Sunday Moring Praise Team

Now that we're approaching the end of our daughter's junior year, I'm mindful that her high school days will soon end. I want to be sure that I've documented the important facets of her life. While I've done a good job capturing photos of her music activities, academic competitions, and friends, I haven't done as well documenting her activities at church, especially her work with the praise team, because I'm hesitant to take the camera along.

This is such an important activity for her that I decided there had to be a way to discreetly snap a few pictures. So we took the camera with us this morning and grabbed some pictures from the balcony.

I'm glad we took the opportunity to capture her work with the praise team. For the scrapbook page, I'll have her write about how she came to volunteer for this activity and what it means to her.

If you're reading this post today, my challenge to you is this: Are there important aspects of your life that you haven't captured in photos or documented in some way? This is your story. Find a way to write every single chapter.

Saturday morning

On this beautiful Saturday morning, the ladder is positioned in front of the door for optimum viewing. The addition of the smaller step ladder eliminates some of the competition for a top seat. :-)

Feline Friday: An Outdoor Moment

Tinsel and Lily are strictly indoor kitties. They love to go outside, but when we take them out for a walk, we always use a harness and leash.

Once the weather turns warm each spring, they sit at the window and gaze outside longingly. Sometimes they even run to the door and meow. When I see this behavior, I always feel a little bit guilty about keeping them inside, but my desire to keep them safe outweighs any guilt!

This evening, I took each kitty outside separately to the patio for a good brushing and a special little treat: Since it was a quiet evening, they each got to explore the patio for awhile without the leash. I stood with them as they walked around slowly and cautiously, smelling the flowers and grass.

After a few minutes, it was time to go back inside. It may not be quite as exciting as the patio, but it's safe!

Beach Bingo tin

I was talking with a friend today about a travel game I made a few years back to take on vacation: beach bingo tins. Even though it's been a few years, this is still one of my favorite projects. (Of course, if I were making the tins today, nothing would be tilted!)

I made the bingo tins before our summer vacation to Assateague and Chincoteague Islands, off the coast of Virginia. Since it was our daughter's first trip to the ocean, I thought it might be fun to have a game to play to learn about things you might see on the beach.

Let me offer a word of caution here: I used three Altoid tins to make my beach bingo games. But instead of putting the Altoids into another container, I decided to eat them all. All three tins of Altoids. Take it from me: Don't EVER eat three tins of Altoids all by yourself! Luckily, I recovered by the time we were ready to leave on vacation!

I drew pictures of things we might see at the beach and attached the cards to the inside of the lid. Then I added a few strong magnets and we were set to go! Because we planned to take the tins to the beach, I waited to decorate the outsides until we came home.

This would be a fun project to do with kids. You could customize your bingo cards to whatever you might see on your summer vacation. Of course, if you don't want to draw pictures, you could use clip art, patterned paper, or other images for your bingo cards.

Just looking at my beach bingo tins again gives me an urge to make another set for this summer. College Visit Bingo, anyone? ;-)

Class project: Cosmo Cricket recipe album

I'm a sucker for most anything with a vintage/retro feel, so when I saw Cosmo Cricket's new Early Bird line, I was hooked. This line has several gorgeous papers that look like they were taken directly from a 1950's linen kitchen towel or apron. The chipboard is equally enchanting and even includes an adorable smiling toaster. As you can see, this line is perfect for a recipe book!

My recipe book is 8x8 with 20 pages. I used an SEI Preservation Series album, so it's easy to add pages to accommodate more recipes. I picked out some retro fonts for the divider pages and quotes (Easter Basket, Featured Item, and Rickles), available for free at Tack-o-Rama and Font Diner, two of my favorite retro font sites.

This class will be scheduled at Memory Bound in August and possibly again later in the fall. It promises to be a great time, as always!

Tabby Tuesday

Ever have one of those days?

Landscaping improvement

I think one can safely say that "alive" is preferred to "dead" in nearly every situation, especially landscaping. Yet we've been in a quandary over this very question for the past few weeks.

