 6th is now documented as my first siting of a Spring Robin. I grabbed my cell phone camera and snapped a photo of the bird. I always take a photo of my first Spring robin sighting. I peaked at my photos from 2007 and noted the date of March 10th. Hmmm..pretty close to the same date!



I turned around and spotted my first Spring flower! The crocus bulbs are peaking above the ground and ready to bloom.

Ooops....so sad! --only to snow the next day and cover them up. Sigh.

MapMuse - Find it near you

MapMuse is a great place to find places of interest near you.

For instance, I did a search for corn mazes in Missouri and found 43 places. You can search by zip code or metropolitan city also.

You can search for everything from garden centers to drive-in movie theatres to brand name stores, to scrapbook stores and clubs.

Although there are many sites listed, I did notice some missing from my area. However, there are features to add missing links and new links are being added all the time. This site is already a great resource, but over time, should continue to become more comprehensive.

PS> Whew, finally had time for a techy internet find post. How long has it been? I have so much saved up to share and no time to share!

Photography Challenge -ISO

Our next photography challenge is to play with ISO on your camera.

For the longest time, after reading a recommended book called Understanding Exposures by Bryan Peterson, I thought my camera did not have film speeds as I could not find the setting. About a month ago I realized I do have settings for it, but they are called “sensitivity.” So now I have to drag out that book again and read more as I have learned so much the last month I bet it will all make much more sense to me.

Film speed is referred to as ISO and runs in increments of 100’s. My camera only goes up to 400.

An ISO of 100 is slower than an ISO of 800. Slow film speeds are sharper and faster film speeds have a grain to them. However, faster film speeds can be utilized in conjunction with a faster shutter speed for action shots or low lighting conditions, but a choice of compromising sharpness must be made. Finding the acceptable middle of the settings is the goal.

I have an auto setting on my camera which usually chooses ISO 100 for sharp photos. I did find a need while doing quick shutter speed at dusk to change my ISO to 400. That makes sense to have a faster film speed with a faster shutter speed to help the lighting.

Our challenge? Get out there and take the same shot in different ISO to learn about your camera!



I took this photo in my flower garden three times, one in each ISO.










I brought each of the photos into Photoshop Elements and enlarged a small area.

I could see a slight difference between the ISO 100 and ISO 400, but not enough to really make me want to utilize these settings often.

I believe (as shown in my shutter play post) that the ISO settings on my camera are not wide enough to make a difference during normal lighting and still photos, but would be utilized in low light or moving objects. It does appear that ISO settings as high as 800 (or higher) on a camera may be worthy to look into when shopping for a new camera.




So, since my challenge was not super successful, here's a video of my flower garden I took instead for you to enjoy. My son has some blocks out which he promises to fix before he leaves for college. I sure hope he does not leave them for me to finish what he started. Also, this is only an area of my backyard, I have more in other places and the front yard. Can you tell I love flowers?

I reap four bags of weeds out of my gardens on Sunday, but I have so much more to do. Oh, and yes, I am still pulling new Maple trees up from all those helicopters last Spring.

Flower Journaling

I am so far behind on my flower journaling posts. I have been taking photos, so those will have dates and I think i just need to take time to update my list of when things started to bloom in my sidebar.

Here are a few photos from yesterday.

This is from my front yard and I always enjoy the surprise lillies! They are beginning to pop up everywhere. One day they are not there, the next they are! And they are so tall that I put them in the back behind the other flowers making such great accents.





The Black-eyed Susans are blooming everywhere and it is gorgeous. Every bed is just filled with them.










The plant stand that used to be by my Grandparent's front door is overflowing with beauty too. I love having little things like this around my house to remind me of my loved ones. The Angel is a gift from the girls at work upon my Dad's death and it reminds me of him.










I always seem to have an eye for how the flowers embrass objects in my gardens. For instance, why did these flowers grow around this bird house as they did?













My frog is so cute as it dutifully holds down my vinca vines in place. These vines trail all over my walls.











This poor frog looks as if he is fighting to be seen! Poor guy! The Dahalia is taking over his spot and I guess I need to save him.

Just yesterday I spotted the first bud on my Dahalia and I've been wondering when they would bloom...they are getting huge!










I love the way these spider flowers look, all bright and purple, but they can overrun a garden! I try desparately every year to pluck them while they are tiny, but there is always one that manages to get away from me and grow, thereby producing more seeds for more plucking next year. Shoot, it's so pretty, how could I pull it before it produces seeds?

And here is a shot of some of my banana trees, standing tall.

The blocks on the walkway are from my son who is redoing part of a wall for me. Isn't that nice of him!

