Fertilize Friday 7/30/10

Be sure to check out all the other gardens at Tootsie Time. She's our host for this fun meme.

This coleus is getting huge!!! I've got to water it twice a day because there is so much foliage and the pot is only 10 or 12".

We've got a ripe tomato.... we've been eating off the cherry tomato plant for a couple of weeks, but this is the first larger tomato.

YEAH!!!! We've got a holly hock!!! Three that are planted in more sun are doing much better than the three that are more shaded.

Coneflower are still looking pretty.

And an opening bud on the hibiscus. There are lots of buds....

This planter got moved from the front porch. MM is planning on staining it and the plant had to be moved. Don't you love how the sweet potato vine is taking off lol

Love the color of this wave petunia.

My Rose of Sharon looks so different than the others that I've seen. I think it's something like a double ... something something lol.

And, of course, the trumpets will be blooming for a few months now.

Had to throw in a picture of Punkin sharing her soothie with Muffin. Yes, Muffin gave it up months ago, but it's nice to see the Punkin doesn't mind sharing lol

So, that's my offering this week. The gardens are suffering greatly from the neglect, but time is just escaping me. What's a person to do?

The Rally 2010

In all the excitement of going off on vacation we started out by heading to the hospital for the birth of Punkin FIRST. Vacation started a little late, but I was thrilled that we had a baby before we had to leave. It was the best way to start a vacation!!

The Rally is a Good Sam Rally and the 2010 rally was hosted at the Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville. Talk about a fabulous facility!! That's totally an understatement. We were parked out by the Six Flags Ferris Wheel in section 'R'. I don't think anyone had a bad parking spot. All activities were held indoors and were cooled to a very comfortable level.... it was in the high 90's and low 100's outside!! We were parked in the 'dry camping' section meaning you had to run on your own power. Usually they let you run the generators from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., but because of the extreme heat they lifted all restrictions. Before we left I checked for a 10 day forcast and it said rain every day but Friday. What do they know? We had 5 minutes of rain on Thursday!! Since we decided to commute to the center by bike it was nice that it wasn't wet.


All evening entertainment was held at the Freedom Hall. Again, I don't think there was a bad seat in the house. The first night we were entertained by The Monarchs. Thursday night was Bob Newhart (funny), Friday brought us Tanya Tucker, we skipped out on Saturday night and Sunday night was a Rally's Got Talent.

Tanya Tucker's performance was very good and she still has the 'stuff'.


I forgot that there was one thing going on outside.... rv's from the 50's!! I remember as a child we camped every summer in a TENT!! I was always envious of the people in the trailers. They looked a lot like the ones that were displayed in the parking lot outside. Their owners were actually camped out there.


This is the Tin Can Tourist used at Camp Dearborn in Milford MI.

I don't think the Airstream every lose their value.

Loved all of the bumper stickers on the back of this VW Bus. 0 - 60 in 11 minutes haha I think I was behind this one several times back in the day.

The old Shasta

Didn't totally understand this sign on a new Prevost. Is it $1,950,000 new and then take 50% off, or is that $1,950,000 the 50% off price? Didn't ask, because it really didn't matter, either way I didn't have $1,950,000 or half of the $975,000. What can they possibly put in there to make it worth that?? And who the heck is buying them??? Do they drive them themselves or have a chauffer?? To enter you had to take your shoes off. Can you imagine if you actually used it and came in off the beach with sand on your feet? lol

This rig was parked across from us during the rally. Just imagine, you can take your car, your kayak, and maybe your motorcycle. These are made to order and are very cool.

There were tons of classes (seminars) going on all during the rally as well as events being put on by Good Sam and Coast to Coast. Good Sam had a Find your Match game going on through Friday. You were given a number at check in and then had to find someone else with that number 'your match'. There were actually 4 of each number. MM found all four of his, I found one of mine. If you found a match you got a bag that said "I met my match in Louisville". The more matches you found the more entries you had in a drawing held on Friday afternoon. The prizes were worth seeking a match. They had matching fold up bikes, twin chairs that had foot rests that came up, a couple of generators, an rv cover...... lots of big prizes. We actually won a year's renewal on our Good Sam Club membership, not a generator, but worth close to $100.

That was going on in the East Room. The Seminars were all up and down two hallways and in the other big open section they had all the new and used rigs for sale and vendors selling all kinds of stuff you never knew you needed lol. I talked with two couples that bought new rigs, and I heard that there were a lot of sales. That's always good to hear because more dealers will keep coming to show you more rigs.

