The Birthday Boy!

A Big Happy Birthday to my now 69 year old Hubby.  Way to go love!!!

The Iris in purple join the berm family!

The phone calls started coming in and now our “dance card” is full.   Darlene and Michael will be up tomorrow to fix dinner for Jay.

Sunday morning Cindy and David will be up for breakfast and Wes and Debra have invited us to a cookout Sunday afternoon.  So Memorial Day weekend promises to be indeed memorable.

If you get a chance this weekend Please wish Jay a Happy 69th Birthday.  His E-mail is jayaxsom@gmail.com.  His still doing well and I plan to be able to harass for at least another few years!!!!!

Have a great weekend we are going to,

Well the two holes in the side yard will disappear on Friday.  Both chambers will be reworked to allow easy access, the holes filled in,  and only two green caps will be showing at ground level.   We can even run the lawn mower over them.  No more ugly bare square where the grass wouldn’t grow.

My welcome bells

A couple of years back my daughter-in-law’s friend, Kathy, gave me this reclining frog with bells on it.  Up until this year there was no place prominent enough to display it.  But this year it found it’s way to the west end of the berm and looks at home there.

The meter and pipe hider.

For a couple of seasons now I have been watching this bush grow.  I was hoping to hide the meters, pipes, wires, and assorted other ugly things that shouldn’t be seen that furnish the dome with power, phone service, and etc.  Well this year it is almost tall enough.  So my goal will soon be accomplished.

The sparkles are here.

The mail lady brought the new ornament kits today and my hands are itching to get at them.  I honestly should do a bit of mopping, vacuuming, and dusting first but I really don’t want to.  The guilty feeling will win out and I’ll do a bit of cleaning before I open the packages.

Jay’s dialysis went smoothly yesterday and tomorrow is the appointment with Dr. Ross so the domestic goddess thing will be on hold until Friday or Saturday.

The warm weather is causing me to act like a bear in a cave ( but I’m not complaining mind you).  Hope all is going well with you and that your holiday is a safe one!!!

Yesterday we spent from 7:30am until 6:30 pm away from home.  133 miles down and back to South East MI. Surgical Hospital to get Jay’s dialysis arm checked and corrected.  My nourishment consisted of one meal and a package of cheese crackers.  I slept on and off all night and awoke this morning still worn out and hungry.  Jay’s arm is all better now and he was in dialysis today.

This morning the man came to clean the septic tank.  He informed me I have a two chamber tank and only the first chamber has been pumped the last few years.  The lids for the chambers are over twenty eight inches down with only one chamber available.  After a man with a backhoe came in and dug down to the top of the other one  I now have two holes in my side yard.  I’m waiting for a call from him this evening with an estimate on the cost to redo the access to both chambers.

Tomorrow morning I have my DDS appointment.  Three fillings are scheduled.

Thursday I take Jay to Dr. Ross’ office for treatments on both eyes.  I see nothing but a long list of dollar signs this week and the anxiety of trying to come up with the needed cash.  But we have faced these types of things before in our 36 years together and always found a way to solve them and we will do it again.

On the bright side the iris are blooming with a beautiful purple.   The lilacs were planted,  one out front in line with the snowball bush and the other on this side of the shed.    I still have more mowing to do and will attempt that this Friday.

I have just got up from a nap.  Jay, Brandy, and Molly are all still resting in the bedroom under the fan.  There is a pile of clothes to be folded in the dining room table and flannel sheets in the dryer to be folded and put in thr cedar chest because I pulled out the cotton ones today.

It is warm in the dome so the next step will be to open the cupola windows and change the direction of the fan up there.  Hopefully one of my children will be up soon to help do that.

Have a great week and keep smiling because by golly I’m going to!

One of two Petunia baskets

The second basket.

As Jay picked out a few more vegetable plants for his barrels I decided that a bit of color was called for at our main entrance to the dome.  The fact that the roof comes down to the four foot area makes hanging the basket close to the ground.  But I figure that dead heading the Petunias will be easier than reaching up and I will certainly remember to water them.