I hope you have enjoyed my flower journaling! I love my garden!

Flower Journaling

I am SO far behind on my garden journaling posts. Life is too overcoming. I do know some of you enjoy these, so here goes!

The last time I took photos and did not post was on Mother's Day. I was so excited to return home after my long weekend to see new blooms!


I have two red rose plants, one a bush and one climbing, and both were blooming for me for Mother's Day. The climbing rose is sad as I believe it got hit by that frost months ago. I am going to cut it way back when it is done blooming. The bush has a lot of blooms right now and is beautiful and fragrant!
This flower was also blooming for me for Mother's Day.

I am currently having a brain fart as it is late with regards to its name. It will come to me sometime, I'm sure.

Or someone can leave a comment and tell me please.



This is a photo from yesterday, May 29th. The first tiger lilies were blooming. The two in the beds were blooming, but the huge line in the yard was not yet blooming, nor the ones in the side bed. I will share more photos of these when they really take off. These were in my yard when we moved in and there are a ton of them.



This is a lily that faithfully blooms each year in the front yard. It's proven very photogenic at times.

My oldest son is mowing lawns this summer as a temporary job until he leaves for collect this August. He has learned how to be artistic in the yard! Isn't it great the things we can learn in the paths God takes us down?

Now, how is this done? I love the lines.

Perfect Weather

Hasn't the weather been perfect the last few days? I could have weather like this every day! I just want to stay on my outdoor swings forever and zone out.

I want to take the time to publically thank the two individuals who donated a $10 and a $20 donation to me the last few days! Wow! I am truly in awe of the generosity. For me, that is a lot of money. I am not sure I would ever donate that much myself, probably more likely to do $5. (except that paypal took a whopping 45 cents out of the $5 donation! --but I should not expect a service for free) I am getting excited about getting PSE5 with this money. Surely I will blog about the difference between the two versions, as well as start updating the tutorials with side notes.

I am working on a new paper tutorial today. I spent 2 hours before work today creating the screen caps. Often, that is the most time consuming part of these tutorials. This tutorial only has 9 screen caps, so it is much less of a burden on me to write as compared to those tutorials that have 16 to 22 screen caps. It should take me half of the total time to complete as my last tutorial. If time works with me today, maybe I can get it up tonight.

Thank you, LVMommy22, for suggesting that my flower in the last post is a Agapanthus. I did an internet search and found several pages with several different spellings of this plant and I do not think it is this plant. Although I do believe I may have an Agapanthus in my yard, or did at one time. The foilage and the flower petals are not the same. Maybe I can get more photos to share and you can try again to help me?

I am still fighting these helicopters! I have 8 flower beds, some of which are quite large, and I have decided to try to tackle one bed each day as a goal. I could finish in a week or so if I can keep up. I did one bed on Sunday night.

Last night after work I threw in the oven a pre-made lasanga which took an hour too cook and I ran outside and worked on another bed (while I got two sons to work on a third). I have 5 beds left! However, I believe the perfect weather will be turning into rain soon and my daily goal will be messed up.

This bed in my front yard is one of the smaller beds that I completed last night. As I am getting the helicopters out, I am planting flowers. I did give up on getting all the helicopters out of the far back between all the Iris as I cannot sit and reach that far. I will have to go back another day and go down the back side of the beds (or set my sons to them).

This bed is my impatients bed. My favorite color is the coral and I put that in this bed every year. This bed gets a lot of shade and impatients have grown better than any thing else here.




I have tried several methods of fertilizer over the years on my flowers. One year I used the granuals that are mixed into the dirt and it killed all my flowers for two years! Nothing would grow. I will never use those again. I did not even feel I put that much in the soil.

I have found that this Miracle Grow soil works well to get the flowers a good start. I take my trowel and break up the soil. Thereafter, I hand scoop a bunch of new soil into the area and use my hand to mesh it all together, breaking up the clumps. I do this for each place where I place a flower plant. It takes a long time, but seems to be worth it.










I have quite a few flats of flowers setting around waiting to be planted, so I will need to keep pace so that they can be in a happy home where they can grow, rather than die in the flats.


















I have decided that this year I will make one of the beds in the full sun an all marigold bed.

I wish, though, that I could remember which flowers the rabbits like to eat. They look forward to my flower smorgasbord every year! They sweep through and eat only certain types of flowers and leave the others. Hopefully, I am ahead of them this year as I've already sprayed "Deer Off" on the flowers.

