My Lovely Garden

For Mother's Day, my family cleared what had become an overgrown weed patch.  It hadn't been used since they moved in. (I rent their basement apartment, a walk out with the back yard being like the front of my apartment) Like they have had extra time. Ha!  The only thing that wasn't a weed was a big lavender plant, of the English variety, I think. I looked it up once to be sure. It is not typical.  It bloomed prolifically the last two years, unattended,refusing to be overtaken by weeds, the hearty plant.  I tend to it, pull weeds out, fertilize and water it, deadhead it, and...nothing. There are pods that will bloom in a few weeks- I hope. So as I was saying, my family cleared this raised garden - it's a good size for me, for the gardening I'll be doing.  Or so I thought!  I started zinnias, cosmos, nasturtiums along with cilantro, sage, rosemary and morning glories from seeds inside in April.  I bought pots to put them in when it warmed up, and then I got this garden for Moms Day!  I was overwhelmed.  As the seedlings got decent size I transferred them, but I also bought some perennials with the gift certificate that went along with the weeded fresh soil. Now the zinnias are full size as are the cosmos.  I bought the tallest variety, and they are in a raised garden, so I can't really see the top. The zinnias and cosmos are also very crowded.   I thought I had spaced them nicely when I transferred them, but oh my goodness!  They are gargantuan!! 4,5, some 6 feet tall, and these are the bushiest cosmos I have ever seen! I'll post some pictures here, but I will also post the not so perfect slide show I put on YouTube last evening. So this is my garden.

 

 

 

And here is the YouTube link.  It looks funny.  But it works. Actually, I'll make it better. I'll make it say what it is, and you won't even have to look at the mumbo-jumbo. How's that for being nice to my loyal fans. so here we go:

 

 

My Lovely Garden



Please overlook my spelling errors.  I didn't edit, as you will see!  I was more concerned with my new found feature of adding music, fading it out, fading it at different speeds.  You know, I have found that a person can waste an inordinate amount of time piddling on the computer.  But I've know that since I got my first PC in 1994.

Now, reader, if you are there, if you see this post, if you watch my little slide show ( be sure to click the little square in the bottom left corner of the screen to bring it to full screen)  I implore you, a comment would be so welcome.  Then I will know someone was here. And let me know what you think.  I plan for this to get better. Right now, I'm usually blogging when I have 10--15 things I really need to do that are more important,but doesn't everyone who blogs?

So comments. Please.  Pretty please.  Yes, I know, I'm 58 years old, and I said pretty please as a child.  I must be feeling childish again.  I notice that the older I get, the more I regress.  And my friends at church, in my ward are mostly older than I am.  How young will I be acting when I reach 65?  Scheesshh.  Scary stuff indeed.

And...that's life...as I see it.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Well,things are always interesting here.  I am so grateful for my basement apartment.  For one thing, it is very nice.  The walls aren't white, like most apartments you rent.  Actually almost every room is a different color.  And as soon as I get organized, I plan to move my bedroom from the only dark room in the apartment (my cave) and switch it with my computer, junk, and if-it-doesn't-have-a-place-throw-it-on-the-floor room. It's horrid. I hate it.  But it's so overwhelming now I don't know where it begin.  I just step over, on and through to get to the computer. Ridiculous right?

But that's not my post.  I think there was once an entire show called "Kids Say the Darndest Things". I just looked, and there was.  It ran from 1952 through 1970, sometimes at the end of another Art Linkletter show, and then as a stand-alone show. For me, that was from the year before I was born until I was 16 or 17.   It was Art Linkletter, asking kids, maybe 4-6 years old, various questions, and their answers were inevitably hilarious.  Later, Bill Cosby brought it back, and I'm enclosing a YouTube link so you can watch. In the beginning, Bill Cosby sets the stage, but wait for it. It goes back in time to Art Linkletter, which most of you won't remember. Some of you might. That's okay. It's still funny.  At the site, there are two of the older  ones in black and white when he is much younger. They are numbered "1 of 2" and "2 of 2".

Art Linkletter, "Kids Say the Darndest Things"

 

All of that to set the stage. My 5 year old grand-daughter came up to me the other day when I was keeping her.  She says, "I'm drinky".  I thought I didn't understand her, so asked her to repeat herself, and she says the same thing.  I realize what she's saying and laugh, and then say, how creative. She's combined what she wants with how she feels. She knows the right word.  Drinky. Funny. (Thirsty and drink =drinky)

Now for this next one, I have photo documentation.  My family (the six of them, my daughter, son-in-law, Brent, Derek and Blake 9 year old twins, and Brandon and Katelyn, 5 year old twins) all went to some kind of outdoor dinosaur museum last night coming back from a one day outing.  Blake had a bat, yes, those winged nocturnal rodents, on his neck, but as soon as he realized it, instead of wanting it off immediately, the first thing he said was, "Get a picture of it!".  Then he was saying, "GET IT OFF!!

Blake with a Bat on his neck

I think that's it for today, folks.  That is life as I see it!





