The weekend in review or How’d I do?

The list:

-Buy a pumpkin
-Sleep in
-Turn on the heat in the house/bleed the radiators
-Wash a lot of things - clothes, kitchen towels, dishes (do other things need to be washed, of course, but let’s not be excessive here...)
-Put the downstairs furniture back to its pre-party configuration
-Finish edging the garden beds
-Weed, mow, plant bulbs, general garden clean-up
-Straighten my tree (thanks, Bob!!)
-Make at least one thank-you card
-Scottish dance
-Watch the Mad Men DVDs before they are overdue at the library
-Attend the Piffaro concert
-Restore my office to some semblance of sanity

Well, the list doesn’t look as bad as it could...

On Friday I washed dishes and did laundry between Mad Men episodes.

Saturday was garden day. I bought Seymour, my pumpkin and a few too many bulbs first thing, and proceeded to spend about 4 hours outside between mowing and bricks and tree and weeding. I had this moment of horror when I thought I’d incorrectly estimated the number of bricks I’d need to complete my edging project, but math won the day, and I had exactly the right number. I know you’ll find this shocking, but I got a trifle carried away with the bulbs. I started out really only wanting snowdrops but got drawn in by the prospect of dark purple tulips and hyacinths, miniature daffodils and cream-colored crocuses with a hint of red. If even half of them come up, I’ll be happy, but my expectations are not that high. And I’m happy to report that my lovely tree in front is now upright like the others on the block. My neighbor brought his own power tools and helped me anchor the tree to the base of the front porch. Hopefully in a couple of years the tree will stand straight without the wire support.

I did move my furniture back on Saturday, and go to the dance on Saturday night (I wasn’t yet sore from the yard work. That didn’t kick in until Sunday afternoon). Sunday was perfect. I slept in a bit, had a lazy breakfast, washed more dishes, took a walk to a little local flea market, and finally went downtown for the Piffaro concert, which was fabulous. I can still hear the ringing of the final notes of the choir just hanging in the air.

What didn’t get done...

-Heat and radiators - the temperature soared back up to the 70s, but I think it was the last gasp. I’m slotting in Tuesday as radiator day...
-Crafts - I spent more time getting my hands dirty with dirt, so there was less time available to get my hands dirty with ink. But I must make time!
-Office - well that was a bit farfetched, right? But it does still need to be done. In a big way. Maybe the next weekend that I’m home...

And as for this weekend...

...No ambitions - I’m out of town.

Today's fun topic - ordering a new cell phone...

So, apparently my cell phone has reached that magic age when some of the buttons stop functioning. I've been here before. And luckily, as my cell phone needs are limited (Not giving in to the now ubiquitous need for a fancy phone with email and apps. Nope. Okay, almost. But, no...), I’ve developed a technique for dealing with it.

1. Look on the AT&T website to see which phones are free or cheap with a contract extension

2. Go to the AT&T store and ask a staff member which of the free phones is the best

3. Get the new phone. Get the staff to transfer my address book. Leave happy.

4. Eventually learn how to use the new phone

My goal was to take care of this Monday after work. I trot on over to the store. They point me to the cheap phones in the dark corner where they assume no one will want to shop. I consult with a staff member and learn that they no longer carry the inexpensive/free phones in the store. You can only order them online (no doubt to try and force you to buy something snazzy for instant gratification). But I have the internet, so I have my 5 second consultation and run to catch my train.

Today, I went back to the website to buy my phone. Both of the recommended phones in my category have terrible reviews from users on the website, mostly about scratches and covers falling off, and battery life. But I figure, I am mostly only using this thing as a phone. I am not trying to make it be something it’s not, though doubtless I will drop it several times. So I read a few more reviews, and make my choice. And boy, oh boy, the phone I want comes in RED. Why not? Let’s branch out a little from the basic black (oh, excuse me, graphite...). I make my choice. I start the check-out process... ...only to learn that the red phone requires you to fork over $50 at the check-out and send away for your rebate, while the black phone is just plain free from the start. This seems akin to the myth that red cars are more expensive to insure than others, but this one appears to be true! They are counting on people (like me) not bothering/forgetting to send for the rebate. Such a racket!

