For any of you that are interested, I started posting over at my Xanga site also. I signed up for an account over there back in February so I could comment on my daughter’s blogs. But it was such a hassle I just didn’t post there. But now our second oldest will be leaving in a couple weeks so I wanted it up and running. You can now comment freely on Xanga without having an account, so that makes it a little easier. My blog over there will be mainly to communicate with my daughters and keep them informed of what is going on here in the mid-west. So, it may be a little mundane! I will put it on my blogroll for those of you that are interested.

Another cloudy and rather dreary day here, but there is a nice breeze to go with it. A friend of mine here in town graciously pulled up 20+ Rose of Sharon out of her yard for me…so I planted those all yesterday while it wasn’t raining. I hope they will form a nice hedge in time. The flowers are so pretty in August when they bloom. So, that nice rain we had this morning really helped them out and me too, so I wouldn’t have to water. They all looked great this morning!

The garden is finally taking off. This rain is doing wonders. I think we will have a pretty good turnout of veggies this fall. I’m so excited!!!

You all have a great week-end!

Another gardening update…it is doing well, if the wind doesn’t blow it all away! LOL I was hoping we would get a little rain to go with the wind, but so far that hasn’t happened.

All my tomatoes survived having their leaves eaten off by our mysterious garden visitor. So, now I have 21 plants doing well. I even planted four cherry tomatoes so my youngest two could go out to the garden and ‘graze’ when the mood strikes them. My oldest two will know how lenient I’ve become that I even did that!

I’m so thankful that as I get older I’m becoming more relaxed in so many areas. It has really been a blessing to me and I think I am enjoying life more now that I’m not so uptight about all the little things you really don’t have too much control over anyway!

But, back to the garden. My son and I planted more lettuce; another row, onions, peas and cucumbers last week. They are all coming up. We put up lattice work fencing for them to climb on, but the winds last week took them down. So yesterday, we put them up again with reinforcements. So far they have withstood the gales we have been having for the past day or so.  I am pretty excited about the vegetable garden at this point. I was at a friend’s house today and she was showing me some plants that grow in the yard here. I think she called them Sheep’s Sorrell and Plantain. Well, I’ve been ‘weeding’ those out of my garden for years. I never knew they were so tasty! So, instead of tearing them out and using them for compost, I think I will add a little to our salads. Won’t my children be thrilled? LOL

I also transplanted three shrubs yesterday. Thanks to our neighbor’s dog watering my shrubs I’ve already lost one and it looks like a second is about to bite the dust. So, I planted two new Alberta Spruce and moved the older Emerald Green Arborvitae to the west side of the house. My roses are also coming out of the slump our late freeze put them in. I trimmed them back pretty good and they are all growing. If they can survive the neighbor’s grandchildren across the street until I get the fence up they will do alright.

My son and I have made some progress on the patio. He has done most of the picking to loosen the dirt and the carrying of the slabs of cement. So that has been a huge help. I used to do all that myself, but I just don’t have the strength anymore. A couple more summers and we should have a nice sized patio?! It always seems like that kind of work goes so slow. But, I have already enjoyed it in the late evenings when my work is done. My gardenias should be blooming again soon so I will have their sweet fragrance to help along with the daydreaming!

How do your garden’s grow?

Well, I was tagged over at Home-Steeped Hope…check out my blog roll. I don’t remember how to give that link in the post and I put my paper away instructing me how to do it! Such is the life of a blogger that doesn’t do it enough to stay on top of things and a mother of five children with brain damage. (Me, that is, not the children! LOL) Anyway, I was tagged and I’m suppose to list eight things about myself, include the rules and also tag eight other people to give their eight random things. It does sound like fun…but as I told Mary, I don’t know eight other people to tag and since I can’t find that PAPER, I can’t put the rules here without typing them all out. On top of that…I’m way out of time for using the internet…so after all that complaining, here are my eight random things! LOL

1) I wanted to be a ballerina in the worst way when I was growing up! I still wish I had been able to take lessons!

2) I love to cook outside over a campfire, but I hate camping.

3) I absolutely love shower gels and lotions that match…but I always save them for special occasions and then they are too old and smelly to use.

4) I’m very much a loner and could spend many days or even weeks all by myself.

5) My favorite foods are tossed salad and ice cream. Is there a problem with that?!

6) Tiny babies are one of my greatest pleasures in life.

