My favorite thing to do in my garden (besides garden!) is to sit in my aidirondack chair under an awning and look at my garden (very small but cottagey backyard garden that I proudly created from scratch!). My 4 year old son loves to run around and pretend each little section of the garden is a different animal habitat (the shady area with raspberries and climbing hydrangea is the "jungle", the wisteria is the "rainforest canopy", the blue spruce is the "coniferous forest" and so on...) This absolutely delights me because I want my son to appreciate nature (instead of watching TV or playing video games). I'm so proud that he notices when a particular flower is opening or when he sees a plant from our garden in someone's else's garden and says, "Mommy, we have that plant in our garden." He even knows the names of some of the plants. I like having someone to share my love of nature with. We also have birds nesting in our birdhouse, in a notch in the wisteria right above my son's sandbox, and last year, a bird tried to nest in our mailbox! All this in the very small space of about 1/4 of an acre! Jill

Yes, he told me what he does and about his current exhibition of his work in our City Hall and his website were he posts his work. He gave me a flyer for it and everything. He told me he was a professional photographer. I would think that a professional photographer makes money off his work even if he had said nothing else to me. Personally I am very flattered if anyone wanted to take pictures of my roses. Its no effert in a case like this to share and I think both of us, the photographer and I, have benifitted. I get to see pictures of my roses and garden much better than anything I could ever do and he got access to my garden which really does have very beautiful roses. And he did not ask to go into my garden. I offered because its nice to share the beauty of the garden sometimes.

Right now I'm into the color GREEN! Green means IT LIVED!!! I'm loving the green sprouts from the trees to the potted plants. And, My BIG Su-prize! While cking my 'shade plant' holding bed I saw a huge hydrenda (sp) bloom! Further inspection showed it to be my little 5" snowball bush! The bloom is as big as the plant! Not only did the baby live, but it bloomed grown up size blooms! I'm so proud! Blooming now in my yard- 2 bunches of purple oxlias (also the ones in pots I just bought from HD) 2 wh salvia blooms 2 tulips 2 bunches of mini daffs 1 old fashion wh petunia bloom And 3 acres of weed/wildflowers-breath taking!

Back in the day, I used to do my best sewing until about 2-3am. Can't do that anymore, tho. Now I wait until DS is up and about (he loves to sleep late and was, when we had an RV, disturbed when he heard pages being turned, so you can imagine how he feels about my sewing machine!). Luckily, I only work part-time so usually have Mondays, Wednesdays (all day), and Friday afternoons to indulge my obsession. I loved the Mary Brooks Picken article too. I have seen it somewhere as well. She would be thrilled to see me sewing, as I often do, in my underwear (easier for fitting), sans makeup, etc. I still have my old "Unit Method of Clothing Construction" book by the Iowa Home Economics Association from when I went to home ec college. We had to make little bodices, sleeves, etc out of construction paper with different types of alterations. Still have them too, plus samples of different closures, etc. But I digress... Now I see better in the daytime, evening is tougher on my eyes. Mary L