I also finally bought my two Lilac Bushes.

Lilacs are in my future!

Al that remains is to decide where these bushes will reside.  Both are full, not dwarf type, so it is important they have a lot of room to grow.  Jay and I will plant them today.

In the berm

The Cosmos are starting to bloom in the berm.  A mixture that adds needed color to the the setting.

Today I will try my hand at mowing with the tractor.  My big feet and long legs make it difficult getting on and off the machine but  once I’m settled it is really quite easy to run.

Please visit  Jay’s Jammin to see what he is up to.

Well I have a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee calling me so I’ll close for now.  Remember to laugh –you know what that does for you!!!!

68 degrees on a drizzly Friday morning. ( It is 11:14 am.) I am just coming out of a minor trauma condition that started with six little words.  I think I lost my wallet. Not that there was any money in hubby’s wallet but there was ID and medical cards.  Cards that were needed because he had an appointment with Dr. Webb at South East Michigan Surgical Hospital on Monday.

For over two days both Jay and I retraced steps to all the places he had been around the dome  because he hadn’t gone out any where.  We compared notes on the places we had searched looking behind, over, under, and on top of spots in the garage, basement, back yard, the truck, and the main floor of the dome.  I even checked the bag the newspapers are kept in until recycling day.  I check in every drawer he might have opened and walked the backyard where the tractor had left tracks.  I sat last night until after 3:30 am at the computer playing free cell and reviewing every place I had looked.

This morning as he was getting dressed to go to dialysis he called from the bedroom that he had found it.  Where I questioned?  “Under the bed”, he replied.  I said he had already looked there yesterday to which he replied, “Yes under the sides but I found it under the foot of the bed”.   I now know why I have high blood pressure!!

I also have good news to share.  Dr. Hukill’s office called to say my blood work was good, as was my mammogram.  He does however want to talk about my bone density test.  I will meet with him in a couple of weeks to go over that.  Hey two out of three ain’t bad!

It took over three days to get the vegetables planted in the barrel containers but that was accomplished yesterday.  I helped Jay get it done while searching the yard.

I finished Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone and started Douglas Adams’ The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. It is a compilation of the stories in the series.  I wanted to read them before I read Eoin Colfer’s  followup.    The soft cover Hitchhiker is 815 pages long so I will be on it for a while.  I still have 87 pages to go in Dawkins’ The Greatest Show On Earth but I feel the need to switch to fiction every so often.  There is a number of medical appointments coming up so I will have plenty of time to read.

I did order some more sequin and bead ornaments.  I have five kits totaling 10 ornaments  coming.  I can’t resist when they are marked down.

I was going to mow today but the rain canceled that out so it is a lazy day ahead.  Take care and enjoy your weekend!

The flowers that now live in my gardens.

Miss Daisy is back.

Yes she is back and she has invited several of her sisters to live in the other extension gardens around the dome.

Purple bells

White bells

Please keep in mind that I no longer fret about the names of my garden companions.  In fact I make up my own.

The Yellow Globes

Lilly Of The Valley

The globes have been here since before I moved in.  I clear a lot of them away and they return.  The Lilly of the Valley came from Phyllis’ garden and is pretty well contained.

Columbine

This is also all around the dome and has been here for over 10 years.

Dahlia

This is one of two Dahlia plants that were here when I moved in.  This one is tucked between two trees at the east end of the deck.  The other plant is in an extension garden on the East side of the dome.

Snowball bush

The bush is in full bloom now.   Wes had trimmed some of the dead branches out of it when they were up.

White Starlike bloom

These are sprinkled around the dome also.

It just dawned on me that when I say extension garden you don’t know what I mean so here is an explanation.

Extention garden.