So I picked black. It will match all of my shoes.

Seize the Weekend!

I would be lying if I said the craziness of October kind of crept up on me. I knew it was happening. I keep a calendar. I said yes to all of those calling dates AND planned my party for one of those at home weekends. So here I am, about to embark on my one free October weekend, and I’m caught between desires: sleep, be lazy, watch Mad Men DVDs, or, be productive, garden, do laundry, generally de-clutter the house, attack the craziness that is my office. I know! Don’t choose, do both!

Proposed important things for the weekend:

-Buy a pumpkin
-Sleep in
-Turn on the heat in the house/bleed the radiators
-Wash a lot of things - clothes, kitchen towels, dishes (do other things need to be washed, of course, but let’s not be excessive here...)
-Put the downstairs furniture back to its pre-party configuration
-Finish edging the garden beds
-Weed, mow, plant bulbs, general garden clean-up
-Straighten my tree (thanks, Bob!!)
-Make at least one thank-you card
-Scottish dance
-Watch the Mad Men DVDs before they are overdue at the library
-Attend the Piffaro concert
-Restore my office to some semblance of sanity

Will I get to everything on this list? Doubtful. Check back next week for the progress report...

Musically inclined...

I’m a late adopter of most technological things: CDs, cell phones, DVDs. I don’t have cable TV. I don’t really understand the wireless networking in my house. And I’ve already reported about my fun with printers this summer. So you know who you’re dealing with here. Musical devices are no different for me.

After everyone else had one, back in the dark ages, I finally got a CD player and started purchasing CDs. All was well. In my room first, and then in my own apartment, I had a stereo which carried sound throughout my allotted space. When the CD player on my (big, now 15-year-old) stereo died, I replaced that with a little boom box, and kept right on having accompaniment to crafting sessions, dish washing, etc. Finally, frustrated with the sound quality of my little $30 from Target solution, I bought a CD component via Craig’s List. I was so proud when I was able to hook it up to my stereo system without supervision (go me for still knowing where the instructions were!) But now that I have a house, and seven bedrooms in addition to the main living room, dining room, etc., a single, static sound solution doesn’t work. So the solution was to rarely listen to music.

Then along came the I-pod. Yes, it was a modern Walkman with the power of a music database behind it. It’s your CD collection in one box, and basically the cause of record store demise. But it’s so compact. And portable. And then there was the Ipod Nano, which was cute, and came in purple. But like all things electronic and modern, this was only for other people.

But then after I got the house, it made me think: I want music in different rooms in the house at different times. Yes, I could move my laptop around, and have, but it’s clunky and has bad sound quality. If only I had an Ipod and a set of speakers, wouldn’t that just be great. My parties could have a soundtrack!

Finally, after two years of thinking about this and considering how many CDs I have, how much digital space they would take up, how much physical space they currently take up, and how much time it would take me to download all of that music, with some of my summer earnings, I took the plunge and bought an Ipod.

Now mind you, you go into the Apple Store, and at once are tempted to get an Iphone, an Ipad, or at least an Ipod Touch. I felt the urge, believe me. But it’s me, so I stuck to the Classic, which has a ton of space, few gizmos, but I think everything I need (I don’t need a pedometer on my Ipod. I don’t!)

I love it already.

As of this writing, I have over 100 CDs loaded on it already. It’s not organized. I have no playlists set up. I haven’t purchased anything through Itunes. But I bought an adapter for the car and took it on its first outing this weekend - perfect. Speakers are next, in time for my soiree, and then I should be set.

And of course I needed a carrying case protector thingy. It came in the mail today. It’s purple...

Going green...

...the dining room, that is!

In what seemed like a fast decision, some time in May I made the bold leap of having the dining room painted. As I've never painted a room even one color, much less two, nor installed a chair rail, I forked over the big bucks for someone who had availability (i.e., needed the money right then) and knew what he was doing. Here are some pictures I took of the event:



Brian moved the furniture away from the walls, covered it over and got to work patching the old plaster, making surfaces event, etc.



