Smells Like Fresh Rubber

Why is Debbie smiling as the wind blows in her hair?
Because it's a fabulously, beautiful day after a week of sweltering heat and humidity, the sky is blue and the temps have dropped and.........




And because I just got new tires on my car.


No........tires are not that exciting.
No........I don't like hanging out in the auto shop for an hour on a gorgeous morning where I have to write a check for over five hundred dollars before all is said and done. For tires. TIRES. Not the most exciting thing in the world to shop for or purchase. But my sweet little car needed 'em so that's what she got.

The car is happy.
And that makes mama happy.
Vrooom Vroooooom

Arrowhead Stadium in the Summer

The kids were little. The boys maybe 5 and 7, their little sister toddling around on 3-year old legs. The annual Family Picnic was rolling around, same time, same place, same relatives. That's ok. Those aunts of mine make a wicked potato salad, well worth the trip to the other side of the county. I promised to be there.

Until I heard the announcement on the radio.
The concert was scheduled to be held three hours away in Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium. Tickets would be sold by lottery with only a certain number available for Iowa buyers. We tried. Ohhh man we tried! Sad and disappointed, the ticket lottery came and went, leaving us empty-handed. We scoured the newspapers but the scalp prices were crazy.....$300 for a pair to start out. Closer to the concert date the prices came down a bit, but not much. This was wayyyy back when and that was one huge pile of money for a concert in KC.

I caught a glimpse of the ad as I was flipping through the newspaper.

Six tickets for the Jackson concert in KC.
We'll sell them for what we paid for them.
$50 bucks each.

I called the guy and offered him everything but a gallon of my blood to hold the tickets until I could get to his front door in a neighboring town. I called my cousin. We couldn't believe it. We were on our way!!!!! A week later on a sweltering summer day I grabbed my baby sister, taped a "Don't start without us, Michael!!!" sign in the back window of the car, picked up my cousin as we sent our husbands and kids to the family reunion without us (bad bad girls!!!!) and headed down to KC.

That I somehow managed to lock the car keys AND the concert tickets into the trunk of the car in the black asphalt parking lot of the stadium later that afternoon in 100-degree temperatures is a memory that pales in comparison to that of the distance we had to climb to reach our seats in Arrowhead Stadium. I'm not sure how far up we were but I do remember passing a sign that said "Nosebleed Section" at which level the ushers were handing out oxygen bottles to those of us that still had about 23 rows left to climb. Once seated I swear to you I saw all my dead relatives float by on clouds with a wave and curious looks on their faces that said, "What the hell are you doing up here, it's not your time yet......"

Soooo what!!! We were THERE!!!!!!
From our celestial vantage point, while the rest of the crowd hummed in ignorant anticipation, we were able to see the vans pull up back stage as the Jackson brothers arrived. With the use of high-powered binoculars we could actually get a good enough look to figure out which one was Michael. He was the one little miniature person wayyyyyyyyyyy wayyyyyyyyyyy down there wearing a glove on one hand.

My cousin saw him first. She threw down the binoculars, shrieked "Michael is down there!!!!" and we all started to scream.

"How do you know!!!! How do you know it's HIM!!!???????"

We were all crying and screaming.
"THE GLOVE!!! I CAN SEE THE GLOVE!!!!!!!!"

Lower levels of the stadium hadn't a clue but those of us up in the rafters with our scalped tickets got the first glimpse of Michael Jackson before he hit the stage on his Thriller tour in Kansas City, Missouri. It was him all right. We could see him. Well..........we could see the glove. It was him. IT WAS HIM!!!!!!

OH!!! MY!!! GOD!!!!!!!
OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!!!!!!!

I watched him grow up. First time I saw him was at the Iowa State Fair. He was the cute little brother of the Jackson 5. Before all the craziness. The nose. The kids. Before he wouldn't sell the Beatles tunes back to Paul. Before all the ugliness started. Who knows what was true. What were lies. Who knows what happens along the way to make a talented little boy grow up to have so many problems. He's gone and we'll never really know.

I choose to remember him just like I saw him on that sweltering summer day. He danced across the stage with his brothers in heat that had me panting for air. And I was just jumping up and down screaming. We got our $50 bucks worth, for sure.

I said you wanna be startin somethin',
You got to be startin' somethin,
Said you wanna be startin' somethin,
You got to be startin' something....


Thanks for the music.
Thanks for the great memories.