Our Japanese Maple, planted last fall, failed to produce a single leaf this spring. Most of the stems were dry, yet the bark on the trunk was still green, so we couldn't tell if the tree was dead or alive. We set a "deadline" (lame pun intended) for Memorial Day weekend. If no leaves appeared by then, the tree would be replaced.

click to enlarge

Today was the day. With still no leaves in sight, Spouse removed the tree and returned it for a replacement. He came home with a new Japanese Maple, unquestionably very much alive. What an improvement!

Feline Friday: Lily's favorite game

For today's Feline Friday, Lily presents her current favorite game. She suggests that you DO try this at home!

Garden Project #3

Well, I chose the hottest and windiest day of the season so far to tackle Garden Project #3, the croissant-shaped bed next to our patio. Like the other areas I've been working on, I completely ignored this bed last summer and it had become a bit of a weed patch. (Well, truthfully, it has had some serious issues for a few years now!)



As you can see in the "before" shots above, the plants in this garden are oddly spaced. They were fine when I initially put them in a few years ago, but some have spread and others have died, leaving a lot of ugliness. As the summer wears on and plants reach their full size, this bed looks really awkward and out of balance.

As I hope you can see in the "after" shots above, I spent a good portion of the afternoon and evening re-working this garden. I'll be the first to say that I didn't solve all of the problems, but I hope that I've fixed at least a few. Notably, I have three large clumps of asters in the center of the bed which always start out looking nice (and provide lots of height) but by mid-summer begin to begin to suffer from some unidentified disease. I decided to give them one more summer and if the same thing happens again, I'll remove and replace them with something else. And the coreopsis (variety: Zagreb)...let's just say that I have PLENTY of it.

Although it may not be obvious, I added a lot of plants to the bed to fill in the gaps and fix some of the "balance" issues. Some were new purchases, and others were divisions of plants from this bed or others. I also added a small lilac bush to one end to provide a bit of a focal point. And finally, although it's difficult to see in the photos, I plugged in a few annuals for color. When all was said and done, I covered everything with six bags of mulch and watered it down so it wouldn't all blow away!

Now that the perennials are in place in all of my garden areas, I am planning to use my stash of metal plant tags to mark each one. I've done this in the past and have found it helpful. It also gives a nice sense of order to the garden. And we all know that I like order! :-)

This particular bed is going to take a lot of attention to cure everything that ails it. I hope that today's changes are a few steps in the right direction.

Next on my list: See that distant garden with the large bridal wreath bush? It's No Man's Land. I'm scared to even venture out there, but I promised myself (and our neighbors) that this is the year. Stay tuned.

Garden Project #2

I'm undertaking a few long overdue garden projects this spring. I've already shared a bit about the garden overhaul in front of the house. This week, I'm working on the perennial beds behind the house.

The areas in question include one of the gardens next to our patio and the narrow border along the back and side of our house. They are all connected, so I consider this one big bed with three sections. When we first moved into our house, these areas were all full sun, but now that the trees are bigger, they have transitioned to partial shade gardens. Over time, many of the perennials have died or have had to be moved to sunnier spots.



The "before" photos in the collage above were taken last May (click to enlarge, if you dare!). You can see several gaps in the beds. Right after I took these photos, my mom passed away so I didn't do a thing with the beds all summer long. You can only imagine how pitiful they looked by the end of the summer.

And here's the "after" shot (click to enlarge...this collage is not nearly as scary!). This week, I've spent several hours moving plants and adding many new perennials plus a few annuals for color. Of course, a few bags of mulch help everything look a little fresher.

I'm going to keep a careful eye on these areas and see how the new plants perform. If the gaps don't fill in as I expect (or if the plants don't do well), I'll add more annuals or perennials. I'm hoping that with a little more effort and attention this spring and summer, I can make these areas colorful and interesting -- and hopefully a little less embarrassing!

Next on my list: Only two more major garden overhauls to go! :-)

Signs of life

May has been a difficult month, as expected it would be.

But seeing signs of life in the garden brings me hope that maybe someday I, too, can emerge from this period of darkness with renewed strength. Someday soon, I hope.

Typical Lily

Lily has a way of sitting with her front legs spread way apart. It makes it easier to lick her tummy, I guess.

Whatever the reason, it never fails to make us laugh.