The Weekend ReQap

Good Monday morning everyone. Hope your weekend was nice and you're ready for the week ahead. I'm still working my way through the alphabet in the April A-Z Blog Challenge, and will incorporate today's letter into my weekend recap. Here we go-

Hubs and I had a busy weekend on tap. He was working a booth for his real estate office at the local boat show and I had plans to meet up with my sister in the nearby city to shop for the last of the furnishings we need for my mom's new space. 

On Friday we wanted to hit the nursery and get started planting a few things around the yard. Hubs had to pick up a poster for the boat show so first stop was Walgreens. He thought he ordered a poster on a board but it was just a poster so we made a short hop over to Hobby Lobby who said they could fix it in 20 minutes. 

So we went back to the shopping center we'd just left to pick up the dry cleaning and to kill twenty minutes, then back to Hobby Lobby to get the poster.  Done. 

Next stop the nursery. I love a trip to the nursery, especially this time of year. 

Also, I want roses. 

We had a specific area we were trying to beautify on this trip, so we did not get roses. We did get some beautiful plants to put around a big rock that sits beside our cart path, and I made a couple of pots for the upper deck. 

We'll need more, but it's a start. 

I love this blue eyed grass which blooms with little purple star flowers and I especially love this plant, called lime ruffles for obvious reasons-

Insert today's letter...

Day 17-Q is for Quick Change Of Plans 

While we were browsing the plant life daughter2 phoned and asked if they could come for the weekend. Her hubs grandma lives somewhat near us and she's not well so they needed to make a trip our way. Of course we said yes but my brain immediately went into overdrive...are there clean sheets on the beds? are the bathrooms downstairs clean? is there something I can cobble together for dinner? 

Not without a stop at the market so that happened too. 

We got home and worked in the yard and daughter1 called and said the boys wanted to come paddle boarding if that's okay. It's fine. As long as they manage it because hubs is up to his elbows in dirt and I need to figure out dinner and food for the weekend and all the rest. She said they'd take the boat for a ride instead and would come to us after dinner to see the cousins. 

So I wrapped up my gardening and came in and showered and made sure everything was ready for people to sleep and stay for a few days and then about 4 daughter2 arrived with her littles. Her hubs went straight on to his grandparents, but we had dinner and then the cousin crew was all together again. There were popsicles all around and outdoor play in the beautiful evening weather. 

Saturday was a hot one, and after a breakfast of bacon and eggs everyone went their separate ways. Hubs went to the boat show, daughter2 took her kiddoes to her sister's house to play there, her hubs went back to his grandpa's, and I drove into the nearby city to meet my sister at a furniture store. 

We spent the whole day shopping and forgot to snap a picture, so here ya go-

This is us a few years ago, and we basically look the same. 

Saturday night hubs grilled steaks and after the kids went to bed the adults sat up and chatted for a while. We didn't make it to church on Sunday because hubs had to leave before lunchtime to go back to the boat show, and daughter1 and her hubs had spent the night in the nearby city so they could attend my son-in-law's high school reunion. Her kids were at the in-laws so we just had a morning at home...

Then after lunch we loaded up and went to check out the boat show. They had a bounce house which was a huge hit. Sugar has no fear and needs no help. All the little girls who were playing in there wanted to hold her hand and slide down the ginormous slide with her, but she was not having it. "I can do it myself!... her Nana's granddaughter for sure. 

There was a sweet little lemonade truck beside the booth hubs was manning and daughter2 tried the dill pickle lemonade which was pretty good (I love dill pickles) and I had Princess Peach which was a combo of strawberry, peach, and coconut...heavy on the strawberry, but very tasty. 

Hubs grilled burgers once the boat show wrapped up, and we relaxed afterwards before getting the kids settled in to bed and the adults not too far behind. 

We had a lot of plans this weekend and they mostly still happened but there was some shuffling too and that's the thing I want to keep. The ability to hold plans loosely and be flexible when my grown kids call and say, 'Is it okay if we come last minute?'

I want to always say yes to my girls when they need us. One thing about this season of life is my priorities are crystal clear. I don't get to see my daughter2 as often as her sister due to geography and I want to seize the day when the day is offered. 

She is in a busy busy busy whew! season currently with a two year old and a three year old who are always in ON! mode and I want to be a soft place for her to land. Both my girls. Hubs and I have the opportunity to do a million and ten things here at the lake, but I want to hold on to flexibility and embrace the quick change of plans that can happen, knowing above everything else family gets top billing. 

