Ruby Tuesday

There's something about memes... it's Ruby Tuesday and I want to play even when I don't really have time.

This is what I'm looking at most these days...moving from desk to meetings and then back to desk again. I was kind of surprised to see that I see 'red' almost all the time and didn't even know it.

Take a look at what others have going on today at Mary T's place.  She's right here.

Mellow Yellow Monday

The sun is shining!  It's Monday and the sun is shining!  It couldn't be any better for Mellow Yellow Monday.

The honeysuckle vine hangs over our fence and each flower brightens even a rainy day. 

The orange seems to glow like fire - or maybe the sun's surface? If you look real close, there's yellow, too.
Visit Drowsy Monkey here to see more of today's Mellow Yellow.

Sunday wonders - L

L is for Love and Loss.

In 1975, we found a house that we could afford and that I absolutely loved.  It was my dream house...old, with a picket fence, ivy growing over the back porch and a view of the water.   We paid just under $50,000.  My husband worked very hard  to pay off the mortgage as quickly as possible.  Our three kids grew up here.  

When I went looking for a photo of the house, I  could only find this one.  We'd lived there for about 5 years when it was taken and the fixing up was constant.  We did all the work ourselves: renovation was confined to bathrooms and furnaces - only what was necessary.  Re-painting the whole house was a mammoth job when it only happens out of work hours.  By the time the work was finished, it seemed  it was  time to start again. The 'old' became part of the on-going fixing, the ivy ruined the porch foundation, the view was filled in with new buildings and the picket fence couldn't hang onto it's pickets.

Now, 35 years later, the house has finally left the family.   Many of us will be dropping in on the realtor's open house this afternoon.  Me, too.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the big changes look like.  From the photos ( real estate listing here), it will be pretty good.  It's really amazing what can be done when a house is empty, you have a construction crew and deep pockets.   Oh, and the current selling price is just under a million dollars!

This is the way it looks today. After we've looked and remembered,  we're going to have a big family dinner, play with the grand kids and let it go.  It's been a long time coming.

Pretty in Pink

I don't wear pink at all...just doesn't look good on me.  But I love the color.  When I was a teenager, we had lipstick called 'Sugar Pink' and a nail polish called "Pink Pearl'.  These were very pale pinks which made the lipstick much easier to get off on the trip home from school.  The nail polish was so pale as to be invisible.   Crazy the stuff you remember for so many years, isn't it?

Yesterday, during my garden photo shoot there was a lot of pink.  And every flower seemed to have a little back story.

These painted daisies are so striking.  We have pale pink and this vibrant color.  The yellow centers are incredibly vivid.  My dil, Maria, gave us these and they come up every year fighting through buttercups to triumph high above most of the other plants.  They're so leggy that we have to put a cage around them or the rain would beat them down.

Maria also gave us perennial snapdragons.  There are various pinks and a yellow but these remind me of clouds at sunrise.  I almost pulled them out because I figured we had the annual sort.  I'm glad I asked first.

This foxglove is standing sentinel by our carport.  I love the soft insides of these 'gloves' and the interesting design that the spots make.  Foxgloves grow wild here and are, to some, weeds.  We went so far as to rescue some 'kits'  from a neighbor's dirt pile a few years ago.  He thought we were nuts.  The foxgloves bloom every year and we enjoy the surprise locations that they choose. 

This rose isn't supposed to be pink.  When we bought the house, it was in the back garden and had coppery orange blooms - once.  Then it appeared to languish and I moved it to the front where it would get more of everything it needed.  But it never bloomed again.  Then, two years ago, it was under the pickup truck that crashed through that fence into our garden.  Amazingly, it survived and was shocked into giving us blooms this year - but they're a dark pink.  Anyone know why that would happen? 

Actually, I think all the plants in our garden - flowers, trees and even the veg - have a story attached to them.  That's the fun of gardening for me.