Soggy-tuck Michigan

The rain started coming down this weekend where I was working. I've told you about Saugatuck before; quaint little artsy town on the shores of Lake Michigan. 1,000 people before tourists. Three times that in the summer, lots of wandering folks and girls like me, in town to work at a wonderful gallery in the center of town.

The rain started coming down on Friday as we drove in, making us weave and crawl our way through miles and miles of road construction barriers and cones in a one-by-one curtain of mud-flap spray and blurred tail lights. Every warning about hydro-planing my drivers ed. teacher Mr. Peacock ever gave me came to mind. Visibility was just this side of zip. The sun broke through and pushed the clouds away just as we arrived. Good sign.

But it started raining again and it just kept coming down. We grabbed umbrellas mid-evening and walked a quick 2 blocks to dinner. The rain kept coming down. And down. And dowwwwwwn. We saw lightning. We heard thunder. The restaurant lights flickered. Once. Twice. Diners held their breath and shoveled in supper, wondering if we'd all end up in the dark.

An hour later when we stepped outside the restaurant we found ourselves on a small sidewalk island in an ocean of rain water. Within 4-5 steps beyond the entry of the place the "puddles" started.

I hesitate to call them puddles. Puddles are the sort of thing that babies splash up from the bath. Puddles are the naughty little pools that a new puppy leaves on the kitchen floor when he can't hold back how happy he is to see you. I know puddles. People drool them on pillows.
I savor them in the middle of my mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. I KNOW puddles.
These were not puddles. These were more like the arms of nearby Lake Michigan reaching up from the banks and shoving her hands down the street where she could pull you in by the ankles. I am not kidding you, when I stepped off the restaurant stoop into that water I swear I saw the Edmund Fitzgerald and wondered if the church bells were going to ring for me tomorrow. This was SERIOUS WATER.

There was no avenue of escape, we just had to take off our shoes and wade, lamp post to lamp post until we made it back to our little guest house. That's just what we did. And you know how it is, you're in the water, you're wet. Why not preserve the moment in photographs.

So I stopped in the middle of the street, pulled out my camera, protected it (sort of) with my umbrella (which had blown inside out, so it wasn't providing a great deal of protection from anything really anyway) and took a couple of pictures of my friends Sandra and Angie they clung to one another for dear life and made their way up the sidewalk in front of me.



I'll bet your are looking at that picture and thinking "is that water really almost up to her skirt?" Yes, it was. Had the three of us held hands, pointed our toes and done a little bit of a wavy thing with our arms we could easily have been mistaken for a synchronized swimming team. Sorry the photos are blurry. I was trying to balance the camera and the umbrella and my purse with my shoes in my hands. You get the idea.

Wet. Really, reallllly wet.

We finally reached our little second floor guest house where I slept like a baby with the wind in the treetops outside my open window. The sounds of storms continued well into the wee hours of the morning. It was only as the sun came up that everyone in town began to discover their basements were flooded, the roads were caved in, trees had uprooted and all those fabulous bedding plants they'd tucked into the ground a few weeks earlier were halfway to Chicago.

We know all about floods here in Iowa.
As we left yesterday I told them all our hearts were with them but really, it was too early for them to even understand what I meant. Unfortunately, they'll come to understand all too clearly..........later.

What Sunday Looks Like

This is what Sunday looks like.



Week to week it's pretty much the same table, different books.
Have laptop, will travel. Maybe a bagel. Usually a coffee.
There is always company. Three of us in our study group.
This is Jill.



She's one of my study partners and my great friend. We sat down for our first night in class together right around the time my Sara moved away. They're the same age and so of course I've added her to my little herd of adopted family members. Our co-partner in our three-peoples team of crime fighters is John. He left before the camera came out today. One of these days I'll introduce you to him.

Anyway, Jill had a wee bit of a disappointment this week. Big deal at the time. Based on my own experiences, in the grand context of things, a teensy little blip on the screen that she'll learn from and forget. Do you doubt it? Just look at that smile....



Love ya, Jilly!! You'll get by with your great attitude and perhaps for a short while, with a little help from your friends.

Happy Birthday Bucky!!!

Yesterday one of my favorite people turned the ol' odometer from old to older than dirt. To loosely quote his personal sentiments on the auspicious occasion, he is now "a card carrying member of the KMA club." Or something like that. You get the idea. We're old enough we don't give a whoopteedo 'bout what anyone thinks, we pretty much live life as it feels right for us and go about our biz unfettered by the opinions of others.

