I JUST ... Spent the weekend with Mom

My annual Memorial Day Weekend trip to Mom’s was great!  Usually we eat ourselves stupid and really don’t spend much time at the house – just out and about spending money.  This year I asked Mom to make a honey-do list for me for the house.  And she did.  We did get out of the house once – we went to see Dark Shadows in the theater.  It was pretty good – a fairly tame Tim Burton movie, but as far as adaptations of soap operas go, it was entertaining.  It had all the soap opera drama and the Tim Burton dark comedy that Johnny Depp does so well.  It was Michelle Pfieffer’s second time working with Tim Burton too and she was great (her first time was Cat Woman in the second Batman movie - BEST CAT WOMAN EVER).  We had dinner with Nana Sue - a mainstay of the trip, no matter when or why I come down, we always have dinner with her!  We also went over to Bronco’s house and hung out with his humans, Chuck and Donna.  Mom brought a sampler case of Kona Brewing Company’s beer and I really liked a dark beer that was in the pack – I don’t normally drink dark beers.  Koko Brown was definitely a good beer – a bummer it is a seasonal, but I drank of the ones in the case (over the weekend) and it went well with pretty much everything we had – bbq, tofu, and hardwork. 

The dogs had a blast with my Mom’s dogs, Boo and Linda.  Annie was basically ignored by Linda, she only had eyes for Oakleigh and was constantly mouthing her ears – freak dog.  Poor O’s ears were either soaking wet with slobber or crusty and gross all weekend long.  They did make themselves home on the furniture – surprise, surprise and Mom had a few extra coffee buddies in the mornings while I slept in. 

I only got photos from the big project, the others I was just flying through so I didn’t pick up the camera.  The big project was planting an herb garden for her on her patio.  The bed has been used as a rose garden and as a bed for other plants,

but Mom wanted something she could use, so she picked herbs.  The list included: curly parsley, chocolatemint, spearmint, marjoram, hot & spicy oregano, Italian oregano, uprightrosemary, golden sage, French tarragon, thyme, 6 types of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil: cinnamon basil, Thai basil, spicy globe basil, Genovese basil, Corsican basil and sweet basil, and she added two flowers to the bed: Shasta Daisies and Cinnamon RedHot Dianthus. 

I had to turn the dirt over,

mix in the amendments she bought for it (four bags or Miracle Grow soil),

smooth it out,

spread out ground cloth (the morning glories grow everywhere, in the matter of seconds), then I had her direct me where to put all the plants,

I cut holes in the ground cloth and planted the herbs, we placed the sprinklers,

then spread mulch on top of it all

and put her hanging brackets and knick-knacks back in the bed for character. 

Done!...with the bed… 

I also mowed her lawns with a self-propelled mower that doesn’t move itself, I had blisters on both hands from the job and will from now on totally appreciate her more when she says she mowed her lawns!  I was struggling and I am an ox compared to her, so when she mows it herself, she is SuperWoman – love you Mom! 

Wish I could mow her lawn for her every time after that experience.  I cut a roll of chicken wire in half – lengthwise – for her so she cordon off her veggie beds and keep Linda “The Destroyer” out of the beds. 

I installed a barrier behind the herb garden to keep The Destroyer out of that bed. 

Mom sprayed all the weeds around the house and planted her veggies – tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupe and squash. 

We trimmed the front yard – rose bushes, palm trees and crazy ferns.  I pulled out a storage shelf on her patio and two rats jumped out.  One ran one way into the side yard, followed by the dogs and the other ran in the opposite direction, along the house behind the dog houses to be found (and killed) by O later.  We cleaned the patio off and left the storage shelf pulled out so she could get an irrigation specialist out to fix the damage the rats did to the wiring for her sprinkler system.  Then I went home!  Spent three full days with her and they were all worth it – I wish she were closer so I could do things like that for her more often!

I JUST ... Got a call from the landscaper!

He is starting on the backyard tomorrow with a quick spray of Round-Up, then starting work on Monday.  *Happy Dance*

I JUST ... Finished a baby quilt top

I have a cadet who is welcoming a baby boy with his wife in July.  I wanted to make a baby quilt for him so I started looking on Quilter’s Cache for an easy block that would look special in a quilt.  I found Ranger’sPride and when I saw what it looked like with other blocks, I decided it would be a neat block to use.  The nursery colors are blue and brown so when I went to the Purple Frog Quilt Shop in Jefferson, I went to the batiks and found a great brown with blue in it and two blues that went with it.  I started June 2 and finished it last night, June 13.  I wish all the quilt tops I did look this cool and are so quick. 

I am going up to Diane’s to quilt it in a few weeks.  I’ve got a design in mind – I have been looking a lot at Leah Day’s website and The Green Fairy’s blog and want to try something other than an all-over quilt pattern.  I took the whole quilt and made a drawing of it in pen – no color, just lines – and then took a pencil and sketched in the designs I want to put in the quilt.  I hope it isn’t too busy or too much quilting for a baby quilt – but I want something that they’ll keep too.

Wait....What the heck?!?!

Can anyone guess what this is? 

It looks like a bird pooped on his ear…  Actually, it is just a scab and powder from a nick the barber gave him with the straight razor that morning.  Still say it looks like bird poo though.

I JUST ... Ran my 4th 5K for the year

The weekend after my trip to Mom’s was Strawberry Festival Weekend here in Lebanon.  I have been trying to get into shape to run the Strawberry Run 5K for two years and I finally got into this one.  The run was June 2 at 9am.  The route is from the American Legion, through downtown along Main Street, then out to the Old Wal-Mart and back.  It was a fast and flat track and I managed to trim 50 seconds off my 5K time.  My next run is July 14 so I hope I can trim more off my time with that!

I JUST ... Participated in Motorcycle Visibilty Day

Motorcycle Visibility Day at OSU was Wednesday May 23 this year.  I rode Bella, it sprinkled a little bit when she was at the MU, and had a really good time.  I volunteered to be up at the quad with the bikes for an hour and was totally blown away by how much attention Bella got.  I had never heard of Triumph until about 2 years ago and apparently I didn’t know squat – they’re pretty popular.  A better talk-up of the event is on Troubador’s page.

I JUST ... did some yardwork with Josh

A little backyard update.  We’ve been planning on putting in sod and raised beds in the backyard since we moved in.  There was never anything in the backyard but rocky clay and weeds and we bought the house with the intention of getting the yard in ASAP. 

That was 5 years ago…  We finally got a contract signed with a landscaper and were told to get everything in the backyard that was on the weeds onto the concrete so they could come in, trench, lay irrigation and level with top soil.  So that is what we did!  Josh weed-whacked everything down and raked it into piles (for me to pick up later when the yard bin was emptied),

I pulled the lilies, trees and other tubs up onto the cement in an orderly fashion

and we used the apple boxes (we bought two or three years ago) as make-shift planters for the veggies we have since our sod and planter boxes won’t be in until late June. 

Took us most of the day, but we did it and then we crashed on the couch with the girls for a movie.