ilex vomitoria

i just love the name of the holly i got the other day. the english name is lovely as well... weeping yaupon. isn't that poetic? i now invite you to write a poem on the name of your choice... ilex vomitoria or weeping yaupon. you choose.

my friend jen, our neighbor angie, and 2 of jen's kids piled up in her big red truck (i kinda felt like the wiggles... "toot toot chugga chugga big red car") and drove the distance to broadwell's. what is broadwells, you ask? why nothing less than landscape mecca. it is a huge landscape supply company, which means that it sells plants to garden centers and nurseries wholesale. and to 3 women and 2 kids in a big red truck. wholesale.

now, broadwell's is not for the wimpy woman, the squeamish or the faint of heart. what you do is drive your truck down the rutted and dusty trails between the acres of potted plants, carefully avoiding the sprinkler poles, and load up the truck with whatever you want. it's a little tricky as there are NO PRICES and NO LABELS. it's your guess as to what a plant is and how much it might cost when you get to the guy at the front.

huge, heavy, dripping buckets of cherry treees, messily heaved in to the bed of the truck. dwarf junipers by the dozen. big manly woman arms hoisting hollies upon hollies. we easily packed that truck chock-full of more plants than we could possibly have time to dig holes for. no matter. this was broadwell's! and it inspired all of us to bite off more than we could chew.

strutting through a barn were two peacocks and a peahen. we breathed the dusty, hot air. we bumped down the road. we carefully navigated the turns until at last, we were sated. tired, thirsty, hungry and dirty, we approached the man in the cowboy hat for our grand total. he contemplated with his calculator our bed full of greenery. "$221.50," he said. it's criminal how much we got for just a bit over $200. he helped us wrap the branches in a tarp for wind protection, and we were off to chick-fil-a and dunkin donuts for some much-needed reparations.

i got home and the golden glow abated. i was stuck with a bunch of plants, rock-hard clay soil, and no one to dig me a hole. my back ached just THINKING about planting all this stuff. when i awoke this morning, i found that jane (2 year old border collie) had taken care of at least 2 of my little problems by decimating some dwarf barberry shrubs. no bother! they were only $3 each! and 2 less holes to dig!

at about 5:45, tommy was leaving to go on a motorcycle ride with his pals, and hollered in to me, "lance and his friend are here to dig holes!"

WHAT?!

jen had sent her 13 year old son and his friend robbie to dig my holes for me. they spent 2 dutiful hours digging and planting ALL of my shrubs and plants. i'm so relieved i could cry! and of course i spent my last scraped-together dime to get my wolfman son a $12 (cash only) haircut earlier today. so i couldn't even slip the kids a twenty. no matter, i'll get to the atm asap in the morning and show my gratitude in monetary form. that IS what 13 year old boys want, right?

i called jen, and we have plans to return to broadwell's next wednesday for more. gluttons for punishment, aren't we?

there's a stormtrooper on my driveway!

you always have to stay tuned at our house, 'cause you NEVER know what might happen next.

when we got home from dance class, there was a stormtrooper and some imperial officers in our driveway!
they came into our home and invaded our kitchen...

they proceeded to seize control of our children!


they blasted their way out to the studio...

where they presented tommy with the almost-unheard-of honorary membership into the 501st legion. he is now an official plaque-toting, card-carrying member, and will soon even have his own collector's trading card. why? for his contributions to star wars through his art.

ain't it cool? what a fun day for us all.

once were babies

each school day, i walk down to the end of the driveway and wait for the big yellow school bus to pull up and spit my babies out and back into my arms.

you'd think it would stop being shocking to me when the babies that get off the bus are tall, with long, thin legs. they are laughing at friends' jokes, they are toothy and a little gawky. they ARE NOT BABIES. they are KIDS. they hug and kiss me as they always have, even though their friends are watching, and i'm wondering when this, too, will stop. hopefully never!

i still see them as my babies, and there's a good possibility that i always will see them as my babies, even though they are no longer babies.

the above photo sits on our mantel and reminds me of those funny and difficult days when they were very small. h was a total nutcase... into everything, never sleeping, and very dynamically creative. a shy in public mama's boy. s was bright, sunny, easygoing, and sweet. the photo has their personalities... from both then AND now... intact.

ride for kids

please check out tommy's post on his weekend charity motorcycle ride for kids with brain tumors. i can't say it any better than he can... other than to say how proud i am of him and how grateful to all the bikers for raising funds that help these kids' families afford to care for their sick children, and for the surviving kids to be able to attend college. how cool is that?

all these QUESTIONS!

recently j from thinking about... had a different kind of question meme on her blog. she answered the personal interview questions another blogger had asked her, and she in turn offered to interview anyone else that asked.

here are the questions that she asked me....

Is there any food you could eat every day without getting sick of it?

absolutely! i could eat chocolate in it's many and varied forms day in and day out without fail. and i do.

Are there brands you are loyal to? Anything, car, computer, food products, whatever.

hmmm... i suppose we are (now) loyal mac users. as far as clothing & food go, i go for the cheapest brand.

Salty or sweet? What’s your favorite craving?

salty then sweet then salty then sweet. i alternate. right now i love "take 5" candy bars which combine salty and sweet and it's deadly.

TP….over or under?

over! of course! is there any other way??

Could you give up your cell phone for a month?

without even batting an eye. i hardly ever even use the thing. i hate being bothered/interrupted by it. i have no idea how to text message.

Here are the rules, if you would like to be interviewed:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

a big thank you to j for the questions, and if you'd like to be interviewed, let me know.

i got nothin'.

well, i got somethin'. but it ain't much today.

seems there's a million and one posts stuck in my head, and i think... "after i feed the cat. after i walk the dog. after i work for an hour. after i make dinner." then it somehow never happens.

blake is singing "you give love a bad name" on bon jovi night on american idol in the background, and somehow beatboxing just doesn't mix with 80's big hair rock.

anyhow, i'll offer you a piece of s art. she's budding into quite the little designer these days! here's the process on this one:

she's OBSESSED with pets. dogs and cats particularly, and ads or catalog photos of these pets make her screech at a decibel only HEARD by most pets. she cuts out these photos and usually adds them to her animal collage, which i will need to feature in another post as i don't have a photo of it and the camera's dead.

this particular kitty pic must have struck her fancy for she chose to make a puppet of it instead. first we tried a paper bag puppet, but it just wasn't happenin'. then we decided a stick puppet would be better, so we stuck the kitty head on a popsicle stick. it wasn't quite enough detail for my kindergartener, so she broke apart other sticks to make arms and legs. the stick-tail inexplicably got stuck to the FRONT of the cat, making it look a bit more like another kind of appendage, but i'll let that go. she added the cute little a-line dress and a picture drawn by the kitty herself in the hand and VOILA! instant stick puppet.

cute, huh?