I saw the other day as I was looking up in the trees a squirrel eating leaves on a tree. Now, I feel kind of stupid as I do not really know what squirrels eat (other than my bird seed and acorns) and was kind of surprised to watch the squirrel stretch up and grab a leaf and eat it, again and again. It made me wonder if it isn't the stupid squirrels eating my flowers, and not the rabbits. I used to like the cute squirrels in my yard, but I am finding them more of a nuisance as time goes on.



My hubbie and sons planted our banana trees over the weekend too. I told them to try to put them in the side bed, instead of the grass. I did not know there were 12 or more of them! I go out later to find two masses of them surrounding two of my hanging planter rods.

Why? Do they really think the flowers in the hanging baskets will be visible after the trees begin to grow? MEN! Life with 4 Men! Okay, there, I said it. I feel a bit better. This is one of the battles I am choosing not to fight and I am just keeping my mouth quiet. Who knows, maybe I will like the way they look once they get going and be surprised. God always has blessings in disguise, right?

Have a bright and sunny day!

Exploding Spring

On Friday I noticed my yard was exploding Spring and took some photos, but have not had an opportunity to do my gardening journaling for my readers yet. I went for over 2 weeks with not much new blooming and now everything is blooming and the weather is perfect and I am delighting.

Last night I spent the evening under the canapy with the lights and my laptop. I so love spending time outdoors in my garden! I learned something new. Well, I knew it, I just did not realize the impact.

Bugs are attracted to light. Yep. I knew that! However, did you know they also like laptop light and come swooshing right into the screen and smack themselves out? Oh, and the heat from the screen dries them quickly making them difficult to remove.

Why is it that something so enjoyable always comes with such pain? For instance, that favorite food is good why? Because anything that tastes really good is really bad for your body. Right? Are you with me on this?

My vinca vines are blooming those cute little delicate purpose flowers. I love the verigation of the leaves on these vines.














This thing is blooming again. It blooms faithfully every year. I have no idea what it is except that it is a bulb I planted long ago. it stands on top of a very tall single stem. If you know what it is, please tell me!















I have a lot of surprise lillies in both the front and back yard. As gardeners know, just like other perennials, these things must die back on their own and as they do so, the nutrients are drawn back into the bulbs. They are different than other perennials in that they bloom after they die back the same season, not before. For instance, the daffodils bloom first and then die back and do not bloom again until the next season. The surprise lillies produce greenery first that dies back now and then do not bloom until July. I do not like the way they lay all over everything and so soon I will need to get out there and bind them with rubberbands as I do every year.





Some of you may remember a year ago our squirrel problems. It appears they just won't give up until they have de-stuffed the entire swing cushion! We have now dubbed it the "squirrel swing."




I did a layout last year about my Lilly of the Valley and they are blooming now. They remind me of my Grandma as she had them along the side of her house.






My Iris are blooming now too. It is fun to watch them as they respond to sunlight. Those in the sun always bloom first and then I watch them progressively bloom down the line as it gets more shady in the beds. I have a ton of these and they were at our home when we moved in, although I have replanted and spread them.













As in my last garden post, I have to fight these helicopters from the Maple trees every year. They have made the walkway look horrible. I did sweep them Friday night, but now I have to work on getting them out of the beds. The boys got them out of the gutters on Saturday. They were mowed over in the yard on Friday too, but it will take another mowing to really get them good.











I was pleasantly surprised to see my Clematis blooming, especially after I had so rudely disjointed it from the wooden fence thing it was on. That thing had gotten so ugly. The Clematis can just grow on the regular fence if it wants to, and although it was a low bloom, it still bloomed and showed me it had life in it.

So, this Clematis is the same Clematis that refused to die when Abbie was a pup and continually dug it up and then survived the move from one box to another. I just wants to live.







My azaleas took a really hard hit a few weeks ago when we had about 4 or 5 days of nightly freeze. This lonely bush only has two blooms and it looks to me like the other blooms are dead. I hope the greenery still comes out and it is still alive. The one in the backyard looks the same.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my garden journal! If you blog about your flowers, let me know so I can come read.

What a Great Weekend!

I had a great weekend with some great youth! Go OAFC! I am physically tired, but recharged inside!

Goodness, what a windy ride on the way home. It pushed the van everywhere and it was difficult to drive.

When I arrived home, I was surprised to see our lawn covered with helicopters. They have been trying to fall for weeks now, but this wind sure did do them in! The front and back yard looks like this small sample. Now I have a ton of clean-up to do.

Nothing much new has been happening with my flowers for the past weeks. I need to figure out what blooms during this time period and plant it. The only blooming in my yard has been my Wild Sweet William. I have been observing as I drive around town and I have not seen anything else in other yards either, so maybe there is nothing more that blooms at this time.