I love that about people my age. And I love my friend Bucky to pieces. I've kinda known him since I was a junior high kid where we skated around the same roller rink on Saturday nights. Years later our families lived in the same small town, raising our kids and working together at the same widdy-biddy post office. We think alike, which isn't necessarily a compliment to either of us, just an acknowledgment that one loose screw deserves another when it comes to choosing friends.

If you pass him on the street on a work day, he'll be nattily dressed as a mild-mannered shirt and tie sort of fella. After hours, he'll just look like Grandpa. I thought I'd dress him up for his birthday since every little boy at one point or another wants to be a cowboy when he grows up.

If you pass him on the street this weekend, wish him a Happy Birthday.



And ask him for directions to the nearest buffalo.

All things green and glorious

Before I left for the airport I tucked everyone in......My cat. He had a full bowl of food, a tidy litter box, radio on upstairs in case he got lonely and an open window so he could sit and enjoy the fresh air.

My plants. Watered, shades open so they got plenty of sunshine. Outdoors I gave all of the newly potted flowers a good watering and whispered a little "good luck" as I threw my suitcases into the car. They were on their own, at the mercy of the weather which...this time of year......can be completely unpredictable.

One week later I come home and whooooaaaaa................everything is lush and green and gorgeous. Except for a flat of sad little guys I forgot to stick in the dirt. To the untrained eye they look ohhh-so-pathetic and quite dead.

For example, this sorry little zinnia.
I choose zinnia's because my townhouse faces South and the summer sun on my patio can be wicked. Strong plants that thrive on all-day sun survive, but only if I water them twice a day. Not watering baby zinnias before they are planted and still living in little greenhouse packs is pretty much a death sentence if you leave them alone for a week. Good and caring garden chicks would not do this. Sadly, I hang my head in shame. I forgot to plant them.

Feeling terribly guilty I started poking around under all that brown, crunchy stuff a bit and got all excited when I found a tiny, tender little green stem. Hmmmmmmmm. A chance to redeem myself. This is a challenge and I'm going to meet it. Tonight I tucked four of these cripsy-critter lookin' guys into fresh dirt and I'm gonna baby 'em back to life or ruin my fingernails trying.


Half an hour down the road another botanical tragedy was taking place as I whiled away the hours working in Las Vegas last week. Take a look at this pretty little miniature rose I had sitting on my desk at work. Sweet, huh?


My desk is on the second floor of our studio. As you can see, just beyond the steel rail that keeps me from falling to my death every time I dive for an errant paper that shoots out of my printer with a mind of it's own, are big doors that open into the fresh air of the outdoors. Seemingly the perfect place for a lovely little rose to thrive, right?

Wrong.
Super-wrong. This is the same miniature rose. Oh what a difference a week makes.

It withered, wilted, drooped and pretty much gave itself up for mulch in the short six days I was gone. Disappointed? You bet I was disappointed. You don't wither up and die on my watch, buster. Home to the intensive care nursery for you.

Tonight he got a good clipping, a new pot and a spot in the sun next to several other plants who know how to behave. Hopefully he'll learn by example.

Before I took off my garden gloves this afternoon I had one more very important pot to fill. Here, I'll give you a peek.



This pot is a surprise. I can't tell you what is under the dirt until later. I can tell you, you're gonna love it.................IF all goes as planned. Fingers crossed............stay tuned.

I LOVE Cab Drivers

I do love cab drivers. I meet lots of them throughout the year and wonder if anyone has ever done a study on the collective personalities of a city's cabbies in relation to the city itself. Does that group of mobile ambassadors reflect anything about the city in which they live and work?

I think they might.
Twice in Philadelphia I've been taken on the tell-tale "ride".........you know, the ride where you get in the cab, tell the driver where you want to go and he ends up driving around in loops just to knock the fare up a few bucks because he knows you're from out of town and won't know the difference. Problem is, I know the difference in Philly because I have worked there lots. Enough to know a cab ride from one spot to another should take about so many minutes. But I don't know my way around enough to be able to tap the guy on the shoulder and say "Dude, you shoulda turned back there....why didn't you?" I just don't trust cabbies in Philly.