Linking today with Holly (Pink Lady) and Sarah (Sunshine and Books)  for their regular Hello Monday hop. So what were you up to this weekend? 

A Peony For Your Thoughts

Saturday blogging is not my norm, but I'm rolling right along in the A-Z Blog Challenge and don't want to drop the ball now. Today's post will be short and sweet. I think. I'm enjoying my theme (The Things We Keep: Ordinary Objects From A-Z), and had to get a little creative today, but it works. You'll see. 

Day 16-P is for Peony

About six years ago I finally got a peony plant for our garden. My mom had quite the green thumb and grew gorgeous flowers of all shapes, size, and variety, but I don't think we ever had a peony. 

I fell in love with them in England because my next door neighbor there had a back garden full of them. So much beauty! He had many heirloom varieties and then the more familiar too and he would tell me about them on occasion. I was determined to have a peony in my own back garden someday. 

Fast forward, and we'd been in this house about four years when we finally purchased a small, but healthy looking plant. Hubs put it in a spot we thought was fine, but turns out it wasn't fine and by the  middle of the summer it looked deader than a doornail. 

Sidebar-did you know that expression deader than a doornail dates back to the 14th century? 

Anyway, the peony appeared to be dead but I could not let it go so hubs dutifully dug it up and moved it to another spot closer to the lake. Like my mama, hubs also has a very green thumb but he felt sure this was a lost cause. It was basically a little stub of a plant, scrawny and all stem, no leaves. 

Well don't you know the next year that little stub popped up! yay!, but then she just sat there. Boo. She didn't die but she didn't exactly live either. Didn't grow even a millimeter and of course didn't bloom. Hubs thought we should get rid of it, but I said it wasn't hurting anything so we left it. 

Year three same thing. Year four nothing. It became something of a joke between hubs and I, but for some reason, without actually saying it, we agreed to leave this six inch 'shrub' alone. 

Year five. It grew! What??? Now it didn't grow a lot, but it grew leaves and maybe an inch or two in height. We for sure didn't think it would ever bloom. 

Well guess what? 

Year six.

Still a tiny little thing, but today I saw TWO blooms ready to burst open on that plant and I cannot tell you how exciting it is. 

I'm viewing this as a testament to resilience, proving we can thrive even after a long dry season. When this tiny mighty beauty blooms I'll be sure to share. 

So glad we kept her! 

Tugging At The Heartstrings

We're moving right along in the April A-Z blog challenge and I bet if you read here regularly you already know what my letter H post will be about...

Day 8-H is for Hedgehogs

Last year in the A-Z I learned a new word-familects. I wrote about it here (The A-Z Yadda Yadda Yadda), but in a nutshell the word familects means one family's way of speaking. It can be anything from expressions to nicknames to stories told. 

Today's word falls firmly under the heading of familects.

It started with a relatively small, wildly funny (to my family) incident and as these things sometimes do it's taken on a life of its own as the years fly by.

When we lived in the UK we had a pretty pond in our back garden patio. One day I stepped outside and noticed what I thought was a big leaf floating on the pond. I innocently stuck my hand in to grab it only to discover it was a hedgehog. 

Let the shrieking commence. 

My girls came running thinking something terrible had ocurred (it had! I grabbed a dead hedgehog I thought was a leaf!! with my bare hands!!)  and much hysterical laughter and hijinks ensued as they tried to recapture the hedgehog who was once again floating in the pond. I'd flung it away from me in a fast and furious manner and as luck would have it that little hedgehog landed right back in the pond. 

So anyway, here we are some twenty years later and my girls still cannot resist buying me things they see with hedgehogs on them or sending me hedgehog memes and I still cannot resist buying them things I see with hedgehogs, and they know every single Christmas there will for sure be some sort of hedgehog related gift in their stocking or under the tree. 

Case in point-

A maternity nightgown with a momma and baby hedgehog walking across the front. 

While the back and forth gifting is mostly a mother-daughter thing, every now and then hubs jumps in with something fun, like these sweet little kissing hedgehog salt and pepper shakers. 

We can't let it go. Nor do we want to. 

Now, here's where familects come in. Unless you're my daughter or my husband I don't want you to buy me hedgehog tchotchkes. Because those would just be tchotchkes. 

But a hedgehog gift or card or meme from one of my girls? Well that means something more. It means they remember the koi pond with the beautiful iris, and the house we all loved for so many reasons, but especially the garden where so very much grew, including, and most of all, us.  I like to think that when a hedgehog catches their eye, whether on a greeting card or a cookie tin or whatever it may be, they're carried back to that garden for a moment. 

