HOME AND GARDEN

The end of the school year is winding up.  Tonight was the spring concert.  We used to have a Christmas concert and an Easter concert.  Now we are wayyy tooo politically correct.  No, I did not go see the kiddos.  I have seen so many of the darned things that I know the words by heart to every song… and the halls have echoed with them all week long.  I am such a humbug.

 

But its also time for me to detach emotionally.  I have been here 16 freaking years!  Most of the staff that I befriended have retired and gone on before me.  This was not a year that I enjoyed because of the budget cuts and changes to my schedule.  I made the best of it of course.  I take pride in what I do there.  But it is time for a change and I am eager to be gone.  I have decided… yes, C4C… I remember your warning about closure… to skip the pot luck at the end of the last day of school.  I would much rather leave with short personal good-byes, than stand up and give a speech that I would botch and blubber through.  I know… grow up!  Sorry, I’m in my second childhood now.  As Pop-eye says “I yam what I yam!”  Besides, I am out of there mentally!

I did have a rare treat today.  Out of the blue, one of my old co-workers called and asked to meet me for ice tea.  Cool beans.  Last week her husband subbed at my school… so naturally she had heard that I was leaving and needed to hear all the dirt!  We were hyper active talkers, but we had a great time… chatting like mad until we both had to pee and run off to our homes.  It was great to see her and surprise… she comes to Springfield once a month, so we are getting together there as soon as I move down.  How great is that?

Hard to believe that it is Thursday already, but here I am preparing to drive back down to my home again.  That’s it up there.  These are my “before” photos for you.  You can see the yard is in trouble.  I have been busy clearing dead wood out of the Japanese maples, fighting the weeds and even tore out a sickly tree by kicking it down.  Yeah, it was time for that one to go away.

  I have a general plan, but not a detailed one.  That brown stuff is not dead dirt, but bark chips that have weed fabric under them that has degraded... hence the rash of weeds.  The leafy things in the top photo are day lilies... I love day lilies.  I imagine they are the orange ones that grow everywhere here.  The other green stuff is vinca... or what I have always called periwinkle.  Not much color here... and I love hot colors.

Suggestions are more than welcome.  I know that I will put in black-eyed susies, shasta daisies and there has to be petunia and nicotina wherever I live.  All but one small purple rhodie will get the ax... I do not like them.  They are too messy for too little show. I want to put in a varigated dog wood tree too called wolf eyes.  But I want color... what do you like that is colorful?