Gardening Progress: The carcasses have been dragged to the tree lawn.

First, I decided to tackle the weeds in the driveway.  I spent hours and hours weeding the driveway on Saturday.  This is the worst of it.  I dug and picked.  I got probably 99% of the weeds.  Works for me.  

See?  Nice! 

Weedy!

Better!

Death and destruction.  We have come to the conclusion that this butterfly bush was no longer alive.  So sad. 

I tried to trim some away myself.  This is how far I got.  I also have a thorn in my paw.  I forgot to have Hubs dig it out.  :(

The milkweed took over the grill area.  The wild black berries took over, too.

Because we believe in keeping it real, I will show you that it got a bit weedy.  We were kind of letting the two back beds go a bit because I didn't want to jostle anything that may be coming back.  We're about 3 weeks behind in the growing cycle.  We had poke weed coming up.  Hubs made that go away. I left it because I was thinking that it is purposeful.  Nope.  Gone. 

Digging out the carcass was harder work than he thought. 

It took Hubs well over an hour.  His back is killing him.  So is mine, but I think it's from weeding. 

Gone are all of the funky reminders of death. 

The wreckage. 

Another weedy bed. 

Planting the new butterfly bush.  We just couldn't leave that space this year.  We have planted it, watered and mulched it.  I even fed the heck out of it.  Though I normally don't feed, I have to this year.  It was a horrible winter resulting in just awful loss. 

Look at how beautiful it is compared to the gacky death that was there just hours before.

Hubs edged and mulched.  We still had some mulch from last year.  It was good enough for a skim coat.  Fine with me. 

Inspecting his work.

Lookie loo!  So nice! 

And down here, too!  For those interested, we kept with the invasive run of wild blackberries and milkweed.  Butteflies are nectaring at the milkweed and we don't want to pull what could be baby monarch caterpillars.  The milkweed only lasts a few weeks.  We'll let it run its course and we'll pull what is in the grill area.  We'll leave the rest be.  That way, we'll be able to have s'mores at some point this summer. 

The side back bed.  Much better now. 

The tree lawn pile of wreckage.  K helped me haul it. 

The front.  Much nicer than what we used to have going on. 

Bee balm.  Fun stuff!

Perennial geranium.

Butterfly weed. 

Crown vetch, though it was pulled right after this photo.  A bit invasive.  Pretty, though.

White yarrow from Cj's farm.

Potentilla.

Clematis. 

Yellow day lilies.

Milkweed.

Goosenecks, though I just found out today that they are a variety of Loosestrife. 

Baby tomatoes!

The pink yarrow up front. 

White coneflower. 

Cosmos.  Reseeded from last year. 

Purple coneflower. 

Lavender.

Lime green nicotiana that I originally planted in 2007.  I haven't planted it since. 

A new plant.  

My morning glories!  

A day lily volunteer.  Didn't plant it, I promise.

I didn't plant this one, either. 

The top of the rain barrel. 

My guard system for the corn.  The rabbits keep eating it. 

Beans and many lovely flowers! 

This wind is nice.  I wonder what that is over there?

Such a nice breeze to sniff.

\

Mom, you really have to put that thing away.

A butterfly!  A Great Spangled Fritillary.  It made our hearts happy to see that. 

The reason we didn't remove the extraneous milkweed. 

Look! 

A Stag Beetle! 

Ewwww.  And a larval Stag Beetle.  

And a dragonfly.  

A lot of gardening was done this weekend.  Here's to hoping we'll get a lot of butterflies as a result! 

Christmas in July- Pearl Jam style.

K and I stopped by work today to pick up my paycheck.  We were talking to the gallery director and the floor manager when my co-worker, Matt, came by.  "Hold on!  Don't leave!"  He went running.  He came back and handed me a wrapped package.  

Should I open it now?  Is that okay?

This is what was inside.  An insane stack o' PJ boots.  

At first, I thought that they were singles.  "Did you get a huge stack of singles in?"  (He also works at an indie record store in town.)  "They are concerts!"  "Oh, my gosh!  They are!"  Because it could be slightly Sheldon-like, I asked if I could hug him.  It was an incredibly thoughtful gift.  He used to work at Border's. He said that he bought them when they were going out.  He listened to them.  He enjoyed them.  He said that he won't listen to them probably again, but knew that I was looking forward to the fall concert.  How sweet was that?  

As I was loading the PJ bootlegs into iTunes, lookie loo what came up on 10c Radio as I was loading Jones Beach?  