Churchill Downs was staging the HullabaLOU event over the weekend. They had multiple stages preforming at the same time. In one section of the Expo parking you could hear the music.... not by us :(. The big names that I can remember were Sara Evans and Kenny Chesney. Louisville has a LOT to offer. Beautiful town.

We pulled out Sunday afternoon and headed to Fort Wayne IN for the night to kind of shorten the drive home. We stayed at the Johnny Appleseed Campground. It is a city park that is so serene and peaceful that you'd never know you were a half mile from the center of the city.... the coliseum was backed right up to it. We're going to start looking for more city and county parks as we travel. They are definitely hidden gems.

We had a great time and love to go to rallies. We always meet lots of interesting people to visit and share stories and travels with. Next trip ... going back up to the Upper Peninsula. Can't wait. But for now I plan on getting in as much baby time as I can :).

Punkin Has Arrived

Punkin arrived 7/21/10 at 12:01 a.m. She came in at 7#12oz and is 19 3/4" long. She came by c section after many hours of labor and little or no progress. The section was a blessing because the cord was wrapped around her neck twice. All's well that ends well.... Mommy and baby are perfectly healthy and we are truly blessed. Is she not the most beautiful baby?? I'll be updating "My Girls" photo soon. I am truly blessed!!

Quilt for Muffin

I've been having a quilting kind of time lately. I made a baby one for Punkin's arrival and then my daughter said that Peanut likes bugs now and I've been looking forward to making a bug quilt (weird I know you can see that quilt here ). So, since I was making one for two of my granddaughters I decided to make one for Muffin too. While picking out the bug fabrics I saw this amazing 'What are you doing, Maisy?' kit. I was a little intimidated at first, but it went together beautifully and quickly.

It has 7 booklets on it. Can you find them?


They all start with "What are you doing, Maisy?"


And when you open the booklet it has the answer.


Don't know why this one flipped, Maisy and a bathtub. Wonder what she's doing?


Oh yeah, taking a bath! You can see the inside of the cover on this one.


There was enough of the backing fabric to put together a little pillow case. The fabric on the table there on the left is for more baby quilts. Always another project in progress.


This alphabet border is what intimidated me until I realized that it was just a strip of fabric. I thought it all had to be pieced together ugh.


I don't think I worked more than a week on this quilt. It is machine quilted around the borders and squares (they call it 'stitch in the ditch'). Sometimes people wonder how I have time to do projects, but I do a lot of work in 10-15 minute increments. Amazing how much work can be done a little at a time... 10 minutes before you shower in the morning, 30 minutes at lunch time, an hour after work.... you get the idea. Now a book, on the other hand, I pick up and can't set down... nothing gets done while I'm reading a good book :)

Money and Friends

I got this cute little blip from The World of Silly Willy and Fluffy. They're fellow rver's that do a lot of traveling.

Hold Tight by Harlen Coben

“How do you weigh a child's privacy against a parent's right to know?…
“How do you differentiate normal teenage rebelliousness from out-of-control behavior?…
“When and how do you intervene if suicidal signs appear?…
"Coben plucks each of these strings like a virtuoso as Mike and Tia Baye try to deal with the increasing withdrawal of their 16-year-old son, Adam, after a friend's suicide. A pair of brutal, seemingly senseless killings, punctuate the unfolding domestic troubles that ratchet up the tension and engulf the Baye family, their friends and neighbors in a web of increasing tragedy.


I haven't read a Harlen Coben book in a while and I need to get back to them. This book left you with questions on morals and values. If you suspect your teen is in trouble how far do you go to keep them safe? Do you spy on them? Do you follow them? When their pain is so great how do you try to ease it? This book has lots of issue, suicide, bullying, drinking, drugs, murder, protecting your family at all cost. I wonder how far I would have gone with my kids if we had the technology that we have today. Back then the kids didn't carry around cell phones... no gps to follow them. The computers were relatively new (we weren't the first on the block, but probably not the last) do you check their emails and trails of where they've been? People say that today is more difficult for raising a family and I'm starting to believe it after reading this book. Which takes me back to something that we did raising our kids and I think is extremely important - having dinner together most or every night. Not allowing the outside things to overwhelm and control you life. I'm not saying that it's easy, but it just brings you together for a short period everyday and allows interaction of love and support to reinforce the family morals and values.

This is definitely a page turner. So, how far would you go? Me - whatever it takes to keep my kids safe!

Peanut's 3rd Birthday

Peanut turns 3 this Friday and we celebrated it this past weekend. She answered the door like a little princess and was so kind and gracious that you forgot that she was only 3. My friend says the 3 is the age of reasoning and Peanut definitely is understanding all the rules and manners. She smiled to welcome everyone and said thank you as she opened all of her gifts. She took turns so nicely and even though it was amazingly hot there were no meltdowns (by any of the kids surprisingly enough).

