Reunion Over

I'm back.  You wouldn't think a little six hour one way trip to Cincinnati and two nights of parties would wear a person out, but  it did.  I guess when it's your 35th class reunion, age makes a little difference to old party animals!  All went very well, though, and it was a lot of fun.  I just don't know how much fun I can take!  I really enjoyed seeing my best friend, Melinda, whom I haven't seen for over five years.  Melinda, her sweet and beautiful 18 year old daughter, Michelle, and I stayed together at a Marriott Towne Place Suites.

  It was very nice.  It was more like a condo than a hotel.  We had such a good visit and talks.  It's just like we saw each other a month ago.  The sign of a true friendship!  We spent time at the mall, going out to eat with our mothers and Michelle, drinking wine and just talking.
Friday night was a get together with our class at a local tavern.

Me on left, Melinda on right

Saturday  Melinda wanted to get her hair done, so we decided to also get our make-up done together.  It was a fun girlfriend time together!  

 Saturday evening was a little more dressy affair.  

Blurry again.  I need a new camera!  What a shame because our make-up looked really good!

We had a good time and it was so much fun to see old friends.  I think because of facebook, I felt like I knew 

some people better now than I did 35 years ago.

We were back "home" by midnight, but I guess we just couldn't get relaxed enough to fall asleep right away.  The next morning I woke up with a start at 11:00!  I couldn't believe it!  I had to also wake up Melinda and Michelle.  We were supposed to meet our mothers again for brunch at 11!  Wow!  I haven't slept that late for years.  We changed brunch time to noon!

Mom and I headed back to my brother's house after lunch, where we had a nice rest, a great dinner with family (my sister in law is a great cook), watched movies and had a good sleep.  Then we got on the road Monday morning back to the woods of Pennsylvania.  When I first got married and moved to Pennsylvania I loved going back to Cincinnati and almost dreaded coming back home to my small little back woods town.  Now it's flipped.  I love coming back to my slower (well, debatable), definitely quieter, calmer little life!  

I entered the gate to my community and drove up the long road toward my house.

It was fun to go back to high school memories, but there's no place like home!

Party and Be Happy!

Just a quick update.  I know I've been MIA lately.  This will have to be a quick short one, though.  I'm getting ready and packing to leave in the morning for Cincinnati for my 35th class reunion.  I'm most excited to meet up with my best friend that now lives in California.  She's flying in to Cincinnati tomorrow and we'll be staying 3 nights in a hotel suite and I can't wait to see her and catch up.
My mother is going with me so that I'm not driving the 6 hour drive alone.  She'll stay with my brother for a night and then with an old friend for two nights.  This should be a fun getaway.  It's just so much work to make the preparations to get going.  Thanks to a very good friend of mine, I have jewelry and shoes all ready to go with the new dress I bought.  I got my hair trimmed and color touched up today.  Got eyebrows and lip waxed.  Got some new make-up and a pedicure.  Pictures will come later, I promise.  I'm thinking right about now that this might be the last reunion I go to.  It's a lot of work to get fixed up!  It does make you feel pretty good, though.
Last Saturday we attended a beautiful wedding out in the woods of Pennsylvania at an Art School/Gallery.  Sounds a little strange, I know.  We thought so at first, too.  But it was an outside wedding in these beautiful gardens and a gazebo and the weather was absolutely perfect!  Here are some pictures

The groom is a very good friend of Austin, my oldest son.  His mother is the same very good friend of mine that helped me with shoes and jewelry.

Here's Hubby and I during the outdoor reception.  We were all dressed up and lookin' good and the setting was beautiful and I'm so sorry the picture came out blurry!

I'll be back home on Monday evening from my girl's getaway/reunion and then on Thursday I have family starting to arrive to my house for a big 4th of July party that we're having here on next Saturday.
I was starting to get a little overwhelmed and nervous the other day trying to get ready for all of this, and then I talked to myself and reminded me that this was all good stuff.  Just breath, relax, and enjoy the good life.  My self lecture worked and I woke up yesterday morning feeling renewed and energetic and sat with my early morning coffee and watched my birds.

I'll be in touch next week, with pictures and a reunion report, as soon as I get a chance!