It took me several rides in another city to decide they apparently never hire people who speak English. First few rides the drivers kept mumbling and I assumed they were talking to me. I listened, trying to understand them and respond. Took me a while to realize they speaking Hindi or Guatamalish or Ethiopian, they were talking into the blue tooth headset in their ear....and I'm pretty sure they were saying something along the lines of "Dumb American chick in my back seat thinks I'm trying to talk to her."

In the city where I live, the only sure spot to find a taxi cab is at the airport.
If you're visiting town, don't plan on eating out and then catching a cab back to your hotel after dinner. Huh-uh. These streets ain't the Field of Dreams, folks. If you build up your hopes of a ride home..............there is no promise they will come. If you make the call on Wednesday, make sure you've got provisions to get you through the weekend just in case. It's going to be a long wait. On the other hand, if you are at the airport and you want a ride home after a return flight, you won't have a problem. Jack (named changed to protect me) is always there waiting. At least he always seems to be there waiting for me. Last three times I hitched a cab ride home from the airport, Jack was curbside to grab my bags. Jack is a friendly cab driver. Very friendly. He's chatty too. He will ask you if you had a good trip. He will ask you if you like to travel. He will ask you if your husband or boyfriend likes it that you travel. The FIRST time he asks you that, you will tell him you're not married................and then he'll tell you his wife doesn't understand him and.....well, you know where this is going.

Rewind and tell Jack the friendly cab driver that your husband the former Marine drill instructor black belt in karate and gold medal-winning Olympic sharp-shooter has a terrible temper and HATES it that you travel. Jack will dispatch you to the doorstep swiftly, help you with your luggage and graciously decline your tip.

Speaking of friendly...........I'm working in Las Vegas this week.
And this is my new favorite cab driver.



He greeted us with a genuine smile, chatted all the way to the hotel, slowed down a bit so we could gawk at a fender bender that did mean things to a real expensive car and hummed out loud, declaring "she sure has nice booty" when we passed a billboard announcing Beyonce was coming to town soon.
Who could disagree and I do love genuine, unbridled enthusiasm in anyone.

Thanks for the ride, Ernesto.

Great Weekend

I should be in bed. I've been off four days, I want to be at work early tomorrow because I'm working out of town all next weekend. Dang, but I just can't make myself close the door on this holiday weekend until the verrrrry last minute...which has just about arrived.

The bike is assembled!! Heck yeah!!!
Rode it on Friday afternoon. Need to make some adjustments but me and the tools made peace, we put the bike together and it actually looks just like the picture on the website. I'll take some pictures.

The rest of the weekend was just fun. Went to street festival with the kids on Saturday. The clouds opened up just about the time we arrived and rain pretty much closed down the party. We stood around yakking in the rain which was fun anyway. We had two little 1-year old's with us, teensy little girls in sandals that have just recently learned to walk and they both were completely delighted at discovering street puddles. While everyone else was hiding under umbrellas and tarps, the two of them gleefully pranced around in the water, completely oblivious to the falling rain. Can't imagine they could have had any more fun unless maybe they were naked...everyone knows babies love runnin' around stripped down to the birthday suit.

Sunday afternoon my study group...whereas I might add we have recently streamlined our fine selfs down to a compact unit of three members who get along famously.... met here at my place. John just got back from duty in Italy and brought some wine that he thoughtfully carried all the way back on the plane. Jill brought crackers and this cream cheese/jalapeno jelly stuff that is wicked delish. I threw together some sandwiches and we had ourselves a bit of a party under the shade of the patio umbrella. As a nice breeze blew we spent a little bit of time discussing our strategy for next weeks in-class debate on smoking, religion and stuff, a lot of time talking about life in general and what we plan to be when we grow up. By the end of the second bottle Jill (the youngster in the group, I might add) needed to nap on my couch, John was pontificating on the wardrobe preferences of Middle Eastern women and I'd become more intelligent than you could possibly imagine.
I slept pretty darned good last night.

Company always tuckers out my Binks.



He's been like this most of the day. I swear we didn't give him a drop of wine
but I have a feeling last night after I went to bed he was down here licking corks.

My flag few today. Thanks to my son and my best ESteven and Michael in Oregon and Donnie and Russ and Deb and my step-dad and FIL, my uncles and cousins and all of those who served. Thanks to Greg who I follow on Facebook. And John who might be deployed before we have a chance to graduate together.
Thank you, thank you all.

It's time. Day is done.
Off to bed and bring on the summer.

