Today is one of the craziest days this spring, and it is scheduled almost down to the minute! I feel like my feet hit the floor on Thursday, and I haven't stopped running since. So why do I pick this day to start blogging again? Guess I am feeling the ...
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  1. Crazy Day!
  2. Hey! I figured out how to reset my passw...
  3. And the color of the day is . . . .!
  4. True blue flowers are few and far betwee...
  5. Color in the garden
  6. More Recent Articles

Crazy Day!

Today is one of the craziest days this spring, and it is scheduled almost down to the minute! I feel like my feet hit the floor on Thursday, and I haven't stopped running since.

So why do I pick this day to start blogging again? Guess I am feeling the energy!

This afternoon is like a finely tuned machine - work for 2 hours, pick up daughter #1 from school, go to the orthodontist, drop daughter #1 and son #4 at T-ball game, work for 1 hour, feed son #2 and son #3, pick up daughter and son from T-ball, drop off sons #2 and #3 to their Little League game (thank the Lord they are on the same team), feed daughter #1 and son #4, work 5 more hours and hope the man picks up sons #2 and #3. I have racked my brains thinking of something that is quick and easy, can be modified for the budding vegetarian son #3, and can be reheated and still be yummy, thus serving dinner in at least 3 shifts. Oh, and of course, something that everyone likes, which is a tough job lately.

So, today I am throwing together No-brainer Twice Baked potatoes with bacon (or without!). Yeah, it's not exactly Nutrition Police-approved, but today, I don't care. Maybe daughter #1 can whip up a fresh green salad to go with.

I just now threw in some bacon onto a sheet pan and into the oven for those that still eat meat (most of us) and maybe even all of us once I torture him with the smell of bacon.

I then washed 12 small potatoes (some red and some small bakers) and put those on a cookie sheet after stabbing them with a fork (get some aggression out) and put those on the second rack.

After I take them out in about 40 minutes, I will let the potatoes cool. On a quick break from work, I will halve them and use a little scooper to hollow out the insides (5 minutes) then mash the potato guts with some cheddar, sour cream, a little butter and some bacon (first scooping some on the side for vegetarian boy). I will broil them off as needed this evening.

Oops - that bacon is smelling more than ready - be right back!

Anyway, here's the basic recipe idea, adapted for our family:

http://www.recipezaar.com/Yummy-Baked-Potato-Skins-43908 - No photos yet, but I will try to take some later and share with you.

Bye - gotta work (I love my job, working from home!)
   

Hey! I figured out how to reset my passw...

Hey! I figured out how to reset my password, because it has been so long since I posted, I forgot it!

Maybe I will post again, but then that way, I wouldn't win the worst blogger ever award!
   

And the color of the day is . . . .!

Aw, you peeked!

A royal color! A velvety color. Endless variations, from almost pink to almost blue. Soft or strong, I love purple!


Here is my alium, honestly, regally purple. The queen in my garden. Well, actually, I am, but we won't tell her, because then she wouldn't bother putting in her presence next year, so we shall let the pretense continue, shall we?



Lush lupine. I cannot decide whether I love it more for its stalks of color, or its charming leaves, little spokes of delight.

<



The wallflower - so delicate-looking, but so hardy, so strong! The lowly maid of flowers. Works diligently all summer long, under difficult conditions, not asking for much, but making things beautiful.







Lovely lilac, so delicate in color, so heady in scent. It does NOT get better than this! I don't understand that glue-sniffing I read about, but lilac-sniffing -- now we are talking! I could stand here all day and hyperventilate trying to take in all this perfume, and never get enough!


Okay, okay. I'll bet you have figured me out. I am going to come clean. I don't think it is DECEPTION as much as it is just FOCUSING ON THE BEAUTY. Yes, that's it. I am taking close-ups of all these georgeous, colorful blooms because they are beautiful and we want to look at BEAUTY!, not at the weeds, the bare dirt patches,the paint peeling off the pickets, the pavers that have yet to be sunk into the ground and have TALL grass growing like crazy all around them because they are too high to mow OVER and my weedwacker has run out of that acrylic string-stuff. And then there's the FUNGUS I am not purposefully hiding; the mushrooms that keep popping up, growing taller than my basil, almost, because of the dreadful, unrelentingly damp eternal spring we are experiencing. I said damp, okay? I am not kidding. The high we hope to get to tomorrow here in the Puget Sound is a whole, whopping 67 degrees! And that is why I am still taking photographs of lilac and lupine and aliums - because we are stuck in spring mode here in the Pacific Northwest, and while good portions of the country probably have tomato plants as high as their hips and with fruit on them, here I have 4 drowning little tomato starts that are about 1 inch taller than when I put them in the ground 6 weeks ago!!!

Enough of the rain rant. Sorry. As I was saying, I feel like focusing on the beauty rather than the raw, naked truth about the weedy, naked, disrepair of my garden. So, close-ups are all you are going to get right now, okay? Then maybe one day, when I am strong enough, you will get the WHOLE picture. Kinda like a garden version of what Martha did a few weeks ago here, baring herself in all her natural glory:
She's a brave one, she is. She tells it and shows it like it is. Me, with my tunnel vision, I am just going to have to focus on the BEAUTY!
   

True blue flowers are few and far betwee...

True blue flowers are few and far between; I do have a few real blues, though. I don't even know the name of this one. It is a groundcover. It dies back brown in the winter, but comes back early in spring and is covered with these beautiful little blue, star-like flowers, as small as the eraser of a pencil.



Here's my favorite blue flower; I can't say it is my all-time favorite bloom, because I am drawn more towards scent, and lilacs and roses are definite contenders there, but this ranunculus is just so beautiful I could stare at it all day.









Such a little bit of work for such beauty! These were a gift for my birthday last year from a friend. I just stuck the bulbs in the ground last October and up they all popped this spring! And I think they will continue to do so for years.
   

Color in the garden

I love summer. I love the weather (although here in the Pacific Northwest, our weather has been more March-like lately, cold and wet and blah). I love the gardening. I love that my husband, who is a teacher, is home all summer. I love that volleyball, baseball, cub scouts, and schooling are all taking a break for a while. We can kick back and just enjoy each day, and each other, without running around at breakneck speed.

In the spirit of summer (and in the hopes that it eventually arrives to the Seattle area), here is a garden tour by color. Today, our color is red, one of my favorites, and especially striking against the everpresent gray of the sky (okay, I guess I've made my point about my disgust with the weather, right?)

Here is the red of our maple:



Here is the red of our front door:


Now, a lovely gerbera daisy that was a present from my sweetie-pie 5-year-old on Mother's Day:


Here are some little red glass marbles in our mosaic house numbers; whenver we come home, they greet me cheerfully:


That is our red garden tour for the day - tomorrow we will have my other favorite color, blue.
   

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