Anticipation

I love the anticipation of waiting for flowers to bloom. These zinnias my husband planted from seed. I have them pictured as "babies" in an earlier blog and I thought that he would transplant them but he didn't. I've never seen zinnias "weep" like this, only stand straight up, so we'll see what happens here. This is his project, not mine, so I am just observing and enjoying. I did water them right before I took this photo so they look a little too weepy. The weather is beginning to be a lot hotter so they are going to need more water.

Can't wait to see what colors appear and how big the blossoms will be. I think it's so much fun to see people experiment by doing traditional things in an nontraditional way. It makes life more interesting.

A Unique Birthday Gift!

This was a unique 60th birthday gift from my husband. After I spotted the two bluebirds in our backyard a while back, he overheard me talking about a bluebird house I bought at a craft show or somewhere many, many years ago and I thought it was stuck up in our garage attic or in the garage somewhere. On the morning of my birthday, he got up before me and put the house on a post and in the ground as a gift to me. Pretty cool gift, don't you think?

In less than 24 hrs. after he did this, those little birds had a nest inside! We were just amazed! We're trying not to touch or disturb it at all but my husband told me today he found a little blue egg on the ground below the house today:( I hope nothing has happened to all of them but I didn't peep in to see.

I love the way the light was shining on the birdhouse late this afternoon. It accentuates the old worn wood in a beautiful way. We'll be keeping an eye on this for a while. I read that they have two to four broods a year!

Next?

Remember my post a few days ago about shopping in Barnes & Noble? Well, this is one of the books I came across for 40% off! I felt pretty lucky with this because I really needed some instruction to use the resistance bands I bought about a year or two ago. They did come with a little pamphlet giving some exercises but they didn't say what part of the body it worked and I just feel like I needed more detail.

So. . . I tried out one of these exercises yesterday and I think it's very do-able for me. There are two types of bands in two different lengths. One is a lighter resistance to start with for beginners which I will definitely use. You must start easy and build up to prevent injury.

I haven't decided when I will start but I have decided I will only do it 3 times a week because the instructions in the book say your muscles need to rest a certain number of hours before working them again.

Another reason I haven't started anything like this is that since Apr. 28 (the day my brother and I took my mother to the ER), my energy level has been so depleted. It's just now starting to build back up. I feel better today than I've felt since Apr. 28 and that's been a whole month. It's amazing what stress can do to your body even if you're sleeping good, eating right, and getting exercise. I think the mental part of it is more difficult to deal with. But I hope I'm on my way to better health - physically, mentally and spiritually.

Just a Swangin'

Guess this photo best depicts the broken or fallen swing:( We've gone through two wicker swings, the first one being an antique, and I guess we're just going to give up on wicker as much as I love it. Everything we have on our back screened-in porch that is wicker is just falling apart. The cats are bad to scratch on all the furniture and the weather has worn it out, too.

This happened yesterday very late in the afternoon. Paige and I went to the back porch and were just a swangin' when all of a sudden, the chain and big screw on one side (the side where I was sitting, thank goodness!) just fell out of the ceiling. I was talking to my mother on the phone when it happened. No one was hurt but Paige just cried and cried and cried. I think it scared her so much. I was laughing and she was crying. Now that I think back, we could have had broken legs, etc. and we are very lucky.

My husband and I had been talking about just replacing that swing with a wooden swing and getting new furniture to replace all the worn out wicker.

Since it happened on MY side, it makes me REALLY want to work harder at losing weight!! Ugh!

Happy Birthday Erin!!

Today is my oldest daughter's birthday. I did get to be with her briefly today as they were coming back from the beach to go home to Tennessee. So Happy Birthday, Erin!! I love you, love you, love you and hope you have many, many more!!

Shopping Therapy

I did some shopping therapy today. My husband gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for my birthday. I thought that I remembered either reading or hearing about the store going out of business or closing down so I decided to go ahead and shop there today before I went to visit my mother in the hospital. I was right. This particular store is closing June 3 so I'm glad that I went. At least half the store merchandise was 40% off so I had quite a haul! I probably spent about 3 or 4 hours in there looking around and enjoyed it very much.

My mother did not get to leave the hospital today as we were told yesterday. We really don't know when she'll return to the rehab facility yet. So I went to visit her after my shopping trip, came home, ate, rode my bike and now I'm ready to enjoy my new books - one of my favorite things to do!

A Unique Photo!

I have gotten so many comments about this unique photo on Facebook. I have never had a photo turn out like this before but once a few years ago, I remember taking a photography class in which the instructor was showing how you could take a photo with a long exposure time and walk into a photograph and walk out and it looked almost like a ghost.

In this one, I kept trying to get the little ones to sit still so I could get the photo of all of them together but they kept standing up and sitting down, playing a little game. When one would stand, the other would sit and vice versa. So I just said, oh heck, I'll just snap the picture and here's what I got. Interesting, isn't it?