There are five extensions on the dome.  They are four feet out by 10 feet wide.  This is a picture of two of them.  The one on your left is the living room extension and to your right  is the bedroom one.     The area between them are flower beds.  (Some times in need of care but beds none the less.)  There are also flowers and bushes planted in front of some of these extensions.  So I call them extension gardens.  Hope this help explain the term.

Good Morning!  An overcast 54 degrees in our little speck of the  earth today but maybe some sunshine will visit later.  Lots of changes in homestead yesterday.   On the deck:

The "Umbrella plant" mom gave me years ago

My plant also!

Both plants are tucked into the corners on the opposite ends of the deck.  I should really look up the name of them but it just doesn’t matter right now.

Also occupying the space out there is the grill and this.

The bird totem as I named it.

A gift from Dar and Mike two years ago I finally brought it back up into the daylight for another summer.

When I arrived home from leaving Jay at dialysis yesterday the tree trimmers were at Phyllis’ house.  One of them walked across to talk to me about did I still want the two dead trees taken down in the front yard.  I said if the price quoted back in late winter still applied, yes, I wanted it done.  I asked if they would take down one, right next to one of the dead ones, that was broken off in a storm last year.   The answer was yes with no additional charge.  So three trees came down.

Part of the pile of wood in the front yard.

When I went to pick up Jay my neighbor came over and seeing the the tree that had been leaning over quite badly cut it down.  It was a worry off my mind because I was afraid it would fall into Phyllis’ garden during the next storm.

The other pile of wood--note the rot in the center.

This  will go to another neighbor who heats with wood.  A total of four trees in bad shape came down.  So two good solutions came out of the situation.

I hung the Humming bird feeder in the Crab Apple tree yesterday after Phyllis said they and the Orioles are back.

A new metal one.

I chose a metal base because the plastic one keep breaking and I lose the parts.  I have to go to the basement and locate the Oriole feeder next.

This afternoon is the mammogram appointment or as I lovingly call it ten pounds of liver on a metal tray!   Wednesday Brandy finally gets back into to Doggy Depot for her haircut.  She looks more like a Sheep Dog than a Shih Tzu.  Thank goodness she is feeling better.

Jay bought some vegetable plants for his barrel containers on Sunday so he will probably be working on that project today.  I’ll try to get some pictures for his blog for you.

I want to thank Cindy and David for their help yesterday and if you have a chance stop her blog today.  It is Cindyisms and she has changed her outlook on everyday living a bit.

Also visit Pammies Place and see the completed afghan one of her groups has created for a fellow member.

Have a great day and a better week!

Brandy and Molly know how to relax!

Finally I can take a tip from my animals and take time to breathe.  It started last Friday when Jay was at dialysis.  I received a call that he was being sent by ambulance to the hospital.  They suspected heart trouble.  I naturally went straight to emergency to be with him.  Making a long story short they decided to keep him over night in the Cardiac Observation unit.  I, of course, came back home to feed animals and birds and do some straightening  up.

Saturday Jay called to say they were waiting for the heart doctor and the kidney doctor to determine if he stays the weekend or came home.  I went over and waited with him.  They finally released him at 7:30 pm because the test were all good.  When we arrived home there were things to catch up on and the two 62 mile trips in two days had left little energy to do them.

Sunday helped a bit to get my bearings but I was still unsettled.

This morning I drove him to get his haircut in Clarkston,  we went to lunch, and I dropped him off at DaVita in Davison to finish his dialysis session that was interrupted on Friday.  All went well at DaVita but I couldn’t pick him up until after 6:30 tonight.

Cindy and David came up while I was home and did some chores around the house and watch the roast I had put on while I waited for Jay to finish at DaVita.  After they left I managed to to read a bit on the computer and thought I would check in with you before bed.  Now my friend it is truly Good Night!

Today is the seventh anniversary of this blog.  I had planned a nice presentation but problems of a personal nature have curtailed this.  So I’ll just hope for seven more years with you visiting occasionally.  MOMMA