Christmas Memories

One of my favorite times of year is Christmas. Each year we decorate the house in anticipation of hosting our traditional, family Christmas Eve gathering. The preparation is half the fun. Starting weeks before, the house comes to life with the newly decorated tree and Christmas decorations placed through out the house. Many of these decorations are individual, Anna Lee, hand painted faces, upon angels, santa’s, reindeer, and Christmas carolers given to me by my late mother in law, Betty. I also place angels on the den sideboard and I have a musical angel I dearly love. I keep the angel in the bedroom for myself. On Christmas Eve morning I lovingly arrange fresh greenery atop the dining room table and mantle with sparkling white lights.

Time for a Change

I must admit I loved our shrubbery, foster hollies and surrounding hostas when we first bought our house. The landscaping seemed to spell “home” in my mind. A well loved, welcoming presence that represented our family. As shown above, Jeananne was in first grade, when the landscaping looked similar to how it was when we first moved in. But going on 19 years later, it is quite a different situation, a harbinger of things to come. The hostas are long gone, simply vanished under the sprawling taxus and invading ivy. In fact, the taxus were so overgrown they were partially blocking the windows view. Notice Jeananne standing with Katherine senior year. What to do? Last year I started experimenting, hard trimming the taxus from the back side, wondering how they would grow back. Then this year the foster hollies seemed so incredibly tall, I had no idea what to do with them. Trim them? it seemed impossible at this stage. To have someone cut them back seemed to be too late, they would simply look ridiculous and probably kill them. Then, I had my annual termite inspection in august, and the owners son tactfully said, “You know, you really need to get those hollies off your house.” Well, that did it. In an instant, I knew the time had come, chop, chop, harrie carrie. Now I am in the midst of cutting down the bushes myself. Here is what it looks like now with the hollies removed and bushes chopped.

Seeing Double

My Girl

We had so much fun before Jeananne left for DePaul.

Shelbyville Excursion

Wow, did we have fun last Sunday night. The Galloway’s invited Jeananne and me to their Shelbyville farm. When we arrived Debbie gave me a tour of the house while Mary, Ed and Jeananne left to play tennis. Upon completion of the tour, I had the pleasure of watching Debbie prepare dinner while we had a chance to catch up with each other. Debbie prepared creative, colorful toppings, including some from her garden, to put on a homemade pizza crust that Mary prepared earlier in the day. She also casually prepared an elegant apple dessert and salad. To make the night extra special, Maggie and Jack arrived and we all had dinner together.

Then.......... Debbie and Maggie took me on a tour of the farm in their new Polaris. It’s just like riding in a golf cart, except much faster. And wow, is this a powerful machine!!! It plows through weeds and grass like nothing else!

Cleome

Here is a picture of my cleome. I had wanted to plant some this year but time slipped by, and although I had good intentions, by the time I went to buy them they were all gone. Sooooo.....you can imagine my surprise when I spied a little cleome plant coming up about a month ago, in a totally different spot than planted last year. It started out small and now this is what it looks like.

Hottest Day of the Year

It was way too hot yesterday! It was 97 degrees and because the dew point was 80 it felt like 116 outside!

Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July

It is spitting rain outside and it looks like it will be an overcast Fourth. Regardless, I need not worry about the upstairs temperature getting too hot anymore. Blackburn and Davis installed a new GE air conditioner in Jeananne's bedroon. I have only used it once, but can already tell it is a much stronger unit than the previous one. I think Jeananne will be pleasantly surprised when she comes home from Greystone. She might need to add another blanket to the bed!

Monday Night

Pepper is whining because he sees something outside and wants to be let out!!! Some things never change.

This is me at my computer lesson, Missy is very patient with me.

KCD Graduation

Last Thursday we went to Chris Kessler's KCD graduation. Here is a picture sans Leland. He was taking the picture with his new camera.