7) When I was a teenager, I really enjoyed cars. I liked to help work on them, even getting the highest grade in auto mechanics at school. I loved watching drag racing or the demolition derby.

The first car that I paid for myself was a red, five-speed Mustang.

And there you have it! I’m looking forward to reading the others that were tagged.

Do you ever have days, or even weeks when that thought just keeps running through your head? I know I’m going through one of those again now. But, mine is going into a couple months now and I’m beginning to think that is must be me just doing something wrong! LOL

We are all busy. That is just the way life goes. When you have several children going in different directions, it gets even better. I think the problem is the way we tend to handle it, not the problems themselves. (Isn’t that the truth with just about EVERYTHING?) I know I start to have this sense of panic when my schedule starts filling up and I feel overwhelmed. The busier I get, the less sleep I get because my brain just won’t slow down. I definitely need down time to combat this. Believe me…it has taken me a lot of years to figure this one out! I used to think it was selfish to take that time…but I’m not so hard on myself anymore.

That down time for me comes from many different directions. Just an hour or two reading a magazine or book. Working in the yard…arranging flower beds and decorating with pots. Not the hard work of actual digging, planting, etc. Just sitting on the patio in the cool of the evening. Or sitting out at our local lake, watching the sun set. A day spent with a cherished friend, just relaxing to the point that you could almost nod off from the calm and peace. All of us need little interjections of those kind of times to help us regroup and evaluate where our life is going. Maybe we will decide that we are too busy and we need to not volunteer ourselves so quickly. Maybe that time will refuel our minds and bodies so we can continue to do those things that mean the most to us.

The biggest point here is…just stop every once in awhile. Most of the ‘things’ we feel are so important will wait just a few more minutes or hours or even days. Make the quiet times in your life when you pray, reflect, spend fun time with your family just as important as all the rest that we feel like we HAVE to do. I think your family will thank you for it!

My daughter’s gym membership will be coming to an end soon…the first of June when she quits her job to leave for the summer work program in upstate New York. For the last two months I have been the only one using the membership and I’m really going to miss it when it is finished! I have met so many nice people here in our little town and it has been a pleasant hour or so  to start each day in that manner. But, I keep telling myself that at least it is summer now and I can walk out at the lake or in town around the high school track. I have many available options open…but the gym was definitely a pleasure for me!

What do you do to keep in shape or just have some alone time?

This will be more of an update post since I haven’t posted for awhile. Thanks to all of you that check here every now and then and see what is going on.

My garden is doing very well. No more eaten plants! Hooray! We had a little bit of Romaine lettuce on our sandwiches. It was sweet and tender. I start thinning it by pulling the close plants up by the roots and leaving room for a bigger head to grow. My potatoes are doing fantastic…they all came up. I even have four red cabbage and four brussel sprouts that survived the attack of the animal. They are growing quickly. I finally had a chance to plant my tomatoes this past Monday as well as some of the pepper plants. I still have a few tomatoes and peppers to plant, but the majority are in and taking off. It is amazing how quickly they grow after they are planted!

My flowers are doing really well too. I have 3/4 of the garden surrounded with Marigolds and they will be beautiful by mid-summer. I also planted a lot of Impatients in a shaded garden area next to our garage. I hope they take over the entire bed and blossom in the white, pink and salmon colors I chose. That same bed has three red peonies which are gorgeous when they bloom and they smell wonderful too. I would like to eventually have some Hosta plants in that bed, but will have to wait for now. I love color and I will have that…soon!

My son and I even made some progress on our cement patio area. We bought 18 blocks a couple of Saturdays ago and we have been busy getting the area leveled off. A lot of work of course, but we will all enjoy it this summer. I was able to get a couple Gardenia plants at half price at ‘good ole’ Wal-Mart. They are almost ready to bloom again and they have such pretty deep green leaves with almost a waxy appearance. They will smell wonderful too! So, I have great expectations for the patio area. I picture a stone terrace with an abundance of flowering plants in all colors, their blooms emanating such fragrance. What a great place to sit in the early morning hours or evening at dusk. I love these little outside ‘rooms’.

It looks like all my Angel Face climbing roses survived the freeze and snow a couple weeks ago. I trimmed them back to the last green leaf buds and I did that to the small Red Bud in our front yard. Even the larger trees…Elms, Maples and Oaks are finally starting to leaf out. It was looking rather bare around here for May!

Well…I hope all your gardens faired as well. And what a blessing with all the rain we have been having! The plants are just loving it. So, the Garden Grows On!