He discovered cracks in the plaster I had no idea were there and made them disappear.



Please note the thermostat on the wall with the open cover. This will be important later...



More covering and patching.



At last - a chair rail! Brian and I had a bit of a miscommunication about the chair rail. We had agreed that it wouldn't go on every little corner, nor on the angled bits of the bay window. He took that to mean that it shouldn't go to the ends of the wall everywhere. Luckily I asked about it and he was able to patch it before he finished painting. It's not perfect, and it did require another trip to Home Depot, but at least it's much closer to what I had in mind to begin with.



I came home one day and the walls were green! Amazing!



Brian worked over Memorial Day weekend and finished that Monday. It was great to get the furniture uncovered and back in place. Here you see the chairs against the wall which were the catalyst for the chair rail in the first place and how we knew exactly what height to make it. The marks on the wall made that so simple.



I was upstairs at one point when I heard Brian calling for me. As he started to move the breakfront back, it became unbalanced and the top part threatened to come crashing down (this happened once long ago, early in its life with my family, when it did crash and all of the glassware within broke). The top was securely bracketed to the bottom, but the top part became separated from its base. Brian and I got it back against the wall and left it at that for a while.



In my eagerness to really finish getting the dining room back into usable condition, every so often I would open the upper doors to the breakfront in hopes I could refill it with the glassware decorating my living room. But every time, the situation was the same: I opened the door, the top part began to tumble towards me. A few weeks and another trip to Home Depot later, I came home with some brackets that a friend help me install. The breakfront is now more stable than ever, and once again full of breakables.



Notice how the back of the chairs are just the height of the chair rail. It's so beautiful. The picture also shows the chairs in all of their ripped, orange glory. This is a project I hope to tackle later this week. Stay tuned for more about their transformation...



It was several weeks before I discovered the final point of humour to getting the dining room painted. It seems the cover to the thermostat was flipped open at just the wrong moment. Brian, who is extremely careful in his work, missed a crucial bit. For now, I can simply keep the thermostat cover open, but I think it's time to drag the rest of the green paint up from the basement and finish the job.

Getting back in the swing of things...

Or not.

How is it possible that I have posted nothing in two months. What have I been doing with my time? Endings, beginnings, regrouping, planning, and not enough weeding. Some selected highlights of the past bit, listed without benefit of my calendar, so omissions are to be expected, before forging ahead:

-My dining room is green!
-Ten years at one job are concluded. Let's hope for ten years at the next one, which starts 8/23
-Two camp gigs down, two to go, starting on 7/31
-Of my list of 14 summer projects, so manageable, I thought, I've made some headway on exactly one of them. Well, maybe 1.5. It's already the end of July
-My garden is not dead. I have the hollyhocks I've been admiring at St. Mark's church for some years (thank you, Geoffrey). I still have some mystery plants.
-Although I didn't think of it that way before it happened, I just had a lovely New England vacation. This followed the realization that I will be driving to various New England locations at least four times this fall, including driving to VT two weekends in a row. Yes, I am crazy.

I know more things happened, but onward.

Plans for this week:

-Finalize all camp plans
-Make covers for new sofa pillows
-Attempt chair re-covering
-Pack

Can she get it all done?

I have to stop buying plants...

...I just have to. It occurred to me yesterday as I was planting some of my started seedlings that I'm just about out of room for plants with not all of the seedlings in the ground. Did that stop me from buying two small-ish pots of Lantana today at Lowe's? Nope, of course not. But I think, I hope, I'd better be done garden shopping for the season.

So, a tour. I've gone a little picture happy, so this will be the long post about the backyard. Pictures of the front garden will follow shortly - maybe after I trim the grass again, and plant one of the lantanas.

Picture yourself walking in my back gate. The house in on your right. We will proceed around the perimeter clockwise.

1. White lilac - Susie bought this one for me from Monticello. Last year it had no blooms; This year, one. I have high hopes for next year. Right beside it is a baby lilac, also from Monticello, procured by George. I suspect it is exactly the same variety, but I'll know in a couple of years when it's big enough to bloom.