No Lazy Days of Summer Here

Not enough hours in the day!  I still have so much outside work to do.  I'm still trimming and cleaning out my cotoneaster bushes and it's taking up way too much time.  

Last week Mom and I found our way to this Amish greenhouse that we had heard about and they had the biggest baskets of flowers I have ever seen for $15.00 each.  I asked the cute little Amish girl how they get them so big and she told me in her sweet little Amish accent voice, "They just grow".

This pot of these little yellow flowers was about $1.50!

I hung this huge basket next to my blue and pink seating area.  See my previous post.

Over the weekend, Mom and I took a little road trip to Pittsburgh to help Spring clean my girlfriend's mother's house.  Her mother and my mother were very good friends years ago, and the four of us have reunited recently.  See post about this here.  My friend's mother had a stroke a couple of years ago and just isn't able to keep up with her house by herself.  So my girlfriend arranged for a Spring Cleaning Party with family and friends jumping in with scrub buckets and food.  Mom and I drove the 4 hours to get there Saturday morning and spent the night in a very nice room at a Country Inns and Suites.  We cleaned again on Sunday and got back on the road for the trip home by 3:00.  It was fun!  Really!

I'm cleaning the light fixture in the master bath.  With a smile!

Hubby couldn't quite understand why we would be willing to do this when I keep saying how much work I have to do around here.  We did it because they asked!

We also stopped at an outlet mall before coming home.  I've been looking for a dress for my upcoming 35th year class reunion coming up next weekend in Cincinnati.  I wanted something classy, but sexy, but not too revealing, that fit well but not too tight, oh my!  And I think I found it!  We went into Dress Barn and I wasn't hopeful because I had been to a Dress Barn years and years ago and was not impressed.  Well, this one was a nice store with very nice clothes. 

Here it is.  I'll be sure to get a picture the night of the reunion.

I also found this cute little pink top and had to get it, too.

This weekend we have a wedding to go to on Saturday.  Sunday we'll have the 3 grandkids here and are going to brunch for Father's Day.  On Thursday I leave for Cincinnati to meet up with my best friend that now lives in California and we'll be going to our class reunion get togethers on Friday and Saturday nights.  I'll come home on Monday and then on Saturday the 2nd, we're having a 4th of July party here.  

For someone (me) that likes to just stay home and putz around the house, I don't know why I let myself get so    busy!

Days On The Lake

Here is my new summer schedule;  if it's nice and warm I work outside, if it's raining I work inside.  Today is an inside day.  It's only 59 degrees and pouring.  At 7:00 this morning, though, it was warm and dry and I started a morning walk routine with a neighbor friend.  We walked for an hour at a pretty good pace and a lot of hills. We're going to try to do this every morning.  It felt good and to do it that early doesn't make it seem like it's interrupting my day at all.

I was able to work outside yesterday afternoon.  I've been trimming these darn cotton easters (that's what I'm told by a neighbor that they are) and they are a pain to take care of and keep looking nice and neat.  I'm giving them a real good haircut to clean up all the weeds and dead limbs.  These bushes line our driveway in the front of the house and they can grow wild real fast if you just let them go.

 I'm half tempted to have them all torn out and just plant more grass.  I'm sure, though, once I get them all neatened up again I'll be satisfied with them.  In the fall they get red berries on them and actually can be very pretty. I wanted to get more work done on these today, but that's not going to happen.

I wasn't able to get much of anything done over the weekend because my three little mini storms, named Logan, Landen, and Leanna were here.  We actually had Leanna since Thursday night.  We brought her home with us after going to Landen's pre-school graduation.

He had a cute little ceremony, complete with lunch for parents and grandparents.  Landen was so excited to have us there and all his little friends were glad to meet Landen's "Bobby".  That's what Landen calls his grandpa and since he considers "his Bobby" to be his best friend he talks about him all the time.  By the end of graduation all the little graduates were calling him "Bobby" too.  So cute!!  Bobby also got a kick out of it.

