April 24th

HAPPY ARBOR DAY!

Tonight I'll be packing up my scrapbooking things for Judy and my Scrapbooking at the Simsbury weekend! I'm sooo excited! I won't be updating the blog until Monday.

http://www.simsburyinn.com/

April 23

We had a TON of rain the last few days. The sun finally came out today but it's still pretty chilly. I checked out our flowers to see how the growing is coming along!

The Alliums have buds on them but the leaves are showing cold weather damage. I can't wait for them to bloom!

The Pansy's are beautiful and vibrant. That's because Dear Hubby grew them in the greenhouse!

April 22

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Today was a great day at school. The kids were under control and we had a few laughs. I thought one of them would be good for this blog.
The kid in the class named CJ, is a handful, but comes out with some of the strangest things. We always have a good laugh over things he says and does. Today the teacher asked him to make a sentence using the word 'boy'. He looks up at the ceiling, looks around the class and nothing comes to him yet. The teacher asked him again to mind of get his mind back to earth. He then says his sentence...

The boy had to stand up to have a cavity search.

We were hysterical! He looked at us like we were the crazy ones! I'm still laughing about it!

April 21st

Our orchid is flowering. I'm not a huge orchid fan but I like the challenge of getting it to flower!

I can't believe that we still have that flower pot. It was given to us by our friend Richard W. as a wedding present. It came with 2 post. They are from Tiffanys. I broke one but this one is still in great shape after 30 years!

April 20th

It was back to school today. There were some funny moments today. Usually Mar P and I can spot Curt in the bus because of his hair. It's a mostly shaved head with about 4" twisted ponytails that make it look like a palm tree. It's so funny. As I was standing at the bus door waiting for him to get off the bus I hear, Lynn, he's here! He walked right past me and I didn't even recognize him! He now has his hair in a BUN!

For the picture, I erased his face so I could post it!

April 19th

I have to share my favorite blog. It all started when PJ and I were in Ithaca in July of last year. We took a stroll through Minn's Garden outside of the Plant Science Building at Cornell. We saw the coolest thing and we were BOTH of us fooled! There were some Alliums that had finished blooming and all of the petals had fallen off. All that was left were the spherical seed heads. They are usually white to cream color. Not here! They were red, blue, orange and yellow! We actually thought they cross pollinated between different types of Alliums to create these beautiful seed heads. That somewhat makes sense being that we were outside of the plant 'science' building where they DO cross pollinations! While taking pictures we got close and realized that the seed heads were painted! Now we wanted to do this trick, really just as a conversation piece. I took pictures of them so I could do a search for the variety when we got home so that we can plant some of the bulbs. These seed heads were very large so we wanted to duplicate the variety as best as we can.

I was addicted to finding these and spent so much time searching the internet. I decided to email a contact person that is from the plant science building and hope that they had an answer for me.

In the meantime, while searching, I came across a picture of the Alliums on a blog. I was thrilled! I left a message of their blog asking if they could help me identify these Alliums.

I started going through this persons blog and I was hooked very fast. He has beautiful pictures of his plants and has this great 'craft' that he does with his scanner where he scans the blooms from every month but makes a beautiful work of art with them.

A few days later I got an email from a man from the blog helping me out. He told me the varieties etc. We conversed a few times. I mentioned to him that I had email Cornell and never got a response. He replied that HE was the contact person for Cornell and my email to them was what he was replying to. It turns out that this guy and the guy with the great blog ARE THE SAME PERSON! He is the Communications and Media Specialist for the Horticulture Dept Cornell and his office is in the Plant Science Building! We've walked past his office atleast twice a year for the last 30 years on our way to the job postings bulletin board!

I mentioned his name to my friend Donna, who goes to Cornell on business every month and also went to school with PJ there in the hort dept, and she said that her and Craig were great friends! What a small world!

Well this guy is such an interesting person. He has such an array of interests that everyone is sure to find something interesting. I love clicking at all of his links to his plant posts. Some are just beautiful!

Here's the link to his website:

http://www.remarc.com/craig/

Here's 2 links about the Painted Alliums:

http://www.remarc.com/craig/?p=221

http://www.remarc.com/craig/?p=414

This may sound mean but for a guy, he really has a keen sense of 'art' and 'beauty'. Here's his posting OPENINGS which I thought was 'out of the box' for a guy.

http://www.remarc.com/craig/?p=394

Lastly, here's the link to his Bloom Day Scans

http://www.remarc.com/craig/?cat=55

ENJOY!!!

April 18th

What a fun garage sale! We got to chat with people that we haven't seen in a while which is always fun. There were some funny happenings like when 2 families with their children came to the sale. They hardly spoke English. One bought an insulated bag for food/drinks whatever. Then his friend bought one. Then the wife said 'the beach' in Spanish (PJ understood that). So she bought one. Then I went up to the group and said 'CERVESA' and the lady said something to the guy and they bought the rest of them! That was like 10 in all! It was so funny!

It's a lot of work but the house is now less cluttered. I just put an ad on freecycle.com for people to take away what's left over. I hope they're like vultures and take everything!!!

*** I had to come back to add the outcome of the freecycle post. Within an hour of posting on freecycle, everything, boxes and boxes, TONS of things are GONE! It was so funny watching the people load up their cars from the window. Now all that's left is the baker's rack. I relisted that a few minutes ago.
Now I must tend to my sunburn!

April 17th

Dad was moved to a rehab facility across the street from the hospital until he can stand up and walk.

I spent the day getting things together for our garage sale tomorrow.

April 16th

Dad is not doing well but they found out that his problem is only a urinary tract infection. It effects elderly in strange ways such as their mind and muscle.

