I'm in one of the cooler So.Cal. zones but I still prune in July/August. Sometimes I do it in June. I pruned the 'Day Breakers' at the end of June, almost in half and they have grown quite a bit and are full of blooms. And we are just barely getting into the 80s (northern slopes of the San Gabriels). I pruned one of my 'Outta the Blue' at the same time - it gets to be over 6 ft. - and it has grown at least another foot and just finished another flush. Same with the 'BP Icebergs' and several 'Easy Going.' I had another 'Easy Going' that I needed to move. I pruned it hard to about 2 feet. It lost all its leaves and I thought it might not make it when we had a mini heat wave around the 4th of July. Nope - within a week or so it was showing green and now it is a nice full, happy little bush in a much better spot. : ) Diana

Laurel, Eeww was right! But now it is done! Hooray!!! It was soooo baaad! I want to thank you for these awesome gifts: -a very nice mix of finch seed -a nut and fruit seed bell-Laurel, I love to hang these on the porch as I can get a close up view from my sitting chair in the living room. -seeds-salvia(St. John's fire), purple coneflower, chianti sunflower, gaillardia, brilliant red poppy, Will Rogers zinnia, and gloriosa daisy. The birds will have a heyday with many of those flowers. Thank you! -double chocolate Ghirardelli coffee-oh YUM! -cute decoration shaped like a birdhouse with sunflowers painted on it that says, "Harvest Home Inn" -a beautiful hummingbird windchime -4 separate hanging birdhouse decorations-each is done in a different color with a different flower and a different saying-the sayings are Love, Hope, Faith, and Peace--These are very, very cute!!! The paintings of the flowers on them is so tiny and detailed. Hope has blue morning glories, love has yellow sunflowers, faith has a pink/white lily, and I am unsure what flower peace has, but it is a pretty blue. These are just soooo neat!!! -English Teatime tea in a cute Happy Holidays box that has a couple of cheery, fat birds on the front. -a tube of Baume Du Jardinier the Gardener's Hand Healer-it smells wonderful and makes my hands feel smooth and silky. It has shea butter in it. -a holiday tin with a winter scene of a farmstead all decked out in snow and greenery and a beautiful cardinal or two. The tin itself is full of Hershey's mint truffles. These are deLISH!!!!! You can't just stop at 1 or 2. Laurel, thank you so very, very much for the wonderful box of goodies for our feathered friends AND for me. Wasn't this a fun swap? There is just something about feeding and watching birds that is so satisfying. I'm guessing that you think so, too. Everything wass wonderful and very appreciated!!! Mary Ellen

NHSuzanne - Those pictures are postcard perfect. What a beautiful sky. I may make those mugs for my college age nieces. Thanks for posting. Raeanne and Patti - The 3 of us should just exchange among ourselves. Patti, I don't have an ornament from you, so maybe you could send to me. I'll send to Raeanne an Raeanne can send to you. How does that sound? My job is sucking the life right out of me, but I have managed to get in the Christmas spirit this week. I am working on Holiday recipe boxes for all the cooks in my family. I found a great site called Shabby Princess with a free download for Christmas recipe cards. I spent most of yesterday (after attending a beautiful Christmas wedding) typing the recipes. Now I need to upload the recipes to Costco, print out the Recipe boxes and put them all together. I posted a link below for anyone who is interested. My house is decorated and most of my shopping is done. I just have some on-line shopping to do for my DS and figure out what DH wants. I bought myself my Christmas present yesterday......a Kitchen Aid mixer. I was using my parent's old mixer, which was a wedding present, 61 years ago. Let's just say it was time to upgrade. LOL I also bought a new lens for my Nikon SLR. DH will be retiring next summer and who knows what the money situation will be, so I treated myself while I still could. I will try to post more often. I have been going into work early, working thru lunch, staying late and bringing work home. Like I said, it is sucking the life out of me. I already wrote my letter of resignation and will turn it in in February. I am ready to quit today, but I know that isn't the right thing for the kids, so I will tough it out until May. Then I can decide what I want to do for the next 2 years until I can retire for good. Who knows, maybe I will find a job that I love and I won't want to retire at all! LOL Later, Marci Here is a link that might be useful: Holiday Recipe Cards

It's only been 24 hours since Grumpy arrived, and things are beginning to settle down. Bump is acting like the all-knowing big brother and gives Grumpy a light thump on the head when he's trying to usurp Bump in the hierarchy of the family. Stella is still hissing, but no longer threatening to seriously maim and destroy. She's been asking me how long we intend to have a cat, and when is this babysitting job going to end, and she doesn't care for my answers...lol! Grumpy will keep his name because its origin is rather cool, and gives him a bit of kinship with Bump. I've come to the conclusion that he is seriously stupid, or ferociously brave (leaning towards brave) because he's been ignoring the age and size of Stella and Bump. If he wants something, he simply bounces his way into it and ignores the warnings coming from his siblings, each of whom outweight him by a good 12 pounds. Grumpy is extremely active, sleeps seldom, and has an affinity for toes. He loves pizza and asiago cheese, having stolen a bit of each at different times this morning. And, I'm happy to report, he has convinced Bump that it's okay to eat wet food. Bump has an expensive habit of only eating the gravy off of wet food, leaving the meat to go bad. However, I've seen him eat more wet food in the last 24 hours than I have in the last six months. Now I won't feel so bad about spending 1.39 a can. I'm scrapping my plans to get any sewing done today due to a lack of sleep (only got about 3 hours last night because someone had already gotten some sleep and wanted to play) but I'm heading into my bedroom now to read some quilting magazines, and probably have my toes washed and nibbled...lol!