Midnight Chatter

Today was kind of shitty. I've spent the last couple of days reading the archives of a new blog. I tend to do that. When I find a blog that interests me, I read the whole archives. So it took me a couple of days. I get nothing else done.

While I was sitting here, minding my own business, there was one LOUD crack of thunder and then a torrential downpour. There was hail too. I need some sunshine. We now have 3 leaks in the ceiling. One in the livingroom and two in the kitchen. We need a new roof. All three spots leaked today. There I was running around putting bowls under them to catch the water. And all I want is a little sun.

Went to town with Mr. Man after work. Thankfully the car is running fine after he put the new alternator in it. It wasn't any big deal, went to the pharmacy to get his pills refilled and went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. Oh we went to Dollarama too, I needed a few things from there as well. Things to help de-clutter, like hangers, for all the clothes I got from Freecycle MONTHS AGO. They've been laying in a heap in the bedroom waiting to be put away. I also got a birthday card for my sister. I figure better late than never. And I needed a new hair brush.

I keep hoping for more summer weather. I swear we've only had 3 days in the last 2 weeks that it didn't rain. They have all the fall and Halloween stuff out in Dollarama. Sigh. Back to school stuff in the drug store. That reminds me, Little R desperately needs shoes and some clothes for back to school. She has lost a lot of weight in recent months and none of her jeans fit her properly any more. Her shoes are all worn right out. I hope she has a better year in school than last year. I hope she settles down. No more of this staying in town after school. No more skipping. I don't know how she pulled it off last year. She really buckled down at the end and got her credits. Which just shows how capable she really is.


I had a bit of a scare with my blog a little while ago. I decided to upgrade it to the new version. All I wanted was to be able to put my archives into a drop down menu. Well the upgrade changed the whole look of it. I didn't like it at all. At first I didn't see the link to click to revert it back. But then after looking around for it, with great relief, I found the link and changed it back. I like it fine the way it is. I'll just have to find the HTML code to put my archives into a drop down menu, I'm sure it's out there. The list of archives is getting a little long. A drop down menu would take up much less space.

Here it is 1 a.m again. I'm wide awake. I haven't been napping. But I have been sleeping in later in the morning. It's Friday, I haven't been doing the Show and Tell thing for weeks. I've just been too distraught and distracted and depressed. It is fun to do and I hope to get back into it eventually. The only photograph I've taken lately is of a flower that came up in one of my barrels. Usually I plant petunias in my barrels. This year, as you know, I didn't plant anything, so my barrels came up full of weeds. I don't know if this flower is a weed or what. It kind of looks like a small sunflower. Here I'll show you...



Not a clue what it is. At any rate there's three of them there now since I took this picture. In another planter that I didn't plant anything in there's a petunia or two growing. Must have seeded from last year. Aren't they called volunteers?

Don't know what the plans are for this weekend. Don't know what the weather is supposed to be like. Hopefully it'll be like summer though. Please, no more rain. We're going to the Reserve for smokes tomorrow morning. After that, who knows. It's almost a full moon, the true full moon is tomorrow night. That could be part of the reason I'm wide awake still. I never sleep well when there's a full moon. Oh well, I suppose I could go lay in bed and read. That usually puts me to sleep. Sweet dreams.

Saturday Morning Chatter

That is a Lilac bloom. The smell of these flowers is glorious. I never cut them to put into vases. The bush isn't big enough yet to be cutting. I recently read somewhere that it brings bad luck to cut Lilacs and bring them into the house. This bush has grown measurably since we moved here. It's now about 5 feet tall. I don't want to mess it up or kill it by cutting it. I always thought that when it grows into a tree I won't mind taking cuttings, but now that I know about the bad luck thing I'm not so sure. I didn't think I was superstitious, but guess what? Yes, I am. I can actually remember a couple of times, about 25 years ago, when I did cut Lilacs from my mothers huge bush/tree, and there was in fact, bad luck to follow.

Thursday was a fabulously hot day. At one point I glanced at my thermometer and it was somwhere over 30 degrees celsius. I spent the majority of the day sleeping, ugh. I spent a little time outside. I planted some Petunias in my half-barrels. I bought 2 flats of regular Petunias and a 6-pack of Wave Petunias. I now realize that 2 flats is way more than I actually need. I wasn't thinking at the time when I bought them. Each flat contains 48 individual flowers. One flat probably would've been enough for me. The colour scheme this year is purple and white. So I got some pure white, several varying shades of purple, and then some that are purple and white striped. I'll take pictures of my various planters and hanging baskets once they fill out.

The weather for the weekend is supposed to be warm and then thunderstorms. The grass needs to be mowed again, so that will likely get done today, before the rain. The task of rearranging my gardens to accomodate the new "flower bed" has become daunting. When I came up with the idea, things were just sprouting. Now they are in full bloom. That's probably the worst possible time to transplant plants.

I've decided against using that old toilet as a planter. I just can't bring myself to do it. My yard just isn't that big. If I could stick it off in a corner, partially hidden by trees or something, then yeah, but there is nowhere to partially hide it here. So, we're going to put it out to the curb on the next large item pick up day.

