Incoherent Scribblings

Yellow Rose of Texas
Originally uploaded by blondelibrarian

Wednesday night is class night, but tonight we got out early. After I went to the library to pick up a couple of books so I can write my prospectus for next week, I came home.

The sun had set, but there was still some daylight left and as I went up to my apartment the rose garden behind the old post office caught my eye. I noticed the other day that roses in the rose garden were in bloom again and, with a touch of autumn sadness, thought that this is more than likely the last time the roses will bloom this season.

So, instead of immediately heading upstairs and immersing myself if the preparation of my prospectus as I had planned, I decided to take some pictures of the spectacle before me. This one, appropriately entitled “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” is my favorite.

The weather was so beautiful and springy this weekend that instead of stitching pansies on “Stiefmütterchen” I decided to go out and get some of the real thing instead!

I usually have pretty good luck growing seedlings, so I bought some violas yesterday and today I planted them in my window box. I have never tried to grow pansies directly from seeds, but I thought it might be a fun challenge, so I also bought a package of pansy seeds. I planted the seeds in a pot and in 15-20 days we will see what happens… Wish me luck!

Anyway, when I wasn’t outside playing in the dirt this weekend I was working on “Celtic Spring” and I managed to make some good progress on Mae’s dress. I now have (approximately) the top half of Mae done so next weekend I plan to work some on the border. I am quite happy with how quickly “Celtic Spring” seems to be stitching up. I seriously doubt I will get her done before the official end of spring, but I am pretty sure she should be done before autumn!

Today marks my third wedding anniversary and before you ooh and ahh too much over the nine (9!) beautiful roses that A. gave me, keep in mind I got them using this not-so-subtle hint:

We were driving back from the store yesterday and just so happened to see a woman carrying a bouquet of flowers down the street. I had been looking for a way to “remind” him that it was our anniversary and that I wanted some flowers.

Seizing the opportunity, I remarked, “Oh, that’s right. Tomorrow is Good Friday. If you want to get me any flowers for our anniversary you should do it today. Everything will be closed tomorrow.”

A. looked at his watch (it has a date) and exclaimed, “Damn! Is is that day already?!”

In my experience I have found that with most men, “subtle” hints don’t work. Don’t play around. Just tell them what you want. You will be amazed at the results!

Look what I found on my flowers this morning!!!

Ahh!! Is winter here already?! It isn’t even the middle of November. The weather forecast is predicting 5-10 cm (1-2″) of snow down to 300 meters this evening. We are at 450.

I guess I will be having hot chocolate for breakfast.

This afternoon I decided to play Gertrude Gardener. A couple of days ago I bought some pansies at the flower shop and decided I needed to plant them.

Unfortunately for the sweet little pansies, the “Curse of the Black Thumb” very nearly struck again. When I went outside two of the three flowers were visibly wilted. I watered them the other day, but forgot to do so yesterday. I was afraid that I had killed them already.

So, instead of planting them in the window box as I had planned, I planted the one that still looked OK in a little pot. I watered the other two and put them in the shade. I think that by tomorrow they will either perk back up (if so, I will replant them) or be dead (in which case I will get rid of them). I did that about three hours ago and now as I glance at them I have strong hopes that they will survive.

As I was fiddling with the pansies, I also decided to empty the pots that had my geraniums in them. I didn’t do so hot with my geranium experiment. I didn’t out and out kill them, but a bad storm whipped them around pretty bad a while back and hurt the stems. They never really recovered from that. In addition, I hadn’t been watering them and taking care of them the last month or so as I should have been because it was hot.

In fact, around mid July I had a flower epiphany: I came to the conclusion that I am a spring and fall flower girl. I love to play with flowers in the spring and fall when it is cool outside, but once it gets hot… I don’t want to be outside and always manage to not water them enough. I don’t do it on purpose, but I guess subconsciously I am trying to kill them so I don’t have to be outside.

So, since the geranium pots were empty, I then decided to repot this tree that I have. I think I have mentioned my tree before. It is about 2 feet high and in addition to leaves, it has these fuzzy red fronds. I bought it about 2 years ago from the local florist. At the time she told me what it was, but I didn’t understand enough German then to figure out what she was saying. Since it looks like it belongs on another world, we just call it my “Alien Tree.”

A. had told me not to repot it because it will just grow, but I couldn’t resist. I know it will get bigger now, but I told myself that this will be its last pot (hmm… we’ll see about that!) Here is a picture of it in its new pot. No, it doesn’t have two stems… there is a stick holding it up because it is too tall for its skinny trunk.

By the way, if anyone knows what the heck this thing is, could you please let me know?