April 15th
This morning Chris and I went over to Grandpas house to help Ann get him in the car to bring him to the ER. What a pain! We should have just called for an ambulence. He has no muscle strength from his waist down. He can't stand, walk etc.
I was there for 4 hours and left to go out to lunch with Judy for her birthday. There was no reason to stay. He was having tests and there wasn't room in the ER area for Ann and I to stand. She thinks they'll let him stay the night because they don't know what's wrong with him so she said not to go back today. OK.
Judy and I had a nice lunch and the best part was getting to catch up on our lives!

April 14th

First... Happy Birthday Craig!

Today has not been a good day. I spent 3 HOURS in the dentist chair with my mouth open almost the entire time! This was my second day of root canal. They finished that up, had bone 'surgery' where they take away part of the bone, stitches and now have a temp crown. I have to go back in about 7 days to get the stitches out. After that I'll have an appt to be fitted for a crown and then when that comes in, I have to go back again. I HATE going to the dentist!

April 13th

I decided to go out to the perennial garden and see what's coming up. I had planted a bunch of different kinds of Alliums in the fall and I was excited to check them out. I had also planted a clump of 'Saratoga' Bee Balm which still isn't coming up yet.

Maybe I'm cracking up but I think someone is playing a trick on me. Last fall, I moved around a lot of the perennials and also planted the Allium and Bee Balm so I labeled every perennial so I would know what everything was when it started coming up. It was a lot of work but I knew come the spring, I'd be happy that I did it. I used wooden tongue depressors and a permanent sharpie to label them. Well, most are blank. The writing wore off and then there was a pile of labels just hanging out together. Where did they come from? I even found that some of the labels are in the wrong spot such as the Red California Poppy is now where the Peony is. HUH? I'm so confused now. I'm also not sure if certain plants are weeds or a perennial. I guess time will tell.

The Allium Gladiator and Allium Gigantum are up so that's a good sigm! I also planted a few of the Pansys that PJ grew at work.

Pile of labels next to Allium Gladiator

Allium Gigantum

Some kind of Allium next to a blank label

One of PJ's Pansys

April 12th.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Today was supposed to be a fun day at the beach grilling dinner. Instead we had cold windy weather. PJ and I went to the beach earlier to check it out and we couldn't wait to get back in the car! We decided to check out Cedar Creek Park in Wantagh. They had tons of picnic tables and huge grills to use. We decided to give it a try. After getting Stan, we packed up the car and went to the park. It was a lot windier than I felt in the morning! PJ had a hard time lighting the grill with the wind. You could tell Stan was cold.

We made our pizza appetizers and decided to call it a day and go home to grill. The pizzas were really good!

At home, it was very low key. We watched the Yankee game, chatted, ate dinner, watched the rest of the game, ate dessert and then we drove Stan home. It was fun to try something different. Hopefully next time we plan something like this, the weather will cooperate. Now it's time for a nap!

April 11th

Today was spent mostly cooking... so I was happy! I made a carrot cake (Aunt Helen's recipe), a huge batch of spagetti sauce, Kielbasa w/ onions and sauerkraut and mini personal pizza's. All of these are for tomorrow.

The little pizza things are a lot of fun to make and are very easy. All of these recipes will be on my cooking blog http://mamazukecooks.blogspot.com/ in the next few days. I want to take pictures of the final dishes tomorrow.

April 10th

I went to pick up Alyssa today from her apartment and I saw my first black squirrel. It's really cute! She said that it hangs out there all the time. Alyssa and her friends named him/her BUBBLES!





April 9th

Today was a boring day. I spent a good part of it cleaning and trying to figure out what I was going to cook for our Easter Beach Dinner.

April 8th,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUDY!!!

YIPPIEEE! Today was the last day of school before the break!!!!

I have a GREAT story for today! (At least I think it's great!)

I LOVE my Lands End sneakers. The have a pull string instead of laces. That pull string broke. Lands End guarantees their products for LIFE... no questions asked. I emailed customer service to say that the cord broke and how do I go about getting a replacement. She said being that I purchased them from the LandsEnd counter at Sears, I should bring them back to Sears. So I went to do that. They refunded my money instead of replacing them because they no longer make this model. I was a little annoyed because I bought them on clearence and now wouldn't have sneakers to wear unless I spent more $ on a new pair. They suggested that I mail the sneakers to LandsEnd and the will replace them with a pair that is the new model. So they deleted my refund and I then mailed the sneakers to the company $9 and change later! Yesterday I received a check in the mail for $9.70 from them. I was pretty mad thinking that THIS was the refund they were giving me instead of replacing the sneakers. I wrote them a nasty email stating how I was very disappointed in their way of handling this. I mentioned that now I don't have a pair of sneakers and that I'll have to spend more $ to replace them which is NOT what their guarentee said. I went on and on and sent the email. This morning I got a response from them. That $9.70 was to reimburss me for the postage that I paid to ship them to the the company and my new pair should be arriving TODAY! Boy did I feel like a dope! I thanked her very much and suggested that they should include note with refunds so that we know what it's for! When I got home from work, my new sneakers were waiting for me at the door!

March 24-April 7

Well, I certainly fell behind on this challenge. I don't want to stress thinking back days and what I did so i'll just say...

-I got my hair cut

-got bit twice at school

-cracked a tooth

-Scott was in the Iron Man competition in New Orleans

-Gardened

-went for a fun relaxing ride in the MGB

-Chris started a new job

-Alyssa has a new date tonight

The flowers are starting to come up and the daffodils are blooming!

That's about it and now I'll move on!