Gardening Amnesia

I think I have a rather advanced case of it.

It's finally warm enough and calm enough and dry enough and I'm home enough to take a look at the state of the flower beds. 

Dismal, folks....exceedingly dismal.  I left last year's old annuals in the beds..."to feed the birds" (rolling of eyes by very neat and efficient gardeners, here) so I'm cleaning that out and realize that I really do need to invest in some plants and seeds this year.  Going with the self-reseeded sunflowers works for awhile, but it's starting to appear lazy and cheap, instead of charming and frugal.  Darn!

So I decided to make a list of what I needed and realized that I have Gardening Amnesia. 

I couldn't think of cool weather annuals to seed.  I couldn't remember the Latin name of columbine(aquilegia...came to me later).  I was frantic for perennial ideas and ended up having to go look in Lauren Springer and Rob Proctor's book "Passionate Gardening". 

This is serious, folks!

And it's going to take some intense horti-therapy to reverse the signs and progress.

Out come the gardening bibles I thought I'd memorized for life.

Three trips to EACH local greenhouse must be scheduled.

Seed packets must be replaced. I got all efficient and planted or threw out all of them last year. (Which is how this curse fell upon me; it's like giving away baby clothes.  You JUST don't EVER go into a year with no leftover seed packets. It's wrong. I don't know what I was thinking.)

I may have to have a *gasp* garden party, just to get some ideas from other people who are horticulturally healthy and unaffected by G.A.

The first step to recovery is acknowledgement of the problem. 
Now you know that I know and I'm on the path to recovery. 

Is anyone else experiencing this malady right now?  I need a support group.  And some perennials.

The Top 15 Things We Can Learn From the Movies...

I didn't come up with these....they're from my Farmer's Almanac....but they're too good not to share!

• Beds have special, L-shape top sheets that reach up to the woman's armpit but only to the waist of the man lying beside her.
• The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there, and you can travel to any other part of the building without difficulty.
• Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language.  A German accent will do. 
• A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
• A cough is usually the sign of a terminal illness.
• When confronted by an evil international terrorist, sarcasm and wisecracks are your best weapons.
• One man shooting 20 men has a better chance of killing them than 20 men firing at one man.
• Taxi drivers don't require exact or even approximate payment; the first bill you pull from your pocket is always correct.
• A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
• Most people keep a scrapbook of newspaper clippings, especially if any of their family or friends have died in a strange boating accident.
• All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.
• If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.
• The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
• You're likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
• If you find yourself caught up in a misunderstanding that could be cleared up quickly with a simple explanation, for goodness' sake, keep your mouth shut.

Tea with the Princesses

Yesterday, the kids and I went to Miles City to have tea with the Princesses at the Ursuline Convent!

It's supposed to be for little girls, but Angus just HAD to go....because, you know, he has "handsome clothes" and any excuse to wear them is alright.  Even if he has to hang out with a bunch of chicks.

Here's a picture for Shelly, with the homecoming tiara on HRH.

We ALL dressed up.  Do you see the very fancy necklaces that Maggie and Angus made me? 

They go with everything.  :)

(You may wonder why the little faces are less than happy.  It's because we were taking up valuable time with silly pictures, when we could be headed to the tea!  So they grudgingly stood there, but they weren't happy about it.)

First princess we met?  Snow White!  AND had the bonus delight of finding cousins!  Miss Jentry found us immediately and we got to spend time with her and baby Javon.

They had all seven little dwarf beds!  There was no room to get all of them in a picture. 

Fancy cookies!  And pink lemonade...

Aren't they cute? There wasn't much left of the plate of cookies when we were done...

And Ariel, the Little Mermaid...

Okay, this is what it looked like on three floors, only even more packed in most places. Everywhere we tried to go, it was a swirling mass of little girls in princess dresses and parents.  We were completely overwhelmed!  I had no idea it would be that wild.

Angus found a sandbox by the Little Mermaid corner and he was completely happy to stay there and play in the dirt.  Next year, I think he can find something manly to do for the day, because he didn't really enjoy the whole princess experience.

Maggie came running to me, all agasp, "MOM! I found BELLE!"  and then she went back to dance and twirl.

 I took pictures of little girls that made me smile...I have no idea who they are, but isn't this the most adorable thing you've ever seen in sparkly blue harem pants?!

 And this princess cracked me up.  She was about 2 feet tall...just teensy...and VERY serious about the whole deal. 

Curtsy and then let's be moving on, Mom...no wasting time on this photo nonsense!

Tinkerbell...who isn't actually a princess, but no one cared.  She sprayed the little girls with pixie dust!

Getting fingernails painted, with sparkly polish.  They had to wait in line for this...a long line.

Princess Jasmine, who seemed to be Maggie's favorite because she had a magic carpet. (It was only magic to little girls with big imaginations.  For some, it was just a tired old rug! Maggie took it to China for noodles.)

She had purple eyeshadow and lip gloss done....

Oooooo! Pretty!

Pocahontas...

 Okay, this is for all you People of Walmart fans!  I couldn't get a great picture without being really obvious, so this was the best I could do.  In case you can't read the shirt, it says "Silence! I KEEL you!"  She looked as though she really might, too, which is ANOTHER reason I didn't want her to know I was taking her picture....

 Tired and sparkled, and ready to go to the Airport Inn for some protein and yet another party that we didn't know was going on....Martha's 60th birthday!  (Someday, a post about this waitress....she's my favorite.)