Teenagers...sisters...a mother who loved them so much they knew they could laugh at her ridiculousness and that she'd laugh with them. We didn't have camera phones back then, so there's no photo of the happening. It's all just a memory now, but I hope the same wave of tender affection I feel for my daughters when I think about that day washes over them too.  

I hope they know their momma will love all the hedgehog stuff they wanna give her, not because she loves hedgehogs, but because she loves the memory of teenagers in the house, life in a British garden, and growing up girls.

Friday Fragments and Favorites

Linking today with Andrea and Erika for their Friday Favorites hop. 

I'm out of sync with my blog these days mostly because I'm not doing a whole lot besides rest my foot. Hubs says I'm not doing great with that and gave me a talkin' to yesterday about how we're going to the beach and I'll be in this boot unable to keep up. Even if I'd done a solid nothing it's likely I'd be in the boot when we go to the beach. I have not driven one time and have spent most of the month with my leg propped up so I think I've done pretty great. There's been a day or two I've overdone it, but for the most part I feel like a slug. 

I volunteer on Thursdays making lunch in a soup kitchen, but after hubs said he thought it was too much  I called in last minute yesterday to say I wouldn't be there. Then he left for the day and I planted myself on the couch. Except he was suddenly buying a car and needed me to make four, yes four!!, separate trips to the office downstairs for information. I told him I'd have done far less walking and definitely no stairs had I gone to the soup kitchen. 

Anyway, I guess we have a new car lol. And it's been purchased in my favorite way. I wasn't there. I saw it online before he went to look, and honestly this is how I feel about a pick up. It's a truck. The end. Hubs is excited and even though he babies his vehicles his current truck has over 200K miles on it so it's time. Apparently there are a lot of variations, and he does his homework. Since it will be his mode of transportation if he's happy, then I'm happy. 

This particular new vehicle ticked 'our' must have list-the color both interior and exterior (those are my must haves-ha! ), something about the running boards and the tailgate, very low mileage (we never buy new) and price. No pictures because we won't get it until next week, but yay! We have a new ride.

We've spent very little time on the boat this summer so on Monday morning we spontaneously decided to pack up breakfast and go for a ride. 

Yes in my boot. Are you tired of hearing about it because I know I am. 

I made us a scrambled egg with cheese on a bagel to go. They were so good. 

It was a picture perfect day and we had the lake pretty much to ourselves. Weekends are busy, but weekdays it's like your own little slice of paradise. 

When my sister-in-law was here over the 4th she brought us these ginormous rubber bands (linked) which I think she said are made for patio furniture, etc but they are also perfect for keeping your towel from flying up on the boat. 

I ordered the most adorable little sundresses for my granddaughters to wear at the beach, matching because I like matching-

They're from Janie and Jack, which has so many cute things. 

Monday night we had plans to get sushi with some friends we haven't caught up with in a while. My roll was so pretty and just the right amount of heat. Hubs and I each ordered a roll and split an order of their Brazilian street tacos too. 

Our tomato tree. Y'all my hubs has the green thumb here. My daughter1's in-laws gave us a teeny tiny tomato plant back in the spring and hubs has cared for that thing so well that it's now what we call our tomato tree. And it's loaded! 

The in-laws were here over the 4th and they could not believe the size of this plant. Yesterday we picked our first tomato and I will probably make us BLT's for dinner. Hubs is golfing today and I'm sitting and it's hot so a BLT will be easy and won't require the stove. 

His lemon tree is also thriving.

We watched the grands on Wednesday evening while their parents had a middle-of-the-week date night. They had fun with these water guns which are more powerful than they look lol. 

Especially at close range. Nana got it in the face more than once and I wasn't even armed. 

Hubs made smash burgers on the griddle, and the boys put together new legos I'd purchased. We had fun just hanging out. 

Thursday morning's sunrise was a beauty. As are they all, but Thursday's was really pretty. 

My limelights are making me happy too. 

I spent the day on the couch when I wasn't running up and down the stairs to get hubs the paperwork he needed to buy the car. 

Also, I wasn't running. 

My next door neighbor invited us and two other friends over to float on Thursday afternoon so we went over there around 4:30 and floated for an hour. Afterwards we went for Thai food at a place we hadn't tried before, and it was really good, just very very slow. We weren't in a hurry so no biggie. 

