English Garden…

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picked up by a friend as soon as I got home from work and we went to Sabai Thai for dinner… it was delicious… my favourite was the hottest one…

then we headed to the English Garden and had a lovely walk… got some great pictures…

beautiful pink flowers...

beautiful pink flowers…

headed home and met another friend and the three of us had a fun time in the hot tub, that ended when the rain really started to pour down on us…

lianthus, reminds me of a rose...

lianthus, reminds me of a rose…

wonderful evening…

purple-y thistle...

purple-y thistle…

sparrows…

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this afternoon the sparrows took over the garden…

they were everywhere… a number came to the feeder… and if you watched you could see them taking their turn… some would sit in among the Virginia creeper while others took spaces on the garage roof and top of the hook that holds the feeder… eventually everyone had their turn…

sparrows taking turns at the feeder...

sparrows taking turns at the feeder…

they are also enjoying the pond… I still haven’t seen any having a bath like they used to with the old waterfall but they certainly stop by for a drink…

sparrows checking out the new view...

sparrows checking out the new view…

they were all over the waterfall stone and the bridge having little conversations as they had their drinks…

walking along the bridge...

walking along the bridge…

then they sat at the edge of the cedars… haven’t seen them do that for quite some time, but it also might have been where I was sitting as I could see the cedars very well from my spot beside the hot tub… when I am in the garden, I have to move from spot to spot as I follow the shade around…

sparrows sitting in the cedars...

sparrows sitting in the cedars…

it was lovely to spend time watching them as I was reading my book…

leaning in for a drink...

leaning in for a drink…

not sure if this little guy was drinking or wondering what the fish were doing, lol…

 

planting…

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got up and headed to Shelmerdine’s to get there right after they opened…

wanted some baskets to set in pots to fill up some of the empty space around the new pond area…

after talking with a very helpful woman I bought a shrub and a number of smaller plants to fill in the area…

had a lot of fun… barely stuffed everything into the car… then I stopped at Paterson’s and bought two more baskets, lol…

got home and had to dig out the hydrangeas, which have been dying… likely because they don’t like full sun, sigh…

set the new plants in the garden and have left them until tomorrow to be sure they are in the right spots… don’t want to have to plant them more than once…

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remembering…

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last night I spent some time in the hot tub remembering…

last year at this time I was home but barely moving… getting in and out of the bed was very painful and I needed constant help… my nephew spent the first few days with me because they let me out of the hospital early and the friend who was coming hadn’t arrived yet…

he had to literally lift me to get out of bed… the pain was fairly high as I wasn’t taking any drugs… and even though I had stopped taking them within 12 hours of the surgery there were still residual effects which continued to make me feel sick…

it was months before I was able to get back into the hot tub…

so that’s what I was remembering…

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preparations…

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very happy it is Thursday night… that means I have the day off from work tomorrow…

will need to do some jobs around the house to prep for the party on August 6… it seemed like it was a long way away, but now it is just over a week away…

lots of the work has been done but there is still lots to do… have to find some Christmas decorations and pick up some things from a couple of stores…

wasp nest starting in the garage...

wasp nest gone so everyone will be safe…

happily I don’t have to worry about the wasp next in the garage because Jeff dealt with it when they were here on Sunday… the boys were outside when we realized what he was doing so we called them in to watch some cartoons on TV while he was dismantling the nest… and he found another tiny one which he also removed…

I am excited about how lovely the garden will look once it is all decorated…  am hoping that the seemingly dead snowball hydrangea will come back to life in the next week…  need to get a few more plants for the pond and the area around it…

so much to do, so little time, but what fun…

technology…

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today I spent some time researching Dragon Naturally Speaking and in the process downloaded a free app on my phone which works very well… I was able to read something and it went right into an email which I sent to myself… and then I was able to put it into a document…

something happened to my iPhone over the weekend… I traded in my Blackberry in October for an iPhone 5 and have really learned to love it… took a while to get used to the differences, but now I am definitely a convert…

iPhone 5...

