"Where your pleasure is, There is your treasure;
Where your treasure, There your heart;
Where your heart, There your happiness."

~Saint Augustine


Reading;
"Things I Want My Daughters to Know"

By: Alexandra Stoddard.

What can I say, I like to play..............

Blooms on the move

woodland anenome

Kerria Japonica-Rose
Grandiflorum-Trillum
Epimedium~ Bishops Hat
Dicentra-Wild Bleedinghearts
Cornus~ Dogwood

Cercis Canadensis-Redbud. This is the tree that was brought back from the farm in Michigan before it was sold. The house that Tom's mother grew up in was in the family for 100 years.
Asarum- Wild Ginger
Athyrum-Painted Fern

These Brethren Don't Drink!!

While visiting the Family for Easter, Mom decided it was time to take care of some of her personal inventory to lessen the stress later (ha).
Names where put on items that were desired and old arugements of past distributions was renewed.
While in my mother-in-laws bedroom looking at years and years and years of boyscout stuff I spied an old wooden box on the top shelf in mom's closet. There is something so charming to me about old wooden boxes. I still don;t know what I am going to do with it but I had to have it.
I expressed a desire for the box to mom and she said " you can have it and everything that is in it."
Now this is something I would expect to be said because of the need to get rid of some junk that has been laying around for years. To my amazement the wooden box was full of BOOZE!!!!! MOM!?! Large expensive bottles of Brandy and Whiskey! Even little plane size bottles. "Mom?" I said, or more like WHAO!!!! "Yes, the deep dark secret is out!"

I guess dad would receive the booze as Christmas gifts from his tax customers as a thank you. So for years and years Tom's dad has been placing bottles of gifted booze in that wooden box on the top shelf of his bedroom closet........For what?

Well, I tell you for what! Tom would crumble under the onslaught of peer pressure and allow his friends to take sneaky sips of brandy or whiskey. Then he would add water to the bottles to make up for what was missing!!! Unfortunately I had to, or wanted to throw away those bottles that were already opened, but ended up with was these two beauties that have been aging for years!! Can we say PARTY?






I belong to a group on Flickr where only flower photos that 'nod' are allowed. This is a Bluebell before the bloom 'Nod.'





No, I'm not giving birth to Amy again. The treehouse is where Amy and I like to hang out. There is no place to be alone when she's around. She has a keen eye and can spot you a mile away. That ability comes in handy when you've misplaced something and can't find it. She knows where everything is.

Turmeric, paprika, yellow & red onion skins, red cabbage and blueberries dye our Easter eggs this year. How simple it was. Easter started out with all of us in Mom and Dads bed listening to Harry Potter's "Half Blood Prince" while eating animal crackers. Then Mom's house for dinner with the family. So eventful with a new teenage mother and one very rebellious teenage daughter who could have used a good spanking the way she was acting. My girls were amazed at her behavior towards her mother as were many who witness the onslaught of verbal abuse. Grateful that the offensive teenager left and soon after the mother, then there was peace and laugher once again.

Two Birthday's to celebrate that evening and then home to finish Narinia's "Loin, Which & the Wardrobe" then back to finishing the Harry Potter book.

A wonderful spring rain followed us all afternoon on our travels. The garden is busting to bloom!


~ Each one of us is a mystic gradually awakening to the truth of who we really are.
~ Megan Dona

Bleeding Nose Trillium

As the garden begins to blossom into full spring, I find myself, with great urgency, to get out there and get started on the yard clean up. Lucky for me I have Tom home this week to lend me a hand. Not too happy about I'm sure, but Hey! That is the life of a home owner. I'll make it worth his wild!

BLOOMS!

Just a few items that are blooming so far this spring. Jewelry making will have to take a 'rainy day' seat now.

The last photo is my favorite Rue plant that just starting to come up. What a presentation! "come on baby."

Not too much yard cleanup this spring. We did a very thorough job getting up the leaves this past fall. Now I can concentrate on dividing and transplanting a few things and bone up on the wood chips this year. I get the feeling it will be another dry one.

The photo below is the exact Scion xB we purchased last Tuesday. I know what I said, but it is nice to have a NEW car. This is our very first NEW car plus the price was right. We broke it in by taking it on a long trip across Ohio to visit our good friends Sal & Cindy. We were able to go over 600 miles for less than $50.00 in gas. That is good for us. The smaller size just tests our ability to be better organized and to do without. Not all bad.

Tom is on vacation next week for a whole week. Just Tom and I during the day...............WAHO! We have big plans to get organized about all things that need to get accomplished this spring and summer. That includes having fun too and actually taking somewhat of a vacation in June or July. Now all we need is the money to do all the things we need and want. We don't want to bank on Ebay being anything other than a buffer zone for our budget. I think once we depend on it as a 'real' source of income then it becomes a J-O-B! Right now it is pleasurable hobby with benefits (for Tom).

April Fool's For who?

This was Tom's April fools joke for me. He knows how I feel about the Clown toting vehicle. The girls were involved and talked him into borrowing the Scion and making seem as though he had purchased it.
While I was driving this clown car I really didn't notice, so much, how strange it looks on the outside until we came to most of the stops. "The people were looking man! " Maybe I was a little sensitive to the thought that people would be staring, but they were! They really were!

Now the taste to get something to replace our dying vehicles has come back to bite us in the ass. We are officially on an active search for a new, gas efficient car and a monthly payment. There's not much out there in our price range.

It's scary adding another 'monthly' payment to our already very tight budget. Taking away from anything fun we might want to pursue. Our trip out west has been delayed again. We won't be done paying off our current debt before we will have add to it with braces for Amy and Catholic high school payments for Kelsey. The reality is, unless we win the lottery, we will always have some debt. It's the way life is. Not something I want to be comfortable with, but we cannot stop living because of it. But we will not be foolish either.

Oh Lottery king! Please sway our way. Just $100.000 please, so we can pay off our house and debt. Not a penny more!

I think my palm is itching.....


~"Money and success don't change people; they merely amplify what is already there."
~Will Smith