Thank You for Being My Friends

The recent medical revelations and acknowledgment of my body's need for care has made me a little nostalgic and reflective today. I have been imagining and preparing for the next stage of my life for a few months. They boys are not little anymore, I am back to work and Manly and I have discovered our love of traveling together.

Priorities are shifting. Plans and dreams are changing. I no longer want a big house and acres of land. I don't see my future self as rich or influential. I want a pretty home and to be involved in our community. I want to get on a plane and go far away with my man to see and experience different lands and cultures. Instead of taking on the debt of a huge new home and land, I want to pay for college for my boys outright and saddle neither myself nor them with debt for their education.

I want to be thin and healthy again. I want to live as much of my life as I can without physical limitations. Yes, vanity plays a little into this, but I will take advantage of that motivation to reach the goal of a healthy body.

I've been thinking about all the people that have touched my life virtually and face to face since I have started this blogging thing. I count people from all over this country, England, Australia and Japan among my friends. Many of you have shown me opportunities to think outside of my life and into a larger world community. Some of my plants' babies are living and growing in far away gardens and some of your plants' babies are living and growing in my garden right now. Several of you offered support and reassurance regarding my medical situation. For that, I offer a special thank you. (At this point I should begin linking everyone, but there are just too many of you.)

Thanks for being part of my life. I am really looking forward to the future.


Okay, I'm finished being serious now so-

Why do melons have fancy weddings? Because they cantaloupe.

Please forgive me for leaving out my friends in Canada. That we are all "north Americans" thing just let me slip up. Apologies

Google Translate Makes Garden Blog Reading Even More Fun

A few weeks ago, I took an advanced google search class for my job at the library. I had used it before, but was reintroduced to google translate. We have many Spanish speaking patrons and this little tool makes asking questions a little easier. No magic bullet just one more resource.

How does this apply to garden blogging? Well, I love the photography on the blog Garden Life . His English is very good. My Japanese, not so much, er, at all. Now I just highlight his text, copy, move it over to google translate and boom, I can read what he is writing. Now I can enjoy the thoughts and words as well as the photos.

There are more blogs on Blotanical written in languages other than English. Now I am off to enjoy their blogs without the language barrier.

Give it a try.

A Passion Vine for Nola

Here is a picture of my passion vine (Passiflora incarnata) commonly known as may pop. This vine is currently 33 feet long after I cut six feet off of it yesterday. It is growing in full sun on one end, part shade in the middle, and deep shade towards the end. I never water it. Gulf fritillary butterflies lay their eggs on it and the scary looking caterpillars eat it up. During the late summer, it is covered up in beautiful orange butterflies and orange and red striped spiky caterpillars. Very nice habitat.

Here is the very exotic looking flower.

Today, I met Nola of Alamo North. She and her husband are a lovely couple. She commented on my passion vine when she saw it in the background of a picture I posted a week or so ago. I brought a division of the passion vine with me just in case she showed up to the Scarecrow Festival in Kaufman. She showed. What a very exciting day. I met someone from the blogosphere and she wasn't a scary person. After yesterday's post, I would have thought she might want to avoid me.

My master gardener group had a booth at the Scarecrow Festival. We gave out information, calenders, and sold some native and adapted bulbs (daffodils, gladiolas, pinks). I would now go on and on about the Kaufman County Master Gardeners, but Nola did a fine job of that for me on her blog today.

It was great to meet you Nola. Enjoy the passion vine, I sure do.

Happy Birthday Nola

I wanted to make a short post in honor of Nola's birthday. Nola blogs at Alamo North. We met on the interweb, probably through Brenda, but I really can't recall. Through our blogs we discovered we live in neighboring counties. I hope to meet her at the Scarecrow Festival in Kaufman next month. She is funny and bright and I am happy to know her. She is one of the funniest commentors around. Happy Birthday Nola. I hope you spent the day at the fair.

Thanks Nola

Well would you look at that. Nola at Alamo North gave me that nice little bloggy gift. The "You Are My Sunshine on a Cloudy Day" award. I found it just after I posted about the Blotanical awards. Thanks Nola, I love it.

Now my understanding is that all you do is pass it on to five other bloggers with no other strings attached. Again, this is hard because I really like a lot of bloggers. Here are five that always make me smile.

