How could it be Tuesday already?

I haven’t blogged since Friday. I think it’s the longest stretch (besides vacations) that I’ve ignored the computer. It was a super busy weekend. On Friday I attended our class reunion at the Bradford Club. It was so nice to reconnect (or in some cases just meet and talk to .. after all after 50 years most people were like strangers to me) our classmates. It was a relaxing fun night for all. Saturday evening was even better with great food, good company, a nostalgic program, and a 60’s band. Don and I haven’t stayed out until 11:30 in a great long while. Sunday was spent just laying low and relaxing. And I can’t tell you where Monday went. How fast time flies.
   So here are a few pictures I made playing around with Photoshop. Both of these are from the Pitt Trail that I walk every morning with Sadie.

Lazy? Or just philosophical?

This seems to be my philosophy lately. It seems these summer days have turned into the dog days of summer. My ambition is nil. I’ve turned into a complete cat, laying around and resting most of the time. Oh, things get done.  It’s just that there is no hurry. Only the most menial of tasks are done when necessary. The rest are either put off for another day or ignored completely.
  Tonight is my 50th class reunion. It seems it has been a long time coming since I’ve been working on the committee for many, many months. This is the big celebration.
   Is it just me or are you feeling like a cat too?

Learning something new

landscape pole 2 001 (Enhanced) from Peg Karrasch on Vimeo.

Today I learned how to embed music into one of my existing videos. Little by little I'm learning to do more.

RED HATS AND RAINSTORMS

The Kinzua Kuties (formerly our Red Hat group) crossed the border into New York state to go to our local state park..Allegany State Park for lunch. It was held upstairs in the administration building. We were able to order off the menu and enjoyed the company and food. Just as we were leaving it got very, very dark and started to rain hard. The rangers asked us not to go out to our cars since it was pouring hard and driving would not be advisable. We spent some time in the gift store waiting for it to slow down. When we were able we donned our umbrellas and hurried out to the car. We started out in one direction but quickly learned that a tree was blocking the road so we turned around and went the other direction. There was also a tree down across the road there too but there was a bike path that we could drive on to avoid that road.

We made it  home safe and sound but not before having to avoid a huge tree which fell across the main road leading out of the park. It was good to see the rain, but not the destruction it caused.

Remember these?

I did this…did you?

There is a story that goes along with this dollhouse. Back when I was 16 Don came up to my house on Ann Lane Christmas Eve to spend time with me while I was babysitting my sisters while my mom and dad went to a party. Dad left a project for Santa (Don) to put together while they went out. We spent the next several hours putting tab A into Slot A and so forth. Dad was happy that it was done when he got home. That was the first time that I realized that Don was a keeper.  He knew things.

How many hours did I spent playing jacks when I was a kid…many, many, many.  How easily entertained we were back then.

Too hot, too busy to post

How are you surviving this hot spell? I hope you have a cool place to be. I want to work outside but find that I can only be out for a little while and then have to come back in to cool off.
   Today I mulched (with Don’s help of course) around the lightpole. Now that area is all done and I’m very satisfied.
     I also have a gardening question for all those qualified gardeners out there. I have an area around my picket fence where I have planted bulbs over the years. In the Spring it is a delight and the tulips, daffodils, and grape hyacinths have multiplied and practically fill that area. Here is the question: After they are done blooming I know you have to leave the leaves on to feed the bulb. But after that, how can you have other things in that area? Do you plant something like perennials between the bulbs? Or put the bulbs in a row and plant behind them? I’m stymied. I want something there but don’t know exactly what to do about it. I defined the area today with tubing and will put some more black potting soil there. Can you help? Thanks.

 

Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain

After our hot, hot July this rain was so welcoming.

landscape pole 2 001 from Peg Karrasch on Vimeo.

Once you get on a roll

Learning to embed a video...Tennessee hail

tennessee may 11 035 from Peg Karrasch on Vimeo.

Me, the landscaper

After the bad day yesterday I took matters into my own hands with a trip to our local greenhouse and bought 3 plants for down by the lightpole.  Don’t judge it too harsly yet it needs trimmed around the bed where I weeded. It really looks much better in person.
    Then I weeded all the way around the house (again!). I’m trying to keep the weeds down in anticipation of planting soon. I was out in a light sprinkle and covered with mud when I was done but after all the stinkin’ hot weather it was nice to garden when it was cool.
   Now I’ll continue to work on a landscape plan.

Ode to a bad day

Seems like everything about you gets under my skin.

The way you appear out of nowhere – unannounced and full of crap.
The way you linger and hover over me, hour after hour.
The way you drain me of my energy, my spunk, my shine.

The way you showcase my flaws.
The way you change my plans.
The way you keep me guessing.

The way you make me long for something more.
The way you plant grass that’s greener on the other side.
The way you force me to notice when things get better.

The way you remind me I have people to lean on.
The way you push me to ask for help.
The way you give me reasons to be vulnerable.

The way you insist I face my fears.
The way you pester me till I fight back.
The way you demand I get a grip.

The way you keep my ego in check.
The way you teach me lessons I never would have signed up for.
The way you prove I’m stronger than I ever imagined.

There are so many ways you get under my skin.
And so many reasons I’m better for it.

by Liv Lane

I discovered Liv’s blog today and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Bad days. We all have them. Sometime they strike out of nowhere for no apparent reason. But you feel the blues coming on slowly like a big freight train rolling inevitably down the tracks. You try to fight it. To distract yourself. To think of something else. Anything to prevent those tears that are welling up inside you and threatening to spill onto your cheeks. You analyze the reasons, digging into your psyche to see that unknown hidden problem that you are hiding so well up until now. Sometimes you are successful in beating the demon down. But sometimes a good cry is just what you need.