Oh yeah, did I mention the third house that went up for sale? It sold within a week or so. Man, it's killing me. I want to sell. But we can't until we do a shitload of work. I guess I'm happy just to know it is possible. I was so worried because in previous years these places didn't sell so easily. It seems to go in spurts. Every other year a few places go on the market at the same time. The freaks nextdoor took their sign down. I don't know what this means. I don't see any indication that they are preparing to move. It wasn't long after the SOLD sticker went on that the sign just disappeared. But the rumour is that it is sold and they are moving. Now that I think about it, there are indications. She hasn't planted her usual annuals. There are no hanging baskets on the garage. Every other year there has been. Cool.

I was just daydreaming about eggs. I'm hungry. I want an omelet. I think I'll go wake up Mr. Man to take me out for breakfast. Have a lovely day.

Progressive Regression, An Oxymoron

Well we got a whole bunch of sun yesterday. Got burnt from head to toe, but not a painful kind of burnt. I could see Hubby burning so I kept telling him to put sunscreen on, it never even occured to me to put some on myself. Neither one of us did put any on. It was another gorgeous day. We hung out outside until well after dark, by which time I got the burnt chill again. We didn't go to that party, we opted to stay home and get shit done.

We got most of the old cedar rail fence knocked down. We backfilled where we had to dig up the septic line. I laid the hunks of sod back over it but I don't know how well it's going to take. We may end up having to seed it. We just got a lot of general yard puttering done.

Two of our least favourite neighbours had backyard fires. At one point a cop drove by out on the main road, and you don't know how rare that is, they only come here when they're called here, we thought for sure they were gonna get told nextdoor, but nothing. The cops just drove on by. You would think the cops would be aware that there is a fire ban in affect, but apparently not. Either that or they were actually busy with a call or something. I just couldn't help thinking if it was us having a fire during a fire ban, someone would have called the cops on us, if not, that random cop would have been on us in a flash.

I saw my first American Goldfinch of the season! They are also called wild canaries. They are a vibrant bright yellow colour and they sing. I only saw the one, he was on one of my feeders. I just happened to have bought the seed they like the other day but hadn't put it out yet, he was on the sunflower seed feeder. So I went ahead and filled the feeder for them, but he never came back. I took a picture of him but I was too far away.

We went to take the car we're thinking of buying out for a test drive. It has issues, but is pretty sound. It's a decent family car.

Back in our own car driving to another town for Timmys coffee we came across a yard sale. It was in a ritzy neighbourhood. I got a few books and it came to $15! They were asking $1 for paperbacks and $2 for hard covers but she charged me $3 for one of the books I had. Jeez. So that wasn't a deal at all. I actually felt ripped off more than anything. All the books were in very good condition, but still. Remind me not to go to yard sales in that neighbourhood.

One of my Narcissus flowers bloomed yesterday. Of course I took pictures. I just bought them last year, so this is my first year of them. They look like very tiny daffodils. When we dug up the septic line, it was winter, some of my Columbines got dug up in the process. But, it looks like they survived somewhat. I'm glad about that. Columbines are funky looking flowers and I like them. I want to cut back my roses, but I've always had "the clown" there to guide me before. I'm afraid to do it on my own, I'm afraid I'll fuck up and kill them. I'm just not sure where to cut. Still can't decide where to plant any of the stuff I bought this year. I'm just going to wait until the new fence is up before I plant anything. It's a little early for that yet anyways, plenty of time to figure it out.

So Hubby and I were sitting back having a brewski break when Little R appeared asking for money to go to the chip wagon. Earlier I had taken a pile of change from my jacket pocket and put it in my little change purse. I could not remember where I had put the change purse. So I sat there retracing my steps until we figured out where I had put it. I said "talk about progressive regression". Hubby said "that's an oxymoron!" Yup I believe it is. We had some great conversations sitting there drinking beer in the sun. Unfortunately Hubby started out drinking too fast and was pretty much done as I was just warming up. If you've never drank in the sun, I don't recommend it, it goes straight to your head. It seems like you get twice as drunk when done in the sun. I was fine though, I took it easy. We ended up having dinner from the chip wagon. They only opened it near the end of last summer. I can see us packing on the weight with that there now. It's too handy and convenient. There's nothing like chip wagon french fries! Delicious. Hubby got poutine and I had a taste and it was YUMMY. I'm gonna get fat this summer I think, sigh.

This morning, just as I was waking up, Edwad (that's his new name) squatted right in front of me, in the kitchen! I was quick enough to get him outside before he finished. I couldn't believe it. The house smells like a fucking barn thanks to him. I'm so glad we can finally open windows and air the place out! But he had no qualms about doing it right there, in the middle of the kitchen, right in front of me. SIGH. I can't wait to get the new fence up so we can just cut them loose and not have to worry at all about them taking off.

Today is supposed to be gorgeous again. It's sunny and warm already. I'm going to enjoy my coffee outside now. I'll leave you with a photo of my Narcissus. Have a lovely day.

Beautiful!

Beautiful!

My Crocuses

These are my crocuses, as of midday today. It's still snowing out there, hasn't stopped in days. I sure hope this is the last hurrah for old man winter. Though I'm not letting my hopes for that get too high.
Hope everyone is having a lovely Easter weekend.

Mystery Solved

Thanks to the new gardening group I think I may have identified the mystery flower! I do believe it is a tarda tulip. Here are pictures, starting with my flower and the rest are from a Google search.

That didn't take long at all. I wouldn't have thought of tulips. But I'd say that's what it is. I'm so happy to finally know. I'm looking forward to getting good clear photos of it with my wonderful new camera this year.