My nephew Jack at Just Jack. He is the cure to sad.

PGL at Perennial Garden Lover Her comments are always sweet.

Flower garden girl at Woody and Herbaceous. I was glad when she returned to our blogging community. Her creations with flowers are beautiful.

Cindy at Rose Haven Cottage A sweet talented girl.

Dee at Red Dirt Ramblings who I consider my blogging mentor.

There are so many more who deserve this. I am still lovin on the rest of y'all too.

Deb.

Site Meter is Causing Blog Problems.

I have noticed that several of the blogs I like to read as well as my own were having internet explorer problems. VP sent me a message and it turns out that my sitemeter was the problem. Here is the web address she sent me with an explanation. Thanks VP. I removed it from the blog, and now all is well. This is sort of sad, because I love my sitemeter. It let me know all kinds of cool stuff like where readers come from and why. Someone got here once looking for a fracus tree - Teehee, people are crazy. Anyway, when they fix the problem I will reinstall the sitemeter. This may mean I start over, but that is okay. If you are having trouble with your blog and internet explorer, take a look at your sitemeter, it may be the culprit.

Milestones

I started this blog back in November of 2007. I was so serious in the beginning. The first post was on propagating roses. I intended to blog about gardening and then the content took on a life of its own, and here I am blogging about gardening, kids, food, and anything else that I find interesting.

This little blog of mine is about to reach a couple of milestones. I am within 300 points of becoming a guru on Blotanical. The cool thing about that is I get to pick 40 more blogs to add to my favorites list. Lately, I have stumbled upon a lot of great new blogs and a few older blogs that have just come to my attention.

Also, according to my site meter, I should reach 10,000 visitors in the next ten days or so. While this may seem like nothing to some of you with hundreds of visits every day, to me it is mind blowing. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that many people would have any interest in what I have to say. The site meter has also revealed that people visit here from all over the world. This is just amazing to me.

Through this site, I have been able to keep family members up on what is going on with our little family, which was my intention to begin with. I have also reconnected to a long lost cousin. She began reading this blog after getting in touch with one of my sisters. I saw her on the sitemeter, who else could be reading from Pampa, Texas.

Possibly the best thing that has come from this activity, is meeting such a great group of fellow bloggers. Most of the blogs I read and bloggers who come here and read mine are garden bloggers. There are a handful that I found through other links. My sister also has a mommy blog and a craft blog. I try to visit the blogs on my links frequently to see what everyone has to say. I consider many of these bloggers dear friends.

I love reading and responding to comments. There has been very little trouble with spam and I have never had an ugly or hateful comment. Occasionally, though, the comments do take on a life of their own. Gardening Injuries comes to mind. Some of the commentors (I know, not a word) had some pretty gnarly injuries.

All in all, this has been a great experience and I have really enjoyed myself. I can't wait to see what the future holds for my little blog.

The Sock Situation is Not Over

Remember the great sock debate? Rember the poll?. Well the four of us who thought it was important remember it. OFB was out voted and socks are here to stay. Well, The manic gardener had this too funny post today. This is exactly what happens when garden bloggers get in a tiff. Shame on all of us ;)

On a Lighter Note

The very sweet Cindy at Cinj's Chat Room honored me with the Arte y Pico award. Below is the explanation I copied from her post, because you know I am too lazy to rewrite it and I would probably get it wrong anyway.

"Ana explains the thought behind her award. “This prize has arisen from the daily visits that I dedicate to many blogs which nourish me and enrich me with creativity. In them I see dedication, creativity, care, comradeship, but mainly, art, much art.”

I am very pleased and a bit confused. I never thought this blog qualified as art, unless "crazy middle aged woman tries to herd monkeys" counts as art. Maybe it is a craft. Is it a craft?

Anyway, here are the rules and instructions.

Please be so kind to accept this award. You can keep it to yourself or pass it on, that's up to you of course. But there are some rules if you decide to pass on the award to remarkable blogs you feel are worthy of the award.

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award through creativity, design, interesting material and also contributes to the blogger community no matter of language.

2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.

3. Award winners have to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award.

4.Please include a link to the Arte Y Pico blog so that everyone will know where the award came from.