iPhone 5…

but up until the weekend I could send a picture from my iPhone to my email address, add it to my pictures on the computer and then upload to my blog… since the weekend all the pictures are going right into the email and are no longer attachments and I can’t figure out what I did or how to save the picture that is in the email to my picture gallery…

this seems like a little thing, but it is making me a bit crazy…

I’ve googled and asked around and tried to remember what I might have done but nothing has fixed it so far… I know that I added one or two apps over the weekend but don’t think I changed anything in my settings…

purple and white cover...

purple and white cover…

have just spent half an hour looking for a picture of my phone, only to realize the one I was looking for was a picture of the remote for the waterfall, lol…

really think it’s time for bed…

wildlife…

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was outside a while ago looking for wildlife in the garden…

swallowtail caterpillar eating the flat leafed parsley...

swallowtail caterpillar eating the flat leafed parsley…

found one of the swallowtail caterpillars and some flowers which should be bringing the butterflies to the garden…

butterfly bush although it isn't the kind I have had previously...

butterfly bush although it isn’t the kind I have had previously…

came in the house and discovered a fly in the kitchen which I then had to try to get out of the house…

few minutes later I was in the bathroom and discovered a good sized spider staring at me from on top of the towels…

not so long ago, I would have come running out calling for George at the top of my lungs… so that he could save me and get rid of the spider… I am not fond of spiders at all, lol…

now, I put on those darn big girl pants, find some Kleenex and deal with the intruder all on my own…

George would be proud…

duckies…

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today when I arrived at the office I was a little early so I walked over to the Library and checked out the pond… my colleague had mentioned it just last week…

lovely pond on the Millennium Library grounds...

lovely pond on the Millennium Library grounds…

there was a lovely little duck family there…

duck family...

duck family…

what fun to watch them flit about the area…

great start to the week…

 

construction…

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this morning Jeff and the little boys came over for breakfast and I showed them the remote… they all thought it was pretty cool and when we had company at dinner, Gray ran into the house and found it so we could show it off…

after breakfast they went home and I went shopping with Dan to get the doors for the closet, which he then installed, as well as putting the trim around the back door… all that’s left is to paint the doors…

doors on the basement closet look wonderful...

doors on the basement closet look wonderful…

once he left I laid down for a short nap, which turned out to be shorter than anticipated as I got a call from Crystal needing me to pick the boys up at the hospital where she was going to have her knee looked at…

the boys and I stopped and picked up more goldfish – some fantails this time, as of the 50 feeder fish purchased last week, there appear to be about 3 left…  now we have 16 good sized fish in the pond… I sure hope they like it there, lol…

we organized supper and laid a carpet in the living room before our company arrived… Crystal and Jeff came just after we finished dinner… her knee is taped up and they think it will be fine, but she is hobbling around on crutches in the meantime…

we put down the carpet only to discover it is about a foot or so too wide, sigh...

we put down the carpet only to discover it is about a foot or so too wide, sigh…

since yesterday I have been having trouble attaching pictures from my iPhone to the laptop… very frustrating and I hope I can figure it out sooner rather than later…

two more jobs for those big girl pants…

been a long and full day… off to bed… 

 

wonderful day…

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got up and packed our snack bag and headed to Cedar Wood Camp to pick up Kyler… nice drive and when we got there we had brunch with the campers, saw a great video and headed over to our dear friends’ cottage (well, home really) just a few minutes drive from the camp… first time I had seen them since George’s memorial service…

had a wonderful day visiting and enjoying the beauty of their space… after a great dinner of sliders, and a few great slide shows we headed for home…

lovely things to see...

lovely things to see…

even quieter drive home as some folks napped and others watched movies…

drove home from Crystal’s, put chemicals in the hot tub, sorted through my pictures and now off to bed…