Today I'm back for more sitting and reading and catching up on a few things blog wise. Hubs is on the golf course so won't be calling lol. 

Enjoy your weekend everyone! 

Monthly mUsings

Onward in the A-Z Blog Challenge with today's letter. Today's post will also be linked with Holly and Patty's Monthly Musings party, and somehow I'm going to make it work. 

U is for Understanding

As in understanding and knowing your strengths, your limitations, your capabilities, 

and your healthy boundaries; self-awareness 

I know I should write something deep and introspective here, but instead I'm going to say I've nearly reached my limit in the A-Z Blog Challenge. And because I know myself I'm going to give myself some grace and participate in a fun monthly link up hosted by Holly and Patty (Monthly Musings) instead.

And that's okay. 

Blogging is fun for me, it serves as a stress-reliever, and a place to work things out on paper which often helps to bring clarity of mind. There's an awful lot going on here this week and because I know my limits and my capabilities,  I'm opting for something a little lighter today. 

Monthly Musings with Holly and Patty talking all things spring. Here we go...

  

1. Easter, Passover, or another holiday in the Spring? 

Easter. My favorite day of the year. We had a lovely one this year which I wrote about on Monday (The Weekend Replay).

2. Do you plant a garden? Any tips for those of us without a green thumb? 

Hubs has a green thumb, but we don't plant a garden. We have grown a few vegetables in pots, peppers mostly, but our property is wooded, pine straw-ed, and gently sloped to the lake. We don't have a nice sunny flat spot for planting a garden. 

Plus we're on the go a lot, and I feel like gardens require more daily attention in the summer months than we can give. Fortunately my daughter1's in-laws keep us supplied with fresh produce from their huge garden all summer long. 

3. How do you decorate for Spring? 

I wouldn't say I really decorate for Spring. I put out one or two things for Easter, add springtime hand towels to the bathrooms, and will usually have fresh flowers of some kind on my kitchen island. We haven't done any of our outdoor patio pots yet, but that will happen soon. Flowers on the porch say spring to me. 

We are all about the out of doors here and when you're inside your gaze naturally travels in that direction, so I'm careful not to compete. I don't add a lot of seasonal decor anytime other than Christmas. 

4. Desserts that just say spring to you? 

I think anything lemon makes a nice springtime dessert. 

I made mini carrot cakes for Easter and that felt appropriate for spring. 

A fruit tart or crumble of some kind is another favorite springtime dessert. 

5. Favorite spring flowers? 

Lilacs. But also tulips, pansies, and iris. 

6. Best tips for hosting spring events? 

I love a good theme so choosing to host around a springtime event like Easter, The Derby, Cinco de Mayo, or Mother's Day gives you a direction to run. 

I like outdoor gatherings whenever possible, but you need to plan for the weather and have both sun and shade options. And an indoor backup just in case. 

People want your company more than they want an exhausted distracted host, so let people bring something if they offer. Food doesn't have to be complicated. Light and fresh is the way to go in spring.

You can't go wrong with fresh flowers. 

7. Favorite beverage or cocktail that makes you think of Spring? 

I made my first pitcher of the sweet tea season on Easter Sunday. I live in the south and sweet tea is available everywhere here year round, but I typically don't make it at home until Easter. I'll keep a pitcher in the frig from now until probably Thanksgiving. 

Besides iced tea a glass of Rosé or Prosecco sipped on a sunny patio would be another springtime favorite. 

8. Vegetable garden, flower garden, both or neither? 

As in my own, or what do I enjoy? I love beautiful gardens and a day trip to a garden in bloom is one of my favorite kind of outings. I love to visit gardens when we travel somewhere new. I saw more than a few gardens when we lived in the UK, but there are many beautiful blooms here in the US too-

Tulip Town, Skagit Valley, Washington, 2017

9. Favorite Easter candy? 

Finally an easy one...jellybeans of course. They're my kryptonite. Been working my way through this jar for the past month. 

I won't say how many times I've topped it up. 

10. Marshmallow peeps? Gross or yes please? 

I'm somewhere in the middle on these. I like the way they look better than the way they taste, but I wouldn't say they're gross. 

I love the colors of spring, along with the flavors and scents of spring, but the pollen not so much. It makes me love spring just a little bit less than I would if we didn't have to deal with all that yellow dust. Thankfully the pollen season is nearing an end, and it's pouring rain as I type this which will help a lot. 

Happy Spring y'all!