Petunias

As the sun drops low in the sky tonight ...

More Reasons To Love Spring ...

Goldfinches, At Last!

We got rid of our old thistle feeder - it wasn't attracting the finches, and it was getting all clogged up - and it appears that our new model is doing the job! I actually saw 3 finches hanging on at one time, having a snack. Hurray! Now if the dogs would just quit scaring them away ....

Awards Banquet

One of the many items on my calendar for the month of May - the annual high school Awards Banquet. We arrived promptly at 5:30 when the doors opened, secured some seats at a table that was not too far from the speakers, and not too far from the buffet line. We shared a table with Kelly's good friend RJ and her mom, and another family.

They got through the meal, awards and recognition in record time - we actually left the Convention Center while it was still daylight!

A Special Day

My niece was beautiful in her First Communion dress this past Sunday. She was running around barefoot when we arrived at her house, greeting the visitors and playing with the dogs. The girl does know how to ham it up for the camera!

When I asked "What kind of shoes did you wear?" she ran down to the front door and picked up one of her shoes to show me. Pretty!

Now Making An Appearance

One of my favorite spring garden events is underway - the purple iris are beginning to bloom! I just cut an armful to bring into the house. They're such majestic and beautiful flowers, it's too bad they last such a short time.

Too Much HGTV

Over the past couple of weekends I've dragged Chris into my grand plans for updating our back deck area. We've always enjoyed our backyard but I've been wanting to upgrade our look, so I've been scheming and dreaming, plotting and planning what I could do to give the deck a fresh start this spring. We started by removing all the stuff off the deck - and we do have a lot of stuff! - furniture, grills, gardening items, lawn chairs. It all went out in the grass while we scrubbed off the deck. We moved only the necessary items back when it dried, and came up with a new arrangement. We also headed over to SWM and bought a storage bench that looks much better than our old mismatched Rubbermaid tubs - very nice! - and splurged on a new glass-top table and 4 chairs at Lowe's.

I've re-painted a new "rug" on the floor, a medium blue with a dark brown border - easy to take care of, no vacuuming required. And I bought some inexpensive sheer curtains which we hung at the corners of the deck. The only projects left to do - repaint a couple of our garage-sale side tables a dark glossy brown to give them a new look, and sew a fabric skirt to cover the lower portion of my potting table (lots of gardening clutter under there).

It's amazing how different it feels in our outdoor room - our own little oasis! (Well, maybe that's a stretch ... but it's so fun to go out there now.)

Perfectly Normal Women ...

.. Do the strangest things at bridal showers. This is a game we played at Emily's bridal luncheon a few weeks back. We had to scoop cotton balls onto our heads, the goal being to keep as many as possible on board after we let go with the spoons. I believe the winner had 17?

Another game was a team competition, whereby a wedding gown was to be created using numerous rolls of toilet paper. While this was fun, I found myself on the losing end of the deal because I was the model, and my teammates were not destined to be the winning designers. The other 2 girls looked a whole heck of a lot better than I did when time was up. Kelly kind of looks like the Blessed Virgin Mary, don't you think? And I ended up looking like a geeky flapper of some sort.

Then and Now

Tyson got his summer haircut at the groomer last week! He looks so much better and must feel so much cooler. We've already had a couple of days in the upper 80's here, so we had this done just in time. Tandie's at the groomer right now - she's just getting a bath, a "comb out" and her nails trimmed - no shave for her.