rinse, lather, repeat

yummy purple

yep. all of these.

canna-licious colors!

smoke bush

double-whammy - lime green with purple stems!

mar-ee-golds

i admit i am a creature of habit. as much as i'd like to think i 'embrace' change, i really still freak out at the smallest venture from 'the plan' - or whatever i have happened to deem 'the plan' in my head. 

letting go of 'the plan' is the hardest thing.

i've decided that i need to start thinking outside the box. one of the things that i always ALWAYS go back to in my need for control are color palettes. these must be hard-wired in my head, because no matter what, i always seem to pick and re-pick the same ones over and over.

they are different, depending on what i'm doing. for the house, it's teal and green and orange.

for logos, it's teal and green and orange (okay, not a good illustration).

for plants, it's orange and lime green and dark burgundy and/or purple.

no matter what i do, the options seem to boil down to these. and you know what? i do try to change it up. i even bought a red geranium this spring (it had an orange glow to it, though).

sometimes, you just have to admit that your plan is obviously a good one, and it's better NOT to change :)

ha ha. happy solstice day!

frolicking

ahhh. the hot, dry days of summer are here, seemingly a bit earlier than usual (kind of like everything this spring).

i love more than anything to watch the robins frolic in the sprinkler.



okay, more than ANYTHING i would love to join them :)



happy tuesday!

solstice

i can tell when summer solstice is about to hit, mostly based on my mood. it's hard to beat that summertime vibe in full swing, things like:

97 degree days, which are perfect now that the a/c has kicked in :)

avoidance of as much work as possible

time spent in 'the chair'

summer blooms all around

 'beer season' and 'grilling season'

listening around for the sounds of the rocks crying out with P R A I S E



sigh.



happy solstice week! enjoy the longer days until wednesday :)

free flowin' saturday

twofold

hello fellow campers!

no wait. i'm not camping anymore today, am i?

photo stolen from wonderfully talented anne :)

but this week WAS a good week for a church camp. i have no idea the 'final count' but i think there were 50 or 60 little campers at our Camp Mercy outreach at a local elementary school this year. it's our first year to go 'off campus' for a home brewed version of VBS, and it was really cool.

we saw more kids from the community than when we had VBS in our building...which rocked. i hugged a couple of them :)

i guess the 'big' idea for me that came out of the week was the simplicity of kindness and willingness to 'enter in' with your neighbor. we had people from a lot of different cultures, income brackets and life experiences all in one place. and guess what? we got along! perhaps it had something to do with the fun events that we engaged in, but more likely it had to do with Jesus in da house. and as our fearless leader Jenni pointed out, it's simply our job to see where He is at work and to join in. you really don't need a camp to do that, do ya?

so, i come away with the fruits of serving the Lord. it's always twofold. you HOPE you blessed a child or a weary parent, but you KNOW you were blessed yourself.




be a blessing to those around you, be a blessing to those around you, be a blessing to those around you. ha! there's my recap :)

happy weekend guys!

my long lost friend Nancy, whom i have more in common with now than ever.

red rosies

i have a lot of swimming going on in my head this week. first off, since we are in the middle of our first outreach kids' camp at church, my thoughts are all over the board about sharing the love of Jesus. i'll save my recap for when it's over (2 more nights to go)....

obviously i need a plant for that pot yet.

water lettuce. it came with some teeny tiny duckweed attached.

birdie watching over the pond.

i also spent a bit of time yesterday working some more on my little water pond. i am mostly 'winging it' from watching kirsten's gardens over the years. i don't have a pump or anything, but i knew from the beginning that i did want some fish.

3 of the 4 little rosies roaming in their new space.

carey has warned me not get too 'attached' - pshaw. not a problem for a cold-hearted creature like me! he he. my head said something to me like this when i awoke this morning....

oh my gosh! it's raining! i hope the fish did not flow over the edge.

i wonder if the fish have enough to eat in there?

do they seem cold? i wonder if birds eat fish at night?

so far they seem kind of happy.

and so it goes :)

anyway - the guy at walmart who sold me the fish said 'they probably won't last outside' so my expectations should be low. but upon doing some googling last night, i found that rosy minnows are one of the most hardy pond fish that you can get. take THAT, walmart fish man!

the little nook in the corner makes me happy.

finally, i have gotten to the point of enjoyment of my landscaping projects. getting over all of the 'big picture' madness and starting to concentrate on smaller areas is much more my style. i'm sure that the little spot show above is one that you'll be seeing more of in the coming years as it evolves into what it's meant to be.


for today, i am going to enjoy the journey :)

happy wednesday!

