Visits with mom and dad

I keep saying I’ll get a picture of us when I’m out next and I never do. I spend whole days with the folks and not a picture one. Too busy visiting and doing odds and ends for them. This trip was no exception EXCEPT (see the exception?) Liz was with me!  SHE took pictures. 

Boy howdy my back is WIDE!  Mom and I walking Walmart. Shopping for odds and ends. 

Sitting visiting with mom while dad joins in in the conversation. I sat in this same spot while Linda and Liz was visiting with mom and didn’t take a picture. Shame on me!

What I do take pictures of is silly. Inanimate things. But I’m THERE and present for the people. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

I do enjoy visits with the folks but it’s sad to see the decline. I will keep pressing with quarterly visits. I sure miss them living right down the street!!

1st silly picture. Malfunction in my video player. Got me 15,000 miles so that’s a plus. It’s also 1/4th of a trip so win/win as I had a book on my phone to read!!

Room #1 coming into Vegas. I’m traveling with Liz more often. Comped suite at Paris Hotel. 30th floor. Has two bathrooms (one with potty/shower, one potty/tub) on either side of a grand entrance and wide hall. 

Room #2 on the way home - smaller suite but still very nice. Single bath but still quite large and spacious!

 


I know WHY she gets them comped. We came in from downtown at 2am. She went BACK downstairs and stayed until 5am. Yikes. I got up at 9 to get ready to go to the airport. Liz was the lucky one this time and came home with 2x her money. I LOST about the equivalent of her win. Oh well I played at the tables with her for a while ;)

Oh how the plants are growing

Where it started. 


Where we are now. Note the new growth at the top!!

Horrible picture but you can see how tiny it looks!

Look at all those new babies coming on the side and shooting right up 



Where it started - so small!

Look at all the growth!!

All the light green in the front as well as the light green shoot on the right is new. They grow slow so seeing a whole new shoot is impressive to me!

And this is a leaf that fell off and is now rooting quite well. It will be a while before it can go into the ground but it’s making progress!

Life… such that it is

Some shots from the stop motion video I took. No wrecks could be seen. 

What you can’t see is the wreck happening behind the bay bales. These boys would FLY down the hill - no brakes - crash just to win. The BIGGEST crash was a cart buoy like a kayak. It went through the two barriers, and OVER the last. Cut through like a knife!!

All was well and everyone was safe. The other exciting one was a guy flew out of his car on the crash and a few cars lost wheels. All in all great entertainment. 

It gets better as the drinking continues. Ha!!

In flower news: 

Amaryllis are going GREAT!

Wisteria is making a comeback even with all the dead wood on the trellis!  There is hope yet. 

Need to kill those ants!!!  But the plants happy!

My iris MAY bloom this year. Maybe. 

To the average Joe there are just lots of weeds here BIT what I see are some starts to something. What I don’t know. Some Canalilies, some peonies and some gladiolas as well as hopefully some peonies. 

And on the porch as of today 

One would think those planters would NOT be full depth. Yeah, no, they are. They are also 2/3 full of packing peanuts!!

Florida

Sitting talking with Sally on the porch and heard a lot of plane noise. I popped out to see this…

Can you see them??

Zoomed in. six planes in formation. Very cool. 

Art, Flowers and yard work

How it was planned 

How it went in reality. Not too shabby. 

A cute little watercolor that I picked up at an “estate sale” that turned out to be a garage sale. Talk about a let down!  But I managed to find this cutie for a whopping $1.50

Future planning and work in progress. Please be kind as we are working g to put everything back together ever so slowly!

Picked this up @ Homegoods. I liked the little pop of color but that it was a calming painting for the bedroom. 

 



Yard work. Work is soo true. I had picked up bulbs and planted them a few weeks ago from Aldi. They are coming right up!  Makes me happy!!!

What YOU see will be a hot mess of weeds. What I see are hours of work and pulling bags full of nettle weeds and other weeds. Is it done?  Heck no!!!! There are so many weeds so I’m working on it a little at a time. I pull until I have issues standing up then I move on. This is after pulling nettles and bagging them along with as many of the wild pea as I could. That stuff is EVERYWHERE!!  But what I see are the shoots of the lilies coming up along the fence. 


Here

And here

And there!  So of 6 it 8 bulbs I had 5 come right up. Makes a gal happy!!

I also see the straight up shoots of gladiolus or something similar shooting up!  I’m excited to see what comes up!!

Got busy and cleaned out the REST of the drainage. 

Both sides and have the water flowing well and have the weeds pulled from the pea gravel. 

Planted tomato #1!

Elephant ears. Look at the new leaf to the right of the main bulb. I may regret putting these at the top of the stairs but I don’t think so. I can move them back from the lights as needed as they grow. 

This side I choose two smaller bulbs to put in this pot. 

Tomato #2. 

More Amaryllis!  I think this one is a candy stripe. We shall see when it comes out all the way. There are lots of odds and ends on this side of the wall. 

Candy stripe are under the pergola. 

Deep red are up by the house. 

Lots of them are getting ready to bloom!

And this is the price I paid. What I thought were just gnats were NOT. They bite and they were stealth about it!  They were just sitting in my arm. No pain. Nada. But when I brushed them all off there was blood!!!  Day one - all day no welts. Just red spots. 

Day three I’m an itchy mess today!!  Welts and itching. I jokes about no more yard work but we KNOW that’s not gonna happen. I’ll be out there again but I’ll spray the yard first!!!