Such an incredibly thoughtful thing to do!  :)

The latest in customer rudeness.

"Helloooooooo!"  The woman was calling from 2 rooms away.  Now, I admit that I'm not a beck and call girl.  I didn't realize she was calling for me.  She and her friend had been very lively with talk the whole way through.  "I'm sorry ma'am, I thought you were talking to your friend."

Lesson 1:  Don't call to the store employees from rooms away out of laziness.  I've had people with small children, disabilities and other sorts of needs.  I'm not saying not to call always.  There are times that there is a need.  Laziness is not a need or a reason.

I had another woman.  She was asserting her made-of-moneyness to me.  It's fine.  I'm an artist and my husband is a park naturalist.  We are rich not by any means.  I suppose that we could be if we really wanted to be, but we agreed that we would only work jobs that we loved.  My husband watched his father stressed out with his job for years.  Not that we're Sheldon and Amy, but in the unwritten marriage contract, this was a piece.  Be happy in your job and if you aren't, fix it until you are.  We are, but we don't get paid a ton.  Fine with us.

"I want you to wrap this item and :motioning with her hands: I want you to . . . "

"Ma'am, I promise, I've got it."

She pays, compliments my wrapping and then says, "Okay, now I have a test for you."

:insert weird look:

"Now YOU have to show me exactly where YOU put that price tag."

:insert smirk and bobbling head:

I picked up the receipt, flipped the page and as I held it up to show her all of the price tags from all of her items I said, "Ma'am, I've been here for 13 years and do a good job."

"Oh!  You did get it!"

"Um, yes. We always take the price tags off.  I understand that sometimes these are the things that can keep people awake and I'd rather have you ask."

"Oh, it would!"

"We take all price tags off so that the office staff can double check our handwriting."

"Oh!"

She and her friend had been quite a treat, so this was the cherry on top.  I love customer tests!  :insert cranky and angry stare:  (Though I admit that no customer was ever snarky enough to term it a "test.") Really?  Could you just politely ask me, just like everyone else, if I got the tag or where it was?  I don't care.  That's fine. Don't treat me like I'm stupid, because I'm not.  Just because I'm standing behind a counter doesn't mean that I'm not good at what I do, have a job that is beneath me or have an education not past the third grade.  I can read, write and while my math skills aren't super, I have an adding machine for that.  I have a degree from a state college and spent 7 years getting it.  I worked 2-3 jobs and any one time while going to college so that I could obtain an education and not be up to my eyeballs in complete unmanageable debt.  I work this job because I, by and large, love this job, love the people that I work for and have flexibility that isn't common anywhere else.  I can be me and not get fired for it.  I can be creative and not necessarily follow the prescribed formula and that is okay.  I'm not asking to be treated as a prized jewel.

Lesson 2:  Just treat me as a human or at least better than you might treat your dog.

Our daughter took us out on a date.

We usually try to walk in the evenings.  K decided that she had a hankerin' for something different.

"We can go play miniature golf & get ice cream."

Hubs and I looked at each other and decided why not.  K had won 2 free games and 2 free cones from the fall Walk A Thon fundraiser that we did at the school.  The weather that was threatening all day had blown over, so we could cruise on out and go.

We opted for ice cream first, but knew that we couldn't take the cones on the course.  The coupons were for free small ice cream cones.  We usually get the kid cones.  The small cones are borderline large in any other realm.  It is also homemade ice cream.  K got blue moon with a smiley face and I had chocolate chip.  "Are you going to eat all of that," asks my otherwise lactose intolerant husband.  "Yes, but if you'd like a bite, you may."

He took a bite.

Since I scored the cone, Hubs got to play the game.  I kept score.  There are two courses side by side. K wanted to play the other, but a slower-than-cold-tar family decided on course 1, so we opted for course 2.  (When we finished, they weren't even 1/2 way through their course.)  Though Hubs won, K spanked him on a few holes.

We took a drive down through the park.  We watched the sunset and looked for wildlife.  (We saw a deer that Hubs decided to back up for all of us to see.  I told him that doesn't scream, "We're from the city," at all.)  Hubs took us for a romantic stop by the local big box for some family supplies.  We arrived home tired and all ready for bed.

It was a nice night.  The humidity dropped, it wasn't too hot and it hadn't gotten too buggy yet.  Our girl shared her prize with us and she didn't have to.  It was a fun time to be had by all.  :)