G.R.O.W.

GROW. that's the theme of the week for me. i'm sure this surprises none of you, for it's not a whole lot different than every week for me, lately.

the difference is that this week is rooted in the following Truth:

But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Matthew 13:23

that's my booth at Camp Mercy kids camp this week. sigh. hoping that WE are the ones who sow some good seeds...we walked the neighborhoods on saturday around the campsite, and it got my heart into the mission. people need God, people. that's all i'll say about THAT.

 

anyway, on tap for tonite is the reading of the Parable of the sower, and talking about seeds. i have a little mini parable in a jar that kirsten taught me to make....and lots of plants and seeds to look at and touch. i also have a *ahem* flyer because i am a graphic artist :))) ha.

i've got some other stuff up my sleeve as well. very, very excited and not really too nervous, even though it's our first effort to take church out to the 'hood' at Mercy, or as pastor shel titled it yesterday, to get out of the 'evangelical ghetto.' love that guy.

so to get in shape for today, i helped cass shop for some new plants for her yard on sunday. well, i kind of bossed her around :))) ha. however, we got some excellent purchases. nothing better than plant shopping with somebody else's budget!

 

then, i came home and started a new little garden of my own. because you know, i don't have enough growing on :)

oh. and a small water garden, too. which has no plants. yet.

Lord, help us to have good weather, and lots of hungry little hearts, and a strength in you and who you are, and excitement and joy and unity and lots of your SPIRIT for the week! woot!

lounging in style

happy friday, folks!

whatcha got planned?

i'll be walking some neighborhoods inviting kids to a Jesus camp next week, then probably back to the yard, tending and such.

don't look at my grass. the moles (remember them? :)) have killed just a tiny little bit of it. no biggy.

but take a look at my new lounger-ific lounger! i totally remember these from the 70s - as i very well must show, because i got asked if i wanted the 'senior' discount at shopko this week! ouch!

anyway! it's all snazzy redwood strips and aluminum. i think maybe we had a chair like this, but the loungers were spendy. that's why our loungers had green plastic woven strips, NOT redwood.

but you know me, i live the high life. so when i saw it, i thought 'heck yeah!'

i even threw some stain on it when i got it home, just to perk up the redwood, which is seriously like brand new.

i cannot get it to switch positions, though. the position switcher is broken, i think. luckily for me, the position shown is PERFECTO. set me in the sun, give me some iced tea and my kindle, and whoa. good to go.

best part? $5 for the whole caboodle. from where i'm sitting, that is going to be a bonus for my summer :)


happy day!

pretty thursday

okay. semi-favorite day on board! might be a good day to look at some close-ups of the garden.

my focus the last couple of weeks has been on planting pots and annuals, because frankly, the main landscaping has been kind of disappointing.

lots of reasons why - mostly the sheer size of the areas I'm working with. I have not been able to do all of the things I want to all of the spaces I have. finally, i've thrown in the towel.

so, like a little grandma who is jonesing for color, i'm settling for cramming as much interest into my 12' x 12' patio area as I can. it's kind of crazy looking, not at all what i would do in my pie-in-the-sky vision. but every morning, i smile when i see these little lovelies. they serve their purpose.

by the way, if anyone wants to come help with weeding, just call, text or email me ;)

ha. it is seriously overwhelming. i actually have done a lot of work on it since that horrific photo was taken on monday or tuesday. now, it's more like dirt with little polka dots of stuff scattered around. at least the bunnies have not eaten THESE particular polka dots :)





sigh. all in all, a good day/week/year/life. i'm grateful for the whole nine yards :)


hope you are grateful, too. see ya friday!

get me outta here.

funny how this time of year i naturally start thinking about getting OUT of my normal life. some of it is my own tendency for escapism, but some of it is healthy, i believe. we all do better when our perspective shifts outward a bit.

so, i made some plans. luckily, my friends lou and cass were in the same kind of mood as me.

hello, dreaming about cabins in the woods. 2 whole months to do that, then a trip to minnesota and a cabin with a lake view, a kayak, and a firepit. oh, and a/c. what more could a girl ask for?