Fences Part One

Kim’s assignment for the class Beyond Layers was to take pictures of fences. This is a fence I see every day because it is so near my house. She also taught me a technique of blurring a photo for a better effect.

Fences

 

What does my picket fence say about me? I’ve always loved seeing a picket fence surrounding a home. As I would drive by neighborhoods in my car those white pickets immediately attracted my attention. It always seemed that each house not only had the neat picket fence but the landscaping and flowers were neat too. There was something about enclosing a garden that made it special.


   One day a few years ago I decided that I wanted a little of that at my house too. So Don and Ryan built me a small enclosed area with a picket fence. They put in a meandering gravel path with slate flat stones for walking. I loved the way it made the area look.


As I pulled up to my driveway in the wintertime the pickets blended in with the snow and seemed to protect the home.




It gave an architectural feeling as snow mounded up on the picket tops.




In Spring it was glorious to see the tulips and daffodils in my small fenced in garden.





And in summer my favorite view was from the porch swing looking out. 




And the fence seemed to frame the weeping cherry tree in the Autumn.


I’ve loved my little white picket fence in all the seasons. It makes me happy to have it there to welcome me home every day.

5 Questions

For my class Behind the Scenes our assignment was to answer 5 questions on our blog so here goes.
1. What makes you happy?  in five words or less
   family, friends, traveling, creativity, art
2. What is your favorite movie, book, or both?
  My latest favorite book is Eternal on the Water. As I was reading it I saw it played out as a movie in my mind. There are not a lot of movies that I would call my very favorite. There are some that are entertaining and make you smile and some adventurous movies that get you going for a few hours sitting in the movie theater. My favorite kind of movie makes you think and has a twist ending you never thought about. Those movies like the Sixth Sense leave you amazed by the end.
3. Which talent would you most like to have? I’ve always wanted more artistic talent but I think I would really like a talent for remembering things better now.
4. Which words or phrases do you overuse most?  I say, “you know” a lot.
5. If you could go anywhere in the world for a creative retreat where might it be? This is a no brainer. I would go to Provence, France for a watercolor/cooking/flea market trip.


    

It’s a Summer Monday

These summer Mondays roll around pretty fast. Here it is another week of July. I’ve always said that I love Bradford in the summertime. The days have been hotter than usual this summer (as it is in the rest of the United States) and the living is easy. All those deep cleaning projects will just have to wait until fall because I don’t want to miss one day of the nice weather we are having.
   I just finished The Cinderella Pact and can’t wait to see the movie they made of this book. Speaking of movies, where are all the summer blockbusters? If you are a teenybopper maybe this is the summer for you. I was online looking for a great movie to go to this weekend and there was nothing of interest to me.
    The flowers are still doing well outside. The phlox and the hostas are blooming now.

  

And there is even a tiny pepper on Don’s plant.

I hope you are having a wonderful summertime wherever you are. Tonight I am going to our last class reunion committee meeting. The reunion is in two weeks.

Doing a little landscaping

While waiting to hear back from the landscapers we took matters into our own hands and Don built a retaining wall for my rock garden on the bank out back.

Yesterday I went to the Home Depot in Olean and bought caps for the wall.

I can’t wait until this project gets completely finished.

I woke up this morning to find that it had rained overnight. How welcome that rain is. I love the freshness after a rain and if I listened closely I could hear the flowers saying “Ahhhh.”

Randomness on a Saturday afternoon

I think I”ll go read.

Sadie’s World

Don’tya just love it? Sadie spends a lot of her time in the summer just sitting on the breezeway on her favorite cushion watching out back for squirrels and chipmunks. When she is not watching she takes frequent dips in our pond to cool off.




Yesterday we went to DuBois and visited this stone yard. We found some stone to build a small wall. I am planning on making a rock garden in the back.

FRUSTRATION

the prevention or hindering of a potentially satisfying activity

Frustrations…we’ve all had them. Sometimes they are just minor..getting into the wrong line at Walmart and having the people ahead of you command undue attention. And sometimes they are major like getting caught in a traffic jam at rush hour and being delayed for an hour.
     You learn to deal with them as you patiently wait in line telling yourself that this is your lesson in patience for the day trying to remember that one time when you had to have a price check. You learn to accept that sometimes there will be traffic and it was your misfortune to be on this particular road at this particular busy time.
     So when a frustration hits you summon all your reserves of experience and use all your coping skills to be positive and make the best of the situation. Yes, you try. But sometimes frustration reaches a tipping point when you stop being the cheerful patient one and become the belligerent , when is it going to happen one.
   By now you probably know that I am talking about me and my landscaping project. I was dealing with one contractor and when we weren’t seeing eye to eye (he was insisting on things that I didn’t want) I talked with another. Neither one has gotten back to me in a week. Is this normal? What ever happened to common courtesy or is that a rarity in this new world?
   My frustration level is doubling each day.

Sadie in motion

WHERE I LIVE

Kim’s assignment for today is to show geographically where you live. What does it look like where you are?  What do you see nearby your home?

I love my hills. There is something about the way my valley envelopes me cradling me within its greenness that makes me feel secure. It is a coziness that comforts and encourages peacefulness. Looking out at the endless hill behind my home gives me a sense of privacy away from the world and a place that I can feel at rest. I have been to other places and enjoyed the endless beaches and flat land that goes on forever. But my heart is in the hills.

Funnies

Downton Abbey Dogs…I couldn’t resist.




And what does Sadie do when it is hot?
She sits in the lion fountain and watches for squirrels.