Holiday Weekend Eve

I am twitchy, giddy and generally all a-twitter on the eve of this holiday weekend. My Memorial weekend slate is clean with only fun stuff scheduled. Breakfast with my cuz. A little soiree with my study group. Indeed, my weekend is a calendar of hours just open and waiting for lovely things to happen. I'm going to unfold the next four days like a love letter, one careful crease at a time. Mmmm mmm mmmmmmm. I'm staying up late tonight (read that 9 pm or so....) just so I can prolong the anticipation and spend the evening nibbling on the idea of the unfettered days to come.

I bought tools. Spanners and closed-end thingies in 13mm and 15mm and I dunno what else. A smart gal suggested I hit her favorite upscale tool supply store with my shopping list so I did. Thanks Jan, you were right. They had everything I needed at Target.

Well.......I think I got the right stuff....I'm not positive. None of the tool stuff was labeled like the words in the bike book. I had to shop-by-picture, using the stuff I found when I Googled all the tool names last night.

Hey people!!!!! I think I'm gonna put a bike together tonight!!!!

That's the plan anyway.
More at 11.

Boxes on the Porch

Today is a very exciting day! Came home to find both the UPS guy AND the FedEx guy had visited my front porch. Two boxes to open, ohhh man I LOVE getting stuff from those guys.

First box. Ripped it open with a bottle opener. Pair of shoes! Yeahhh! That new pair of sandals I ordered. Pulled them right out of the box, slipped them on.......easy!



Next box. Bigger. Lots bigger.
It's my bike!!!! I ordered a bike a couple of weeks ago and it's here!!! I'm so excited I could spit. But this is a job for something a little more serious than a bottle opener. Nooooo problem! My craft scissors work nicely. The big staples holding the corners of the box together bend pretty easy and............

Oh.

Ok. Sooooo apparently you don't just rip open the box, slide out the bike and start riding it around the house. (Which yknow, is pretty much the way it works with shoes: open box, put on shoes, walk to mirror, admire feet, congratulate self on great choice....yada yada.)

Not so much with the bike.

Oh dear.

Sheesh. This is looking like some serious business and my happy face is starting to get sad.


Things always look better in the living room. I carry the various pieces in, prop them on the carpet and resolve to face disassembled scary bike like a big girl - with tools!!! I have some!!! How tough can this be..........there's gotta be a little instruction sheet here somewhere, I'm sure it's just a sliding A into B kinda thing. Five minutes and I'll be pedaling down the street. Now where is that instruction sheet.....................

Err...I mean, 64 page Bicycle Owners Manual and Assembly Instructions. This is the part where lesser women hiss and say "ohhhh sh*t!" Not me, baby. Nope. I march to the tool drawer and lay out my nice collection of tools.

I have a nice hammer, some pliers, five flat screwdrivers in a variety of colors and some pointy-pinchy things. And sometimes a big ol' knife and spatula come in handy, too.

Ok, let's tackle this baby and get out there on the bike trail.

The bike assembly instructions aren't bad. I think I can do it. But I'm up a creek, I have never HEARD of these tools. Spanner??? What the...or is that scanner.....put on my glasses. Nope, it's spanner. It says I have to use a 13mm spanner and I haven't a clue. And once I'm done with that, I'm supposed to use a 15mm open ended spanner.

Not to be outdone by a booklet of instructions printed in plain English, I take my study skills straight into the pages of the manual, highlight the unidentified tools and turn to my good friends at GOOGLE. What the freakin' heck is a spanner!!!???????

Huh??? Doesn't that have to be hooked to something like a handle or something? Crum. None of my screwdrivers look anything LIKE that thing.

Or this thing. So yeah. This is the part where I get sigh and say Ohhhhhhhhh sh*t.

And then, of course, I get a grip and do what I always do in situations like this.

I make toast.

What can I say, I'm a stress-eater. Some people pop a Zoloft, some people grab a beer. Me?

I make toast.

I don't know what I'm gonna do now. I feel just a little bit like I might cry.

I won't. But I kinda feel like it.

I'll figure it out.

Stay tuned.

From Wayyyy back when...

Went out for dinner with a guy I used to date in high school. He lives in Oregon and was visiting family back here for the first time in years. Had to grab pizza at an old haunt that hasn't changed much more than an occasional light bulb since the year we graduated. Even the menu looks exactly the same.

Best thin crust pizza on the planet, if we're voting.