5. Show these rules.

Here are the blogs I picked and why

My sister at In Stitches because I love to watch and see her spread her creative wings.

Weed Whackin Wenches because their photos are beautiful and sometimes they crack me up.

Garden Life a beautiful Japanese garden blog. Can't read what he is writing, but the pictures are awesome.

Ourfriendben, Silence, and Poor Richard at Poor Richard's Almanac for great writing and good recipes

Finally, Givinya De Elba at Killing a Fly with a Ukulele is Probably the Wrong Thing To Do because she is seriously funny and her brother wrote me a poem.

Okay, I wasn't finished and I am going to cheat. Actually, I am going to swipe a nominee from my sister. Sorry Sis, you only get four. I also want to pick Dee at Red Dirt Ramblings. Her blog is beautiful and she can actually focus on gardening. She also gave me blogging advice in the beginning. I am still open to your mentoring Dee.

Thanks again Cindy. You are the best.

Taking Out The Trash

I was introduced to a new blog today. The site is trashwatch and has been set up by Sean of Bamboo Geek. The point of the blog is to point out corporations which contribute to this countries horrible, awful, gross, disgusting, nasty, sad litter problem. Not to be all negative, good corporate/environmental citizens will be recognized. Our job, is to help Sean out by taking pictures of trash with corporate logos visible and sending them to him along with location by street and cross street. He will post, per his discretion, these pictures. He then offered to compile our pile of trash pictures and send them on to the companies to raise awareness and maybe a little shame. I can keep him busy just with the crap that gets thrown in the ditches around this place. I love a blog with a purpose and I am ready and willing to help and gripe. At least Sean is doing something. Atta Boy Sean, Atta Boy.

Blogs I Dig

I never cease to be amazed at the number and types of blogs. Mostly I read gardening blogs. I also have a few others that I visit mostly because there is a great story or the writer is very interesting. I read one daily that is in a field of it's own. The blog is Tomato Casual. There are several writers and a new tomato related post daily. Recently Michael Nolan did a spot light on my blog, which made me feel very honored. Check out the site. There are recipes, planting information, funny stories, and a lot more. Today's post was on companion planting.

I also read Poor Richard's Almanac each day. There is always an interesting post by Ourfriendben, Silence Dogood, or Richard Saunders. The writing is excellent and covers various topics. Sometimes there are great recipes. Check them out too.

Of course I go to Blotanical everyday. There are hundreds of great blogs and interesting information to roam through. I have cyber meet some of the nicest people. In fact, that is where I found Tomato Casual and Poor Richard's Almanac.

I had to come back and add one more. Rees at Green Side Up posted about square watermelon today.

You can see on my sidebar that there are many other blogs that I like to read. I have them linked for quick access and because I think if you are visiting here, you might enjoy visiting over there.

Thank You VP for the E.

VP of Veg Plotting honored me with the E for excellence blog award. How sweet she is. Please be sure to visit her blog. How to give a cat a pill is quite priceless. In accepting this award I have to pass it on to ten other blogs. Here are my choices. I know some of you have already received this, but it's my turn and I am doing it my way - Imagine that.


First to Just Jack My sister's boy and the cutest baby ever. Dee at Red Dirt Ramblings For getting me into this mess. Dee encouraged me to join Blotanical. I have had so much fun and cyber met so many other bloggers. Her site is beautiful. Sherry at Sherry's Zoo and Garden because I love a zoo. Joy at GardenJoy4Me I know you already have this, but I had to share again. You crack me up. Anna at Flower Garden Girl One of the nicest ladies you will ever read. She also has some of the prettiest designs and collages that I like to copy. Matt and Jen at Our First Garden A sweet couple with lady bugs all over their blog. It has been fun watching as they create their new garden. All those at Tomato Casual this blog is obsessed with or dedicated to tomatoes. Ourfriendben, Silence Dogood, and Richard at Poor Richards Almanac Always a great read. Sometimes funny, sometimes smart, sometime a little sad, often about one of my favorite subjects, food. Curmudgeon and Wing Nut at Weed Wackin Wenches Two ladies with a wicked sense of humor, great plant stuff and a raccoon. Finally, VP at Veg Plotting I had to tag back, I love your blog.

Thanks again VP. This has been fun.