JUST UPDATING

Today is Friday - but it feels like Monday.

Ann, Ellie, Luke, Andrew and I drove to McDonough to visit Laura Beth, Scott and Ada. We left on Monday and returned yesterday.

It was a great visit - glad we did it - bonded the little people a bit closer - but it's universal knowledge that putting 3 preschoolers in the same dwelling for a few days is a recipe for a lot of battles.

Have I mentioned that Laura Beth is expecting "MY 5th Grandchild"? She is miserable with nausea and sleepiness and the 1st trimester lack of interest in food and anything other than sleeping.

Our intention was to visit and give her a break. It probably just made her grateful to have only her and Ada and Scott in the house - after we left - but we had a lot of laughs. The kids were really so hilarious - except for the part when we really wanted to put them in individual cages. It seemed like a lot of slapstick comedy at times.

I woke up in Scottsboro today - we had some repair work done yesterday on our gutter and adjoining boards/whatever - to the tune of a lot of money - but it looks better - and delivered to me yesterday was my birthday gift from my very generous sister.....2 picnic tables from Home Depot. She sent me the money for 1, but hooray!! They were on sale for half the original price - and I had really wanted 2 anyway - so yay! I now have two new very sturdy - very functional - picnic tables. My family is getting bigger and bigger and I do have a large back porch - so there they are.

This day I am rearranging everything to balance it all out.

Also - sad - I have had to "deadhead" most of my beautiful hydrangea bushes/blooms. They were beginning to pale and turn brown around the edges. I think the afternoon heat is speeding the process a bit - because I have 3 hydrangeas with better shade and those blooms are still brilliant.

Now in time I think I will get the second round of blooms, but they won't be here for a while and probably won't have the same gusto as the first round of blooms.

What I have now is a wheelbarrow full of hydrangea blooms which are shades of pale blues and lavendars and the brown edges of petals mixed in - it's beautiful and I really really would like to get a pencil and paper and sketch it. My camera is broken so I can't take a picture and post it. I just love that look of the wheelbarrow filled with those hydrangeas - Sarah is gone for the morning - I wish she could paint that for me - but we need a camera to get several shots of it - before the blooms dry up completely. I'll just have to see what I can do - but for I now I must go blow off the back porch and work on my arrangement of furniture out there....

and water my choking bushes - Isn't it hot? We need an afternoon thunderstorm - don't we?