Today Larry cut down the big rhody by the rear bedroom window. That wasn’t in the original plan but when we saw how nice the rest of the house looked we just had to have that gone too. 
Today he also had a chance to cut in the curves around the shrubbery. It looks so nice.
I have begun building the little brick path to the window box. 
This is the view out my back window with the boxwoods which will surround Tatiana when she gets moved to the back yard. 
This is the view from the far side of the house. 
I am loving how it looks.
Don and I went around the house and placed the plants where we think they should be. Take a look.
I am so excited!! The landscaper arrived today with the new plants and trees. He planted the white birch in the back yard. I will put Tatiana and her pedestal where that stand is now surrounded by boxwoods. 
It was as good as I had imagined all these months. 
The other plants surround the house and will be planted tomorrow. 
I am thrilled beyond measure.
Celebrate who you are.
As you know I am taking a class from Kim Klassen this year. Every once in awhile she leaves the world of computers and puts out a challenge from her heart. Today was one of those. The assignment was not an easy one. It was to write a love letter to yourself. Oprah purported a similar exercise also. Here is the way that she worded it.
This is a simple but powerful exercise I do in workshop and share in my new book, Be Yourself: Everyone Else Is Already Taken. This process will allow you to take some time to celebrate who you are and to practice appreciating yourself!
Step 1
Write a heartfelt letter of gratitude, appreciation and love to yourself about yourself. Take some time, put some conscious and generous thoughts and feelings into it and allow yourself to boldly express your love for yourself.
Step 2
Put the letter in a sealed envelope with your name, address and a stamp on it.
Step 3
Give the letter to someone you trust and ask them to drop it in the mail to you at some point in the next year (without telling you when they do it).
It will show up in the perfect time and probably on a day you could really use some appreciation and acknowledgment. And, the best part is that the love and validation will come from you!
Kim also encouraged us to put it in an envelope and send it to ourselves. So I set out to do just that. Do you think that it was easy? Not at all. We are so fast to criticize the mistakes we make and not forget them but are not as forgiving to ourselves as we would be to our best friend. We do not applaud our own achievements as much as we should. So this letter was a way of getting the praise that doesn’t often come even though it is deserved. We all love to be told we are smart, pretty, creative, and competent. And when a compliment does come our way we are so proud and full of happiness at that recognition.
So I challenge you, can you do it? sit down now and write that letter. It is something you need to do.
call this exercise, "Writing a Love Letter to Myself." Basically, you're going to do just what it sounds like. Take out a sheet of paper, or do this in your journal or on the computer. Next, get busy writing a love letter to yourself and describing all the wonderful things you love and adore about yourself! You could write about physical features, personality characteristics, things you have accomplished in life, basically anything you appreciate about yourself. And don't think you have to only focus on big things. You can even appreciate yourself just for doing this exercise!
For some of you this may seem extremely difficult, if not downright impossible or uncomfortable. We spend so much time beating ourselves up and trying to change things about ourselves, so at first it might be challenging to find things you truly love about yourself. Do the best you can, though, and if you keep looking I guarantee you will find lots of great things you love and adore about yourself!
I wonder how I will react days from now when I get it back in the mail.
When I was in college and grad school I studied a lot about different learning styles and the way people gravitate to a way of doing things that suits their personality. The older I got the more I realized that I don’t like details. I think in the big picture. I start with the whole concept and then work out the little things later. Now that way of thinking often got me in trouble because my husband has the opposite point of view. He is methodical and neat and works to get things done in an orderly way. I, on the other hand, purge ahead not thinking that things need to be worked out before going on to the next step. My creativity just takes over and I can visualize how I want it to be. The details just get in the way.
But I have faced a challenge. I wanted new landscaping this summer. So even though we’ve always done everything ourselves I hired a landscaper who talked me into pulling everything out before I saw his final design plan. That’s when things started to go bad. He and I did not see eye to eye on the design or the plants around the house. His view of “you’ll come to see it my way” rubbed me the wrong way and we parted company. (Actually he still owes me some work that I already paid for). So we have hired someone to do the digging and prepare the dirt. But I have to come up with the design.
I have spent hours and hours going over just exactly what I want. I am not a gardener. And I do not work this way. I just want to buy a lot of plants, bring them home, and move them around to decide just where I want them. Since I can’t do that I have drawn plans, worked on computer programs and changed my mind over and over. My head is just swimming with trying to get it just right. This is the hardest thing I’ve done in a long time. I know that when it is complete I will be happy but just getting there has become frustrating.
So give me all your positive energy that I might make it through this process unscathed.
I love anything to do with setting a table and sharing a meal with family and friends. Call me a dishoholic, but I love a pretty table. I’m far from a gourmet cook but I love to entertain and am happiest when surrounded by people.
Fact number 2:
I”m sentimental. 
Every Christmas I must put out this display which includes my husband’s football toy form his childhood, a picture of my mother and I in the Christmas sweatshirts that i made, letters to Santa that my children and grandchildren wrote and pictures of my sons and grandsons at Christmastime. I love holidays, old movies, talking about old time and looking at old pictures.
Fact number 3: 
Fact number 4: 
I love making memories. It isn’t important the objects you have but the place your memories hold in your head that is important. You need to stop and store those memories of the good times. This shot is from the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond Virginia where my sister and I went one afternoon to have tea. It was a fancy place and we felt very special to sit there and sip our tea.
Fact number 5: 
I love my dog, Sadie. Being a Jack Russell she just couldn’t help her bad behavior when she was a puppy. But she is growing up now and you will never find a more devoted loving dog.
Have you ever seen a picture and it brought back the most amazing memories? When I saw this old fashioned ice cream maker I got tears in my eyes remembering my father and all the memories connected to this little bucket. It was a big event when in the heat of the summer my dad decided to make homemade ice cream. He would buy some ice and salt, cream and fresh peaches and begin the process. Being a child I never paid much attention to the process but I knew he was stirring something in a pan on the stove. Then he’d put in the ice and salt and pour the creamy mixture into a container that sat in the middle of the ice bucket. Then it was time to crank. We thought it was a big deal to take our turn at cranking the handle to stir the dasher inside to make the ice cream thick and creamy. I’m sure he did most of the cranking but we always thought we were a big part of doing something wonderful. When he was done he’d let us have a spoonful before he put it in the freezer to set up. We couldn’t wait till after dinner when we would be able to enjoy this refreshing treat.
Thinking back there were a lot of life’s lessons taught by that ice cream freezer. The joy of anticipation. The concentration of cranking. The patience of waiting for results. The pride of doing a job. The cooperation of sharing the crank. The family love that went into it.
Dad kept up that tradition at least once a year. Every summer we traveled to Georgia to visit all of my mother’s family. One time we had an ice cream social at my aunt’s house where there were four flavors of homemade ice cream. But we felt that my dad’s was always the best.
Never think for a minute that your best friend is the one who sits beside you, sipping on hot tea and talking for hours on end. No way. Your best friend will be the one who stands with you when the greatest pain on earth has broken your heart—and never says a word.
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?