GG doesn't often venture out, but she wanted to go to the party. GG's has 9 children, 25 grandchildren and 41 greatgrandchildren to date (Punkin will be the 42nd). Here is GG and Peanut.


Last month we went to a garage sale and found a great deal on a little bouncer. It needed a little repair, but nothing that we couldn't handle with a sewing maching and a tube of liquid weld. The kids absolutely loved it. Peanut was the first to go on it and you can hear the excitement.


We had to get a good shot of the "Ladybug Cake" that Mommy made, Peanut and Mommy.


The two cousins in their party finery. It is so hard to get the two of them looking in one direction at one time. If you have little ones around you know what I'm talking about. One shot actually had them both in motion going in opposite directions.


What a happy face as everyone sings Happy Birthday (wish I had videoed this, but I had a brain freeze and couldn't remember how to do it :()


Muffin in her pretty little party dress.


They ordered a 'ladybug' pinata to go with the theme of the party. We started with the smallest party guest first hitting the pinata. That would be Muffin.


Peanut hitting the pinata. In the end it took Daddy and Mommy to break into the pinata. It wasn't pretty lol


Peanut loves her Mommy in flipflops and wanted a pair too. That thing between the toes is very large on this little pair and make her walk like a duck lol. She's actually getting used to them by the time we got this video.


Peanut's Mommy told me that she liked ladybugs and bugs in general so I made her a bug quilt for her birthday.


I love the grasshopper.


Had extra scrap fabrics so I made a pillow case to go with it.


She got tons of gifts and had to take a bite from a candy necklace between each gift opening lol. To think, she would have been happy with a candy necklace lol. She got several outfits, several Barbie type dolls, STICKERS!!!, the above quilt and a new two wheeler bike (with a HORN!!), I'm sure I missed more things (oh yeah, flipflops lol), but there was a lot of commotion.

Fertilize Friday 7/16/10

Tootsie Time is our hostess for this fabulous meme. She's starting a series of posts about different kinds of gardens. Check it out and while you're there check out the other gardeners and their gardens.

To begin this weeks flaunting I'm going to start with the deck plants. This geranium is doing great. I'm on allergy meds so I can't remember the name of the bottom flower. The pumpkin is behind there now and I still can't find any pumpkins.


I love watching the coleus go from a little twig to something resembling a small tree lol.


And yes, I have grape tomatoes!! The plant is loaded so I should have a steady supply.


This is what the trumpet wall looks like from the ground side. This morning I saw an oriole sitting on it and eating something. That is a beautiful bird.


The rose of sharon is still to bloom, but is loaded with buds. MM trimmed it way back last year and I think it's gotten a little fuller at the bottom.


The wave petunia is finally covering the sink.


Oops, is that a butterfly? I'm not the only one that likes the petunia.


This is the lily that I got from my friend Tammy. Isn't it pretty?


I'm thinking I need to move this Bluebell of Scotland. It's growing and spreading nicely, but it's behind the peony. Should it stay there to stay partially shaded?


The Russian Sage is growing pretty good this year, but in years past I trimmed it and now I don't know what to do. Any suggestions on how to get it bushier and fuller at the bottom?


The name of this purple thingy is there somewhere, but I just didn't feel like bending over to take a look.... again, the meds.


Coneflowers still blooming nicely.


Beebalm is attracting lots of bees.... wonder where it got it's name.


Another week with this daisy, but they're starting to die back. Maybe I'll get a second bloom if I deadhead it right away.


Holly hock.... I'm watching it closely. There are lots of buds all up the stem.


Hibicus has lots of buds too.


Looking toward the front we have coreopsis and coral bells.


The neon sedum is yet to bloom.


Blooming chicks and hens. These seem to be spreading.


Coral Bells are blooming nicely, they kind of like it under these grasses. Maybe it was too much sun before.


The hostas out front are blooming nicely.


Porch plant is filling out nicely... not sure about my choices in the top pot. It's petunia and aspargus fern. I think they are competeing with each other too much.


Lots of blooms on this hosta.


Notice that something is still enjoying the Irish Spring soap. ??? It didn't eat the whole bar this time lol


Even though I have lots blooming and everything is gorgeous we're still looking forward to the neon sedum, hibiscus, hollyhock, rose of sharon and there's a little yarrow or yew that hasn't bloomed yet. So, what's going on in your neck of the woods? Got lots blooming? How are you keeping up with the watering?