I hope you had a blessed weekend! Have a great week.

Garden Journaling - Planting

I enjoyed working in the yard again yesterday, although I missed my husband out there working with me, but then again not. I missed him doing some of the work for me! But I did not miss his making noise and chatting near me as it was so quiet without him there that I felt in tune with the sounds around me of birds and squirrels and wind. It was so peaceful.

I spent a lot of time planting some summer flower bulbs which I bought over a week ago. I just now had time to get them planted.

There is just something about burying these dead things and then watching them come to life. I never remember where I have planted them and, therefore, it is such a surprise to watch them pop up out of the ground.

I put all the Gladiolus in my new wooden container and carried them around that way. I rather enjoyed the feel of the leather handle as I carried that box around. I was going to plant flowers in that box, but I just might change my mind and use it as a tool carrier. What is it about tactile things in the garden? There is also nothing like the feel of dirt in your hands and under your nails. I found quite a few earth worms while planting.

My Wild Sweet William began to bloom yesterday. They are not in full bloom yet, so I am anxious to see them today. The bright color purple is always one of the most beautiful flowers for me to see. I love them! I need to take the time to spread those flowers as I cannot get enough of them.

Well, here it is Monday morning and my Outlook is messing up and it is frustrating me and I got nothing done this morning. What a way to start out a week. I hope the day gets better.

The boys are on Spring break for more than a week now. I wish I got a break that long. I will continue to pray for responsibility for them and hope they show signs of it while they are home this week.

Have a great week everyone.

Text Inspiration - Fading Text

I will add this to my tutorial page as inspiration later, but it is so simple it needs little instructions. Basically, just duplicate text layers and reduce the opacity to them to create this effect.





I was having so much fun listening to music that these words popped out at me from lyrics as possible word art.










So, I created some free word art for you to download and use as shown in these four samples on this page.









You can find them at the end of this folder. If you use these in a layout, please share them with me. I believe there is a link to instructions in the sidebar. Also see sidebar for link to download instructions to be sure you download the .png version.



Here is a layout using this technique which I did before for my Garden Book. Actually, I came up with the idea on this layout as a way to fill in empty space to create balance. Imagine this layout without the repeated faded text and you can imagine why it works. Have fun!

Freebies & New Blooms

What a busy evening for me with a trip to Wal-mart for we were running out of a lot of things. Once again...men! I get home and I'm putting away supplies only to find that my hubbie ran to the store, oh, who-kn0ws-when, and picked up stuff and now we are double stocked! That's not good for a budget! Now, why in the world did he not tell me? And when did he find the time? And if he was running to the store, why did he not ask me if there was anything I knew we needed? Men! I will just stay thankful that he was trying to be helpful.

I goofed around last night and made a few papers. Once again, I do not know if they are useful, but would like to offer them to you. I am amazed that this paper shown to the left was actually mostly brown leaves in the original photo. You can find the downloads here, the new additions at the end. Download instructions can be found in a link in the sidebar.




My first tulip bloomed yesterday! Yeah! There is something so elegant about them. I do not have very many tulips. Hopefully, if I journal it here, I can remember what needs planting when fall comes.



Oh my! My hope that only three dandelions would bloom has been crashed! Overnight, like magic, they all appeared! What to do!

Text Inspiration Tutorial - Blending Text into Background

Once again, it has been another week since I did a tutorial. Personal family life obligations are keeping me from writing. I hope to catch up and write more soon.

This tutorial was one of the quickest I have written so far! I created a layout using the technique before writing it and got two things done at once! This layout is for my Garden Book which I am making from photos from my own yard.

I give credit for this idea to Kathy Moore who challenged me to do this when I first started scrapping almost two years ago. I need to remember it and try to do it more often.

As seen in the layout, blend the text into the background by placing the text partially on a photo or element and partially on the background. Read the tutorial here for simple instructions.

If you use this tutorial, please share your layout with me.

Gardening Journal

I am getting behind on sharing my gardening journal. I am enjoying writing these, but I hope my readers are enjoying reading them.

I have decided to put in the sidebar dates of my garden journal. As you know, I love to analyze! So, next year, I can compare the dates.

Oh, those squirrels! I love them, but I hate them!

I love watching them and they are so cute, but I hate what they do to my garden!

My brand new bird feeder was found on the ground, rope that hangs it broken, wood chewed. So, the birds got a new bird feeder AGAIN! Will metal withstand the squirrels?