Mike went to a different high school than I did. He played football. Nice smile. Laughed easily. Lots of fun. We used to zip around town in his little white car. Soon as we graduated he joined the Air Force. Although we've kept in touch off and on over the years, we've probably crossed paths in person maybe three times since wayyy back when.

After flipping stories back and forth across the table we did a little tour of the city and took a nice, slow drive through the Iowa State Fairgrounds and the old neighborhood where he used to play as a kid. Fun night. Unfortunately I was out of town on business nearly the entire time he was here so we only had the one night to catch up but it was a good time. He's a proud dad and Grandpa. I had to laugh at the amount of time we spent talking about our kids and grandkids. Somethin' so wonderful about the spark in an old friends eyes when they're talking about their kids and grandbabies.

Doubt I could convince my kids to believe it but some of you are old enough to know it's really true........the memories you make when you are young are even sweeter when you relive them with old friends.

Yup. Getting older is lots of fun.

Weekend in Asheville

I'll tell you what, I sipped myself into some serious state of Sweet Tea Oblivion this weekend. I have a great recipe and reputation for it myself, but there is something about the way a tea bag steeps in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains that gives that fabulous tea a most wonderful flavor. Mmmm and oooohhhh shugah!!!!!

I was in the Carolina's working at a wonderful place called New Morning Gallery located in Asheville. The region is known for it's artisans, skilled in all manner of traditional American craft. These are skills that have been handed down from generation to generation. The motto of the gallery is "art for living" and you'll see why as you move on down through the pictures.

The gallery features the finest American Craft work you can find. The wonderful thing is that it's not "don't-touch" art........I love wall art and they have lots of that too, but the store is filled with American Craft art which is functional, textural, touchable and intended to be integrated and used.....as their motto suggests....into your every-day living.

Take a walk with me through the place and I'll show you some really cool stuff......

I especially like fun, sorta odd-ball sculptural pieces. Lots of them to be found in galleries like this. You'd be hard-pressed to find a formal bust of one of the Vanderbilts in this place (although they built the famous Biltmore Estate in Asheville) but there are plenty of crazy dogs and cats and crows and............

......cute little pottery ladies with an attitude.

All over the gallery you'll find hand-crafted tables set with wonderfully creative pottery pieces. On the shelves are place settings of unique pottery and rows and rows of glassware. If you look closer, you'll note that the goblets are hand-blown glass. The pieces are all signed by the artists.

You don't find stuff like this on the shelves at Pottery Barn.

One of my favorite American Craft artists is Chris-Roberts Antieau. She patches her pieces together using wonderful vintage fabrics, outlining each image in beautiful embroidery stitches.

And more glass........

Could you set a suhhh-WEEET table with pretty things like this!!????

Ahhhem, might you please pass the crumpets.......

For a gal who enjoys most of her beverages from a blue Walgreens tumbler, just picking one of these goblets up to read the artist name on the bottom makes me feel a little bit elegant. And look at the kind of magic they create using their glass-work skills for these beautiful chandeliers.

Nice beak, Mister.

Brian Andreas is another great artist. His studio is in Decorah, Iowa and you'll see his work all over the country. I could stand and read the themes of his prints for hours. I picked this one out as a favorite this weekend because it reminds me of my daughter..........

I collect stars and shiny glass things that hang in my window and catch the light. Every time I work in a gallery, I choose another piece to bring home and hang in the window. I hope someday when I give them to my little granddaughter, she'll look at them and remember that Grandma Debbie taught her to love art and color.

So pretty in the light.

At the end of our first working day in Asheville, we were invited to the home of the gallery owner for a tour of his private gardens. I get all light-headed and speechless over flats of pansies and impatiens. You can just IMAGINE how much fun it was to walk in this beautiful place...all through the acres and acres of gardens are pieces of very unique sculptural art.

So THIS is what holly plants do in the spring..........

Because of the abundant shade provided by forests of old trees, woodland plants and hostas thrive in these gardens. Never too hot, never too cold. Never too light. And lots of moisture.

Yes, the garden not only sprawls for acres in every direction but it's also multi-level with little paths winding the way to every nook and cranny, many which have themes.

Inside the house, it's just as cozy and inviting. They really do "LIVE" the motto of their store. The home is just full of "art for living".

You've probably heard me say it before when I've returned home from a trip. It's true. Every time I walk in after one of these trips I set my suitcase down, look around at my own place and say to myself, "I've got to paint this place..........."