Discoveries from the Chersterfield

My husband actually called the couch a chesterfield this week and he hasn’t even been watching Downton Abbey.  I believe it was a Canadian flashback for him.  I remember my Canadian grandparents using that term for the sofa, but not my husband!

Meanwhile, back on the chesterfield, I have made several life altering discoveries.

1.  Healing takes time.  Time allows you to think and write and read, all activities that tend to get brushed to the sidelines during a busy schedule.  I have missed writing.  I need to carve out some time to express myself with written words.  It brings me joy…. and I like joy.  It’s one of my favorite things, but not exactly in a brown paper package tied up with string. (Name that movie song.)

2.  My daughter and my niece hand picked lovely yellow and purple wildflowers, placed them in jars and brought them to my coffee table that holds everything I could possibly use while on the couch.  I have spent long moments watching little bugs crawl all over the sunny blooms.  A bit of wildlife right here in the living room.

3.  Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy. (Name that artist.)  My front yard blooms are in their glory mode and I have spent time each day sunning myself next to their colorful display: royal blue lobelia, cadmium snap dragons and pansies, hot pink, pale pink, variegated and snow white Sweet Williams, four shades of purples in pansies, violets and violas, and a salmon pink geranium that has yet to open its glowy blooms for my pleasure.  Vitamin D is a glorious bonus.  My nature journal is calling to me to capture the array of colors.

4.  I am the sole individual who wipes out the microwave.  Sad but true.  Come on over and have a looksie at a week’s worth of blown up food bits.

5.  Ringo the wiener dog eats orange foamy earplugs.  Disgusting.

6.  I truly am a night owl.  Even on narcotics, my best hours are from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.  However, this was aided by a total of six hours of napping today.

I pray you are blessed with a full night of restful sleep while I am uninterrupted on the chesterfield.

Backyard Update

Sadly, I can’t even get out in the backyard every day to finish my 27 projects.  Slow and steady wins the race. I know. I know.  But slow and steady also leads me into the broiling temperatures of summer in Phoenix. So the pressure is on!

The resurrected gazebo is coming right along…. other than being upside down, on the grass, and not painted. This is the one that flew over the fence and was a mangled mess of canvas and metal. 

My beloved royal blue lobelia are absolutely their happiest right now…. but they won’t last much longer in this heat.

The garden is coming right along…. beans are winning the growing race at the moment, but the zucchini is in a close second.

Lastly, for your viewing pleasure, I scored six of these lovelies at 50% Off Goodwill last Saturday… YES!  Rick scrunched up his nose too at the thought of candles in the backyard, but last night I lit them all and he did think it was lovely, even though he never used the word lovely.

The Height of a Gardener’s Disappointment!

OK, this might not be the height, now that I think about worse things that my garden could succumb to, (leaf cuttter ants, grubs, mold, little white gnats, a digging dog, etc.) but still… this is pretty bad.  There is a flowerbed that surrounds a Queen Palm in the backyard that I was going to leave bare until late May.  I never got petunias in the ground this winter, only in my pots.  Down here in Phoenix, there is a distinct line drawn between winter and summer flowers.  And NONE cross the line.  Low and behold, the spot I was going to rest for a season was brimming with seeds from the previous year.  All these flowers came up on their own:  Lobelia, Sweet William, Marigolds, Petunias!  Sweet mercy!

Mixed in the beauties were these mystery plants that I couldn’t identify for the life of me.  There were four of them and they spouted the same time as all the others.  So I’ve been watering them and waiting impatiently to see what they are!  I suspected daisies.  Funny thing was, I visited my mother and she had the same little plants dug up from around her yard and was gingerly nursing them in two different pots.  She thought they were petunias, but no… I knew they weren’t because my petunias came up right next to them.  So we’ve been waiting for weeks for the healthy plants to reveal their flowery heads. 

Yesterday they opened.  Little white, fluffly, mini-dandelions.  They are weeds.  Really healthy weeds!  Weeds that I’ve been watering and actually weeding around.  Today I took this picture before I yanked them out of the rich soil, root and all.  My mother is visiting my sister in Washington, so I needed to let her know what she is growing in her pots!  HAHAHAHHA!  Not only have I been watering them at my house, but at my mother’s house as well!  I might save hers for her to see when she returns!

The 2nd Gerber Daisy has Raised its Sleep Head

Gerber daisies take FOREVER to bloom.  Seriously, it’s only about 4 to 5 weeks, but the anticipation of a burst of beauty makes it seem longer.  WAY longer.  Back in March, my first Gerber daisy bloomed and was taken down by a wet towel thrown by a child that I gave birth to.  Unbelievable.  Then a bud appeared…. the promise of life anew….weeks later she opened her drowsy eyes and lifted her hot pink head.  FINALLY!  (Yes, I dragged my son out there to witness the beauty and miracle of nature to increase his appreciation of God’s hand in our backyard. He didn’t actually thank me, but I felt the thankfulness emanating from his little heart.)

The exceedingly good news is that there is already another bud forming….. so in May, I’ll have continual hot pink yummy eye candy to behold.

April is so wonderfully warm and inviting in Phoenix…. leads to the illusion that summer might linger off in the distance a while longer!  Makes me want to sit in the backyard swing and forget the laundry, the homeshooled youngin’s, cooking, cleaning, carpooling, etc., etc., etc.

The name of the following flower is still a mystery.  Please share your wisdom in the comment section concerning the name of said purple flower.

That is all.  Hasta luego.

Holy Buried Sock, Batman!

My sweet husband helped some friends move and they graciously sent him a gift card for Lowe’s…. AND HE GAVE IT TO ME!   Better even still…. for FLOWERS!  Whooooo HOooooo.  I have the sweetest husband.  (Side note: Rick is leaving for 5 days for Flight Safety next week, not by his choice, but still, it’s the busiest week of the kids’ lives with someone needing to be driven somewhere every single day… multiple times….. HENCE the kind flower gesture. Sort of a peace offering.)

I spent 60% of the money on lasting flowers and 40% on winter flowers… we live in Arizona, in case you are confused about winter flowers…. they are most likely YOUR summer flowers(marigolds, lobelia, sweet William, pansies, allysum, petunias, etc.)   I’ve been impatiently waiting for cooler temperatures… which still aren’t arriving.  It is about 85* F and it’s NOON, for goodness sake…. three days before NOVEMBER.  Alas, I could wait no longer with the gift card burning a hole in my pocket.

So the photo above is a round flower spot that has been empty dirt all summer. So I was visualizing a colorful array of blooms, and then I threw in some height with the purple grass and found my bird feeder and assigned bird-food-duty to my youngest son.  BUT, before all that happened, I was turning the soil in all my dirt patches around the yard and in this particular spot I dug up four socks.  Perfectly good socks.  Socks that all belonged to my youngest son, bird-food-boy.  Socks that he took off to jump on the trampoline.  Socks that our dog found neglected in the backyard… and so the DOG put them away.  If only my children were trained so well.  But no.

The backyard is clean and tidy for the first time since April.  It’s wonderful to look out the kitchen window and see color again.  Blessed relief.  Here’s a few more peaks:

Below is fondly called the ketchup and mustard flower bed.

These don’t show up that great, but it is a pale pink hibiscus with trailing yellow vines hanging out of the bigger pot.  The small pot is dark purple pansies and royal blue lobelia, my all time favorite flower.

And last but not least, the Sweet William on the patio table.  We can finally eat outside again!  Yippeeee!  I love winter.