2. Pink Azalea - one of the extremely cheap plants I bought at the end of last summer. I had no idea what color it would be, but it was a great pop of pink in the back corner of the yard.



3. Rose Campion - from Peter. These were bright and fun last year. I can't wait for the flowers.



4. Blue Forget-Me-Nots - I was worried about these and not sure they would make it, but they're larger and happier-looking than last year.



5. Apothecary Rose - also from Susie, also from Monticello. This picture was taken this afternoon, and as you can see, the first blooms got a bit beaten down by the rain, but there are a lot more to come. I bought a small trellis today to get the bush off of the ground. I wish I had room for more roses. I'd love a peach variety, and a pale pink. Maybe next year...



6. Yellow Poppy Celandine - this plant is amazing! And huge! I think this came from Liz's garden. I must've planted it and forgotten about it that first spring in the house. Now in it's second year it is thriving. There is something growing next to it which is a real plant, but without flowers, I have no idea what it is. I hope I find out soon.



7. White Azalea - also from Liz. This plant is in ground a little to marshy for comfort, but it's hanging in there. In the photo, the blooms look white, but they are really tinged with some pale purple.



8. Pink Forget-Me-Nots - these look pinker in person. I found these at Waterloo Gardens - a truly dangerous place. I love the delicate flower stalks.



9. Mystery Plant - this photo is from a couple of weeks ago. Now that the plant has grown a bit more, I suspect it's a butterfly bush, and if so, likely a cutting from George and Paul. Stay tuned...



10. Hosta - I was sure I had killed this one. I am so ignorant about gardening that I didn't know they died back to the ground and then re-emerged in the spring. It's a happy plant. No flowers, but maybe they will come.



11. Bleeding Hearts - one of my purchases at the Chestnut Hill Garden Days on May Day weekend. It's a small plant, as yet, but today I discovered two flowers!!!



12. Wisteria - this picture is also from a couple of weeks ago, just after I bought the trellis. Looking at the plant now, you can see how well it's adapting the the structure, sending runners upward that intertwine around the wire supports. I can't wait for flowers!



13. Hydrangea - also from two weeks ago. The plant is bigger now with the blooms just starting to open. I wonder what color they will be! There is another, smaller hydrangea in the back, and one in front. The other one in back, between the lilacs and the pink azalea, is too small for blooms this year.



14. Paeony - this picture is quite enlarged, but shows that I may yet have paeonies in my garden! And yesterday when I was planting my ranunculas next to the site of my other paeony, which I was sure had bitten the dust, you can tell, if you look carefully, that something is alive down there. Yet another instance of wait until next year. This seems to be a theme in my young garden.



15. Day lilies - also from Peter. They are dark red and will bloom later in the summer.



16. Lantana - today's purchase, still sitting in it's pot on the back steps. This one will go right at the entrance to the garden. The other will go in the front of the house. I debated keeping them in pots so I could take them in in the winter in hopes they might survive, but I decided to take my chances this year. If they don't last, I will try for pots next year.



The landscaping plan: What I really want to do in the back is build a brick patio with 2' - 3' beds on the perimeter. But as that is pretty far down on the list of house projects, I decided that I would begin edging (and clearing, and weeding) the beds a bit at a time. Patios are expensive, but bricks are cheap. I bought a couple dozen and set them out. Today I bought a dozen more that are not yet out. We'll see how far along the side that gets me. The top picture is from a couple of weeks ago.



This picture is from today. If you squint and look between the wisteria and the hydrangea, you can see some of my planted seedlings. In that corner, a row of hollyhocks against the fence, and sweet peas in front (do sweet peas need supports?). I hope they take! Elsewhere in the garden are a bed of rannculas, and some other seedlings which may be violas and dame's rocket (phlox) but may also be poppies and alyssum. Someone forgot to label her seedlings. I guess I will just like surprises!



So, if I had just a bit more space, I would plant a viburnum, which smell heavenly, and American beauty berry, which has incredibly purple berries in the fall. And more roses, as mentioned above. I do want some snow drops for the front yard, but I think I will manage to find a place for those. Maybe...