I hope your daughter will recover soon from her health issue. That must have been a scarey time for all. I wish her congratulations on her new engagement. Is there a date set yet ? It sounds as if you have had a few "strange" (for lack of a better word) last few Christmas's... :( Your son wanting to spend some time with the parents of his deceased friend tells me that he is one very great kid...and I also know that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. You must be really proud of him:) I hope your next Christmas will be spent at home with your family without any problems :) My Christmas was lovely..quiet and peaceful. My son and his new wife came over Christmas eve and I enjoyed having them for the evening. My oldest son lives in BC and he spent his Christmas with a girl he met out there...And they seem to be serious. He called first thing Christmas morning and we had a great talk. My daughter drove up to NB and had Christmas with her dad...and she called me Christmas morning as well. She had to cut her trip a bit short to miss the big snow Moncton and Fredericton had yesterday. I usually cook a big Christmas feast...but not this year. Instead...My friend and I went out to a wonderful Christmas Day buffet at the Ramada Inn...and I ate my fill there. Everything was yummy...especially the seafood casserole with all the lobster in it...and the dessert table was amazing !!! The best part was just getting up and walking out after the meal...no clean-up and no dishes :)) I think we just may have started a new Christmas tradition !!! We received a turkey through my friends workplace..so I may cook it for New Years. All in all...I had a great Christmas...even thought the cats totally wrecked my tree...and I didn't even mind. I guess I'm getting mellow in my old age :)) It was a lot of fun watching them play in the tree and they had a fun Christmas too :)

So.... just so you know - you enabler, you - this is how my mind works: I thought, "wow, I really like VIOLET TRANQUILITY", so I looked it up, Petit. Went to Petit's website, and low and behold they are having a summer sale (*DON'T, REPEAT, DON'T LOOK!!!!). Then I think, "well, I don't really have enough of Ted's work in my garden... so maybe I should get some". LOL. Oh boy. Thankfully I contained myself and just got ONE from the BOGO sale, which *REALLY* means he will send me three! Aral Sea Royal Fringe Fleet Goddess YIPPEE!!! I think my first bloom was WHEEL OF TIME, which is weird, because it is registered as a mid, but anyway, that was on April 28th. But, I think it would be an outlier and mostly things started about May 11 -15. We had a lot of that same weather pattern, which was great - lots of rain and cool weather!

Maria Tormena wasn't meant to be in my garden. The cats are attracted to sleeping on her! Each new rhizome. Catmint ~ nah, we love Maria.

I don't know how this happened but I paid $2099 for my Kenmore induction slide-in last October. I have never seen it that cheap again. I love, love, love the burner arrangement. I can use my 12" and 10" skillets together in the front at the same time. The free-standing version of the Kenmore induction has a really weird, not useful burner arrangement if you ask me. So far, I have found the warming drawer to be kind of useless. It takes a full 15 minutes to heat up -- by the time I figure out I need it, I don't have 15 minutes to wait. I don't think it really gets hot enough to keep the food like I want it. I just as soon keep the food in the oven with it shut off and the door cracked. The extended gliding racks on the Electrolux sound really nice! I'd like to have those for sure. All in all, the only thing different about this range and my 10 year old Kitchenaid electric convection slide-in is -- the induction burners and the warming drawer. Other than that my KA had all the same features. Love the induction burners not sure I'd spend $1,000 more for them. PS: The extended service plan for the induction range was also more than for a regular electric range. It is worth asking for a discount on the service plan. The also charge a boat-load to "install" a slide-in range. We did it ourselves but leveling it proved to be a challenge.