:)) happy escape-to-the-woods day.

saucey

sigh. of course, the only thing i have to blog about the day after my 'martha' rant is a homemade treat. let's just call me a work-in-progress, okay?

the thing is, this is valuable. the back story is that every time i go somewhere out of my comfort zone, i come away with a 'new' thing to incorporate into my obviously very seriously implanted routine.

this time, kirsten shared with me her latest obsession with sherbet when i visited st. paul. especially rainbow sherbet. so, we stopped into the local market to pick some up on one of our jaunts. they were out. she was sad. i mentioned raspberry being a good alternative, which got us going on the benefits of combining raspberries and chocolate.

which leads to the sauce. we ate our raspberry sherbet with chocolate sauce from a squeeze bottle, and it was delish.

but it jolted a memory somewhere in the recesses of my brain.



my mom used to make homemade, and it was yummy.


so. here i go again. a need to make homemade, especially if it's easy.

and easy it is. 5 minutes tops. probably from stuff you already have in your pantry. this sauce is NOT hot fudge sauce, in fact, it is probably better cold. it's really a substitute for hershey syrup. but better.

and did i mention quick to make?

the original recipe from alton brown (who is probably my age) made a QUART. um. not sure anyone needs a quart of chocolate sauce.


so i chopped it in half. perfect. it will keep quite awhile in the fridge, or you could chop it even further. this is not really the type of thing you need too much of. a tablespoon on your ice cream or mixed into your milk is just right.



happy homemaking!

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

• 3/4 cups water
• 1 1/2 sugar
• 3/4 cups Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Directions:

1. In a small pot, bring water and sugar to a boil.
2. Whisk in cocoa, vanilla, salt, and corn syrup until all the solids have dissolved.
3. Reduce sauce until slightly thickened.
4. Strain and cool to room temperature.
5. Pour into squeeze bottles.
6. Keep in the fridge.

the longing

hi ho :)

how are ya? it was a quiet and peaceful two days for me, a nice respite before entering back into a busy week. times like that are always good for reflection. it seems that this weekend was no exception.

i found myself completely and totally content on saturday - a WHOLE day with no parameters...just whatever i felt like doing. that ended up being gardening, thinking about gardening, and more gardening. with lunch on the grill and a beer on the patio thrown in for good measure. yes, it's 'beer season' again. silly me.

i digress.


anyway, it was all going swimmingly until she showed up. and sometime in the aftermath, i started to think that maybe she was a tiny hidden evil. or a large one, depending on your relationship with her.

yep, we are talking about the woman we all call 'martha.'

you see, later that day, i sat down with my latest issue of Martha Stewart Living - a favorite dalliance - to relax and drink in the 'pretty.'

wow. what an especially lovely issue, with things from homemade graham crackers for smores, CSAs and indie crafts to simple living galore.


the thing is, all of that visual pleasure did a not-so-good thing to me almost before i could stop it ... it made me start fantasizing about all that i don't have. it made me look around my beige plastic house, and want a bunch of new stuff. it made me want to get rid of the neighbor's and get new ones. it made me decide to scour the internet for hours, looking for acreages and a new life.

it made me feel like my life is so much less than i want it to be. sigh. so much less.







almost immediately afterwards, i sensed the Lord speaking to me about this. telling me that although He desires beauty and simplicity and order in things, they are not to be found in earthly pleasures. not to be found in anything martha (or anybody else) is selling. not to be found EXCEPT in Him. ever. it was another reminder to hold loosely to things, outside of Jesus Christ. i think it is part of a long journey that God began in me about a year ago, when i sold mabel because i was looking for something more peaceful.

there was a neat 'tie-in' last night when i was watching mad men (God can use anything) and don said in an especially heart-breaking episode:

'what is happiness? it's the MOMENT before you need more happiness.'

such wisdom from a tv show, eh? happiness is fleeting. happiness is not going to fulfill our deep, ever-present yearnings. happiness is nothing, except tied to the One who brings JOY. joy is what we want, people, let us not forget that.


so today, i'm putting martha on hold, and asking God what to do with those desires. it's hard to do, this idea of giving up the desire for perfection - for peace - for beauty - for ease and for completeness. but to be quite honest, i'm pretty sure by now that we all know that the story continues :)


happy week!

Delight yourself in the Lord, 

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

ctrl + z

well, today is friday.

today does not FEEL like friday, based on the number of items i need to accomplish by day's end. i swear. i am not made for a 5 day work week anymore, esp. when compressed into 4 days. not. fun.

it made me feel better last weekend in MN when my friend rick asked 'are you just insanely tired ALL the time, no matter what you are doing?'

he he. just wait til you're 50....you'll get it. i thought it was my lack of exercise (not diet, which changing completely did not change at all). he exercises, and thought it was his lack of a good diet! surprise! you just get old. nothing you can do.



which brings me to ctrl + z. anne mentioned it in an email yesterday, and i started to think about how much i LOVE that command. ps. if you are not a computer nerd, here's the meaning.