So Leanna came home with us since it was going to be DIL's Air Force Reserve weekend.  Little Miss Leanna just keeps getting cuter and cuter and is just the best baby.  Hubby and I kept commenting all weekend about how much her looks are reminding us so much of her daddy as a baby!  Just so amazing how that works!

On Saturday, Austin came up with the two boys and then he left for a bachelor party of a good friend.  The boys swam in the lake and went out in the kayak with "their Bobby" for the first time this season.  They loved it.  They feel like such big boys in the water now since they've been taking swim lessons at the Y.

It was great to see the kids, but as usual after they are here for a few days, I was exhausted by the time they left on Sunday afternoon.

Dad's boat was delivered to our dock on Sunday afternoon.  Since last night was such a warm and beautiful  evening Mom and Dad came over and we took a little "wine sunset cruise".

Pulling away from the dock

View of the back of our house

headed down the lake

Sun setting on the way back

Sun behind the trees

Now I'm relaxed and refreshed and ready for the next day.

Spring to Summer in One Week

Well, I can't believe a week has gone by since I last wrote.  I hate when that happens!  In that week we've gone straight from a few days of Spring right into the hot and humid days of a Northeast summer!  I'm not complaining!  I'm just sayin'!  This is the weather I love.  It's been about 75 degrees first thing in the morning, which makes it so nice to sit out on the deck early in the morning drinking my first cup of coffee.

This is where I sit. My color scheme on my deck, obviously, is red, yellow and black 

This is my view

 I can also tell summer is here because my "rockin pneumonia and boogy woogy flu" has now made way for allergies, complete with sneezing, itchy eyes, stuffy nose and headache.  Oh well - just taking different pills!

Last Memorial weekend was just beautiful!  Hubby (unwillingly) helped me work outside for the weekend to get the yard and gardens in order.  And when I say help, that's what I mean.  He'll do what I ask, but with a little growl! He would never think of what needs done on his own.   Why does he think this is unnecessary work?  Being the organized person I am, I knew with our schedule that we had to get as much done last weekend as we could.  Every weekend up until the 4th of July is booked.  Then the weekend of the 4th we're having a party.  Planning ahead and scheduling is the only way to do all this.  I would prefer to not be quite so busy myself, but that's just the way our life is right now.

I still have quite a bit to do, but I feel much better with this good start.  More flowers will be added, weeds will continually be pulled, and a few more old leaves and sticks need to be picked up.
My little garden in front of and under my deck is coming along.

This garden is mostly white, pink, and some purple.  The green bench back against the wall is going to be painted white.  The purple cat nip is now blooming, along with the chives and some lavender.  My pink roses  and the other pink flowers haven't bloomed yet.  I'm no master gardener and there is a lot of trial and error, but I keep at it every year.  We have such a huge deer population so I need to plant deer resistant perennials. Then just when you think you've only planted what the deer don't like, they come along and eat it!  I have to keep all (or most) annuals up on the top deck or hanging high enough so deer can't get to it.
These "angel wing begonias" I just found at the farm market.  I've never seen them before.

The impatient I just got today.

Then I found this cute little wall hanging at JoAnn's at 50% off today.

My perennial garden beside my shed always looks a little wild.  But I kind of like it like that.  Deer can really flock to this place in the middle of the night, so it's very difficult to grow.

Not too much is blooming here yet.  The purple ajuga ground cover has bloomed and is now about ready to be cut down.  The purple irises are just now blooming.

 I have butterfly bushes that are coming up but won't bloom for a while.  Out growing season comes late and doesn't last long.  The chiminea we had for years on our deck, but after so many years it started to disintegrate, so Hubby stuck it in the garden.  I kind of like it there.  I'll stick some flowers in it later.

My seating area by the lake still needs cleaned up, but I at least got the furniture cleaned off from winter grime.  Fresh coats of pink and blue paint have been applied where needed.  Pink and blue is my color scheme for this area.

I had this old bird cage that was getting very rusty, so I decided to just paint it pink, too.

I love this sitting area in the evening with a glass of wine and when the kids are here we'll roast marchmallows and make smores.  They'll be here Saturday night, so that's exactly what's on the schedule as long as it doesn't rain!

Linking to Cindy's Show and Tell Friday 
and Alison's Fridays Unfolded