Gardening!

Front of the house.  The plants are
new, so sort of hard to see.

Mortimer with his fern.

This is the side bed, with our mature hostas.

We spent quite a lot of time this past week putting in the garden in the front of our house!  We laid down 20 bags of mulch, planted quite a lot of perennials and annuals, and installed a cute frog that I could not pass up.  We're trying to decide a name for him, but I think we've settled on Mortimer.  I kind of liked Franklin, but Shawn REALLY liked Mortimer, which was fine with me!  There's not much to say about the beds, really, so I'll just include some photos.  Naturally, the plants will fill in as they mature.  The hostas are a year old, which is why they look so nice.  I'm just grateful that a lot of what we planted are perennials, because we won't have to do that amount of work all at once again!  But WOW, what a sense of accomplishment!

-Kim

Overdue update

Blogging is new to me, so once the "Holiday Season" hit us last year, beginning with Halloween, life suddenly got busier, and I neglected the blog.  And by the time New Year's had passed, I was out of the habit.  So, a brief update...

Meet Rory - half Dachshund, half Black Lab.  We're not
sure how it's possible, either, but he sure is cute!

Thanksgiving was beautiful, for the most part.  Shawn and I had his family over here for dinner, and everything turned out wonderfully.  We did have an adventure that evening when our new puppy (he was 8 months old, but we'd had him exactly a week), decided to eat a tiny screwdriver that Shawn had dropped while fixing his glasses.  It was tiny (maybe 1.5 inches long), but a screwdriver nonetheless.  We had only settled on a name for said puppy the day before - Rory.  So, off we went, Shawn, Rory and I, to the emergency veterinary clinic in the neighboring town.  One X-ray later confirmed that Rory had, indeed, consumed the screwdriver.  When we got him back 2 days later, he had a shaved belly, a zipper, and a "cone of shame."  But he's perfectly fine now, his regular rambunctious self.

We like to joke that Rory ate Christmas, because an emergency vet visit is not cheap, particularly when it happens on Thanksgiving.  But actually, Christmas was very nice.  It's probably our favorite holiday, and we put up the tree and set up our nativity with accustomed relish.  This year I also taught Shawn how to make 6-sided snowflakes and we delighted in covering the windows with unique snowflakes of different sizes and designs.  Zoe, our cat, loved them too and SHE delighted in attacking them.  Needless to say, the snowflakes didn't look quite as good when they came down as when they had gone up.  But I couldn't begrudge her having some holiday fun, too.  :)

Shawn and I holding our newest nephew on his birthday!

Aside from Christmas, something else made December very special for me.  My sister, Lisa, was due to give birth to her second son, and invited me to be there with her when he was born.  It was such a special thing to be there for that miracle!  I cannot adequately begin to express my gratitude to her and my brother-in-law for allowing me to be there during such a special time.  Lisa was just marvelous and I was in awe of her that day and marveled at the wonder of life and birth!  I am so grateful that she chose to share that moment with me, especially since it's a moment I will (barring a miracle) never have on my own.  Life is wonderful, and love is better!

I am grateful Spring has finally arrived - this year it seemed like it would never warm up.  Spring is one of my favorite times of the year - everything is new and fresh, and the world is a clean canvas awaiting paint in bright and lovely colors.  I'm looking forward to planting the new beds we've dug and planting around our new deck.  There is so much of life that can be learned from a garden!  I've only been gardening for a few years, but I think I'm really starting to catch on.  I'm so excited this year, in particular, because we have put strawberries in!  Now I can make jam with berries we grew in our garden - assuming they don't get eaten first!

So, as ever, life is good.  We love life and love loving each other, and keep plugging away, looking forward to each change and bend in the road.  Thanks for reading!

-Kim