The birds were all chirping and excited when I got home as if asking me to fill it! After it was filled, they chirped more as if to say, "go inside, we're hungry!" Then, while I relaxed in the swing, a Robin kept dropping by closely as if trying to really give me a hint. As she sat on the nearby fence, I talked to her (I know, I'm wierd) and she seemed to be talking back with her eyes. I think she is not afraid of me.

No sooner than I went inside, I went to look from my bedroom window and there was THAT squirrel! IN the bird feeder! There were Robins, Cardinals, and Grackels all underneath the feeder grabbing what the squirrel knocked out. There must have been at least 12 birds. That squirrel is the king of bird food and rules the nest! Or maybe it is a conspiracy? Maybe the squirrel is purposefully knocking out everything just so the birds can eat quicker?

Oh, Maple trees provide great shade, but we have to endure them in the Spring.

The Maple buds fell EVERYWHERE this past week. I was able to get some of the swept away on Sunday, but due to working so hard cleaning inside the house, I did not get to them all.

I will probably get them cleaned up just in time for the Maple helicopters to fall everywhere. I hate digging them out of my flower beds.

My favorite flower is blooming! It is my favorite because the Hyacinths fill the air with a sweet smell.

I first knew they were blooming because the smell came wafting through the air when I got out of the car. I thought "what is that smell" and then I looked and realized the Hyacinth were blooming.

I can sit forever on my garden swings just smelling the air. I really need to plant more of them, but I forget every fall.

Abbie Rae was so funny! She too was delighting in the Spring air, sniffing everything and even rolling around in the grass in enjoyment!

There are so many new things blooming this past week.

The Forsythia bloomed last week. My bush did not bloom very well this year. I noticed the Bridal's Wreath blooming today and it does not have too many blooms either.

Saturday I noticed the "field of beautiful white weeds" filling the lawn. I absolutely love these little white flowers in the grass and it is sad that we must mow over them every year. My oldest son did mow the lawn for us for the first time this year yesterday.

Of course, weeds abound everywhere and the dandelions are in bloom. I only saw three though and I hope that is all we have.

I absolutely love all the Red Bud trees that are blooming everywhere.

I have forgotten the name of this cute little purple bulb flower, but a few weeks ago, before it had started to grow, I had plopped the decorative turtle on top of it. I saw it pushing out from underneath the turtle and blooming anyway! Most of the greenery of the plant was yellow from lack of sun under the turtle.

The hostas are beginning to wake up and I have a plant growing that I am not sure what it is, but it is good and healthy!

I have had some summer flower bulbs purchased and ready to plant for over a week. I hope I get to them soon!

I hope you are having as much fun enjoying God's flowers of Spring in your own yard as much as I enjoy it.

I love watching it all wake up!

I love this time of year and watching the great outdoors wake up. Every day I see something new in the yard.

I am behind on my blogging and the week if flying by!

Saturday and Sunday my hubbie and I worked for three hours each day in the back yard cleaning it up, gathering and burning leaves and sticks, throwing away all the dead so that we can see the new life. Wow, my inner thighs told me I got a good work out! That's what winter does to me. [smile]

My hands were all red and cut up by the end of the day. Even washing them and putting lotion on them hurt. The ornamental grass is not friendly. It cuts like a paper cut. Ouch.

The grass has its first coverage of weed and feed with crabgrass preventer. We have never put that down before. I sure hope my whole lawn is not crabgrass and that we are left with nothing! Time will tell.

I took my laptop outside and was so excited that the internet connection reached all the way to the very back of the yard! Finally, my dream of my two hobbies coming together is coming true. The bad thing was, though, that I could not see the screen for all the sunny skies! All I could see was a mirror of myself in my screen. Ick.

I saw my first Spring Robin! I always look for the siting of the first Robin each year as it means that Spring is officially here.

Hubbie said he had spotted one before now, but this was my first spotting.

He was way over in the neighbor's yard and not cooperating for the camera, but I still got him. On Sunday, I saw the pair of them in the yard.



We went to the hobby store on Saturday and bought new stuff for the flower garden. It had been quite a few years since we replaced items and it was due. The birds now have two new bird houses, a bird feeder, and fresh water.

Goodness, it took me a long time to get all the scum out of that fountain! I was so happy the pump ran well after the long winter.

It took no time for the birds to arrive and begin their chipper in happiness.

We purchased several other new decorations for the garden and when we were all done and sat back to relax, it was such a refreshing feeling to gaze down the walk way and reflect on the transformation.

We have SO much more work to do. I have blubs to plant. The helicopters are looming in the near future and will need to be cleaned. The stair walls are falling and need repairing. One step at a time. We will get it done. The poor front yard is still yelling at me!