'undo.' - sometimes i just call it 'go back.'

go here to buy it - cute.

when i am working on my computer, i actually SAY 'go back' to myself in my head when i need to do it. i guess we all do, because anne was mentioning the same thing. i am programmed by now to do all sorts of key commands in my head for things that you cannot key command. how's THAT for a misuse of brain cells?

at any rate, i started to think about how as i get older there are so many things i wish i could 'go back' to.


like these -

1) working an 8 hour day, and not having 27 emails of continuous conversation waiting for you when you go back to work the next day.

2) going to the store and not having most of the rest of the world around you talking and texting and not realizing that actual PEOPLE are standing right there in front of them.

3) being in a political party, and not being an a**hole to all the people in  the other political parties that you are not in.

4) having one or two types of soda/bread/ice cream/anything really to choose from when you buy groceries, thereby making the choices much simpler.

5) summer vacation. i really seriously never ever got over losing my summer vacation when i 'grew up' - what kind of a dirty trick was THAT all about?



sigh. i could go on. i realize that without the changing times i would not have:

1) my iphone.

2) access to any kind of product in the world thru amazon.com

3) a digital thermostat in my house so that i can easily monitor the furnace in june in SD.

4) a relationship with God that i would not trade for anything.

5) my house, my friends, my increasing amounts of what i suppose you'd call wisdom.

i'm sure there are more things i would miss. but honestly, more and more and more and more, i really do wish ctrl + z worked on my whole entire life.



happy friday :)

let there be light.

i've had this craft in my back pocket for a couple of years now, but lately they are springing up everywhere on pinterest, so i finally followed through and made some.


one of these days i'll remember to shoot a 'process' of how to do things, but not today. oh. and it's been raining. so the crafts are kinda moist. still. they are pretty.

here's what you do. go try to find CHEAP small solar lights for the yard. of course i went to walmart. $2.47 each. i think they were $2 last year, though. i got the dark brown ones.

then, take a cool old canning jar - or a new one - and spray paint the metal 'screw' lid to match your light. disassemble the light fixture - it easily unscrews from the base...and hot glue the screw lid to the bottom of the light.

then, you just have to screw the jar lid onto the jar! wha-la!

some people hot glue and seal the whole thing so that water will not leak in...i just open mine up and dump the water out...so far, so good.

however, i gave 2 to kirst as a gift, and only 1 was working. not sure if the moisture did it, or if the walmart lights are just kind of crappy.

anyway, i have 3 of them in varying sizes lighting up the patio now. they are really very pretty! you can also attach wire to the tops and hang them from trees, my original plan. however, i'm pretty sure they would not catch enough sunlight to light up if they were hanging in a tree. so mine are out in direct sunlight during the day.

i love the rain - almost 5 inches in May so far - but wow. i really hope the sun comes out today.


happy whateverdayitis!

joe's

i've been meaning to post about trader joe's for awhile now!

i got to visit my first one with lou in des moines last month...fun.

then, kirst and i stopped in the one DOWN THE BLOCK from her house in st. paul. that would be dangerous for me....luckily, not for her.

i love almost everything about the store.

i especially love the SUPER nice staff! other companies need to figure out how to have friendly staff people!!! i had a nice chat with the check-out boy about south dakotans, and how we all flock to minnesota for vacation :)

anywhoo.

lots of things to love. so far some of my favorites:


• roasted red pepper soup in a box
• chunky peanut butter
• whipped honey
• good, rich coffee (cheaper/better than anywhere else i have found)
• chocolate - pretty much all of it :)


i'm sure there is more. next time, i'm bringing a cooler along so that i can get some cold stuff. c'mon trader joe's, come to SF!!! we would treat you right!

baby air plants hanging on a willow branch.

bird plates adorning the sunroom.

the beginnings of beautiful clutter.

new terra cotta planter. very heavy.

baby red canna popping out of ground. promise of good things to come.

miniature garden - 2nd try - hopefully a charm.

tuesday, welcome.

i already have a to-do list made and started. i would not say i am super excited to tackle it, but i have lots of visual inspiration today. so, time to get crack-a-lackin....'

bonus points if you know where that comes from :)