Meet the Rascal

Meet Rascal the Morkie Puppy and new addition to My Daughter's Family 

I always loved my Son-in-law. He's a good man, good husband and father; great sense of humor, always good to me.  Somewhere along the line his dog-loving mother-in-law found out he did not like dogs in the house. Which meant he didn't like dogs. If you leave a dog outside all the time and you never go out except to mow, then...well, you don't like dogs. He would never say that.  I have two Lhasa Apso's, and prior to that a Golden Retriever. He didn't approve of any of them.  So there's the back ground info. And I always said the man only had one flaw. That was it.

So a few weeks ago he was kidding around with his 5 year old twin son, who was saying, "Daddy I want a doggy", and Brent was saying, "Sure, like a puppy?"  "Yeah, Daddy, I want a puppy."  This exchange went back and forth 3 or 4 times before Brent says, "You want a stuffed animal puppy, right?" and my grandson starts to cry, "No, Daddy, you said you were gonna get me a REAL puppy!", and Daddy says, "No I didn't mean a real one! I thought you knew that. I was talking about a stuffed puppy. We'll go tomorrow and get you one".  But Brandon wasn't having any part of this.  He was crying big broken-heart tears. He ran upstairs to his bedroom, and cried on his bed for quite awhile. It was time for me to go back to my own apartment downstairs.

The next day I go upstairs and Amy, my daughter is looking online at hypoallergenic puppies.  Brent couldn't stand that he had broke the heart of his little son.  I still didn't believe it. Not until they drove up with that puppy up there, and had gone and bought all the necessary items to kennel train him, the dog whisperer training manual included.

So now my son in law has no faults. Except maybe for timing.  The age of his youngest twins; 5, a boy and a girl.  They don't know how to properly handle this little cute thing with razor sharp teeth and sharp claws, and their reaction is often hazardous to the dog's well being.  But they are working it out.  The two 9 year olds are pretty responsible and watch the little ones for careless acts with the lil Rascal.  He had his name before he was home.  With a couple of weeks he grew into it.  He is a 'lil Rascal, all right. But cute as a bugs ear.

And for right now, that's life as I know it.

Introductory Post

Hello, potential readers of my blog.  Overall, life has been relatively good to me.  I had a pretty decent upbringing, although I was part of the generation that thought we had to find something to complain about with regard to the way our parents behaved with us; they were too strict, they fostered co-dependency, they were too lenient and gave us no concept of structure so now we were Adult ADHD.  Everyone had something.  But looking back as a real Adult with a capital A I have come to the realization that my parents weren't that bad. My Mother made a concerted effort to be a disciplinarian, give us boundaries and teach us skills of daily living we would need, whether married, single, working or stay-at-home Moms.  We sabotaged her at every turn. And to such an extent that by the time I came along as a pre-teen/teenager she would give up after very little effort and say, and I know this by heart over 40 years later, " Oh, never mind! You girls (I was the 3rd) just never want to learn how to do anything! I'd rather do it myself!"  First, let me explain one aspect of this.  I was the 3rd born daughter; the oldest was 12 years older than I was; the next was 6 years older than me.  So my parents had three girls 6 years apart. When I was a speck in the womb, I was "supposed" to be a boy. I had to be.  They only picked out boys names. I was to be Richard Turner.  I was a month pre-mature, weighing in at 3 lbs. and lost from there, as is typical.  What is mind-blowing is that they told my parents not to worry too much about the name because I would not likely make it.  What?!?  I was 3 lbs. and only 4-5 weeks premature.  But in 1953 they didn't have a NICU.  I think they had an incubator in the nursery where all the other babies. After a few weeks they told my Mother that I was the most active baby they'd seen in an incubator. It sounds like it's for chicken eggs. They came to terms with my gender. But I heard the story so much, I didn't come to terms with it for quite awhile. I was a tomboy deluxe; no dolls for me, please. I collected wood to make real tree houses. I wanted my Dad to play catch. I wanted to play with other boys with similar interests. I gave all this up for one boy in 7th grade. About the time girls give up their girly doll pursuits for boys.  The difference is I kept him.  Married him eventually.  Too bad it didn't work out.

So we've established I had it pretty good. I didn't fare well in marriage. But I did fare well in child rearing. I have a wonderful daughter that was a delight to raise. I am a Psychotherapist by training and profession.  I had a wonderful practice, lucrative and great referral base.  Then I sent my daughter off to college and went kind of crazy.  I thought that because of my profession I was immune to empty next, after all, I knew all about it. Ha! I sold everything, handed my practice over to the first person I asked to take it [cringe!], and off I went to Sunny Southern California; Santa Monica. Great times, fun in the sun, boogie boarding in the ocean! Less than a year later I was in a MVA with a back, neck and head injury.  I've never been the same, mainly because the "trauma" to my body brought on Lupus then a sort of cascade of illness ending with breast cancer last year.  But I have come out of all of that, with nothing now but adrenal insufficiency aka Addison's Disease. Well, and that nasty head injury caused me to have lasting memory, cognitive, time management problems. But,  now I can garden, walk, exercise, actually make all my church meetings - I hate missing them and always feel so good all week when I can go - fulfill the callings I have in my Church. I am hoping to get  licensed here in Utah, and work again before I get any older.

There you have a window into my life in a nutshell. Without the nut. We'll fill that in as we go.  Welcome to my blog. Most posts will be more exciting, including photos and such. I can't locate my birth through High School photo album or I'd bore you with some photos.  I'll look for it.  Until next time.   This is life...as I see it.