It's A Jungle In Here

When you live in your own house, you get used to your surroundings. Some things - like dust - you just don't see anymore until it reaches that level where it refuses to be ignored and then you take action.

Since cutting back on my work schedule a few years ago, I find that I tolerate more clutter and dust than I ever thought I would. I used to be a "a place for everything and everything in its place" kind of person. Even when the kids were little, our house was pretty neat and clean and as the kids got older, they were employed to help keep it that way. For some strange reason, Jenna took a liking to cleaning of all types, actually making it her hobby. She did laundry, dishes, and kept the house clean.

I got spoiled.

Then the day came when both girls were gone to college and off on their own. Now it was up to me. Romie has always been my equal when it comes to household chores (he dusts, vacuums, does dishes and laundry), so it wasn't all up to me, but with me not working much anymore, I felt like the bulk of the responsibility was mine. And while I still want my house to be organized and clean, the fact of the matter is, it isn't.

There are probably several reasons for this:

• I'm The Queen of Procrastination.
• I'm overwhelmed by all there is to do and don't know where to start, so I don't.
• I have a really hard time making decisions, so some things don't get discarded because I can't decide if I should keep it or not (I might need it later!) and if I keep it, where's the best place for it?
• I don't have the energy to do all I need to do in the garden and the house at the same time, so it's one or the other and gardening is more fun. I only dream of the day when I can do both simultaneously.
• I have developed selective vision. You've heard of selective hearing? It works with eyes, too. Look at something long enough and after awhile you don't see it anymore. Nope, can't see the praying mantis molt laying on the desk . . .

There are a couple of other reasons too, but I'm not willing to admit those yet. But I have decided there's nothing that makes you more aware of how your house really looks than to have another person set foot in it.

Sunday night, we went to Van Wert and got Grandma and brought her out to the house to spend the night. There's something about walking into your house with another person behind you that all of a sudden makes you see things through their eyes. How does that happen?

This time, all the plants that we had to bring in for the winter just jumped out at me. I counted them last year and it was some ridiculously high number, but there are even more this year. Mom had a few she was going to throw out and I couldn't bear for her to do that with perfectly good plants, so of course I took them in. Cats. Plants. They're all the same to me. And then there are all those brugmansias, God help me.

Even with our "greenhouse in the basement" it's a jungle in here. The air quality is undoubtedly fabulous, what with all that conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen going on. You'd think that would boost my energy level, wouldn't you? I haven't noticed it.

The cats seem to like all the greenery around, with Simon munching down on anything that even remotely resembles grass and Baby hiding under the larger plants when one of the other cats sneaks into the house.

There will be a natural attrition over the winter, but for the most part we live in a botanical conservatory. It's not so bad, in fact, Romie likes it and so do I, but visiting friends and relatives are somewhat shocked as they walk into it. That's okay. It's our house and it's only five months till spring and everything will begin to go back outside.

Maybe I should start conducting tours and charging for admission to our indoor gardens. Maybe we could make enough to hire a cleaning lady.

What Do Your T-Shirts Say About You?

With cooler weather upon us and colder weather to come, this past weekend I switched out my closets and drawers. Summer clothes swapped places with winter ones. Now that both Kara and Jenna are out on their own, I have the luxury of using the closets and drawers in their rooms for this purpose.

It's no secret that I like clothes and though I've weeded out much of what's in those closets and drawers, I still have too much of everything. But I've got pants that are too big that I will surely fit into again, clothes that fit that are perfectly fine but for some reason or another I don't wear, and odd bits that are also perfectly fine but don't go with anything else. Please don't suggest that I get rid of these things, because I can't bring myself to do it, especially with all this closet space.

I sort my things according to type when storing them. Shirts / pants / shorts / pajamas. And then the shirts get sorted again. White shirts (you can never have too many white shirts), 'nice shirts', long-sleeved t-shirts, and t-shirts with a message. Hmmmmm . . . message. What am I trying to say? What do my t-shirts say about me?




I'm sure this one comes as no surprise to anyone, except it did to me, because it arrived in the mail last month - a birthday gift from my friend Kat, who lives in Florida. She knows me well and knew that I would love this, in fact, I had almost purchased it myself earlier this year.








I'm a big fan of Life Is Good products, and I have two other t-shirts from them. One of them reflects my love of geocaching:



I was a child in the 1960s - too young to attend Woodstock * - but I have always loved the poster advertising it, so when I saw this t-shirt in a Limited Too store several years ago, I had to have it. Limited is very smart in making their children's clothing all the way up to XXL sizes, because big kids like me can shop there and sometimes find pretty cool things that are also priced less than in their regular store.

Several of my shirts I can blame on Kara. She'll see one and say, "Mom, you need this shirt. It's so you." Here are three of them:

"Nature is Beauty"

I like vintage t-shirts and while browsing cafepress.com, this one caught my eye:

Note: If you've never ordered from cafepress.com before, most of their shirts run small. If they say order a size up, they mean it.


VistaPrint offers custom t-shirts free (except for shipping) or at a reduced price every now and then, so I thought it would be fun to get one made with my blog name and URL on it.


The back has the Marcel Proust quote that's at the top of my blog.



I rarely go into Abercrombie & Fitch, because I actually have a really strong dislike for the store, but one of their catalogs came in the mail one time a couple of years ago (addressed to Jenna) and I looked through it. I saw this t-shirt and though I'd previously told myself I'd never go into that store, this t-shirt was screaming my name. I had to shut it up by buying it. It has metallic embroiderly and beads stitched to it.

I think now that I could have lived without it, but I didn't think so at the time.


And finally, the other Life Is Good t-shirt pretty much gives you an idea of what I think nearly every day I wake up in the morning:


So, based on my t-shirts, that makes me a nature-loving, tree-hugging, litter-picker-upper, self-promoting blogging gardener and hippie wannabe who's almost always in a good mood. Oh, and I like a little bit of glitz now and then.

What do your t-shirts say about you?


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*Linked for those who are either too young to know what Woodstock was, or for those who were there but can't remember.

That's a Wrap

The gardening season is over for 2007. It seems like just a few weeks ago that it began and now we've had our first killing frost (last night). Much of what was vibrant and alive yesterday is black and hanging limp today. Oh, there's plenty of green out there yet, but I feel like I can now sit back and look back and say, "It was a good year."

'Zowie' zinnias were new to my garden this year and while I wasn't all that impressed with them at the start, as the season progressed 'Zowie' proved to live up to its name. Color definitely made them a winner and was the reason I planted them in the first place. But beyond that, I was impressed with the germination rate of the seeds (100%), the staying power of the blooms (each bloom looked good for weeks), and the health of the foliage from one end of the main stem to the other.

I also grew other cultivars ('Whirligig', 'Chippendale', and 'Candy Cane') so I was able to compare 'Zowie with these and overall, 'Zowie' outperformed the others. I don't know if I've ever grown a zinnia that didn't have foliage afflicted with mildew until 'Zowie' came along. I'll definitely grow them again next year.

The hellebore seeds that I planted last fall germinated and are slowly growing in the shaded bed behind the trellis. Hopefully by next spring I can transplant them to other locations. The seeds were complimentary from Winterwoods, so I'm happy to have experienced success with them.

We finally got that small pond put in this summer. It still needs more rocks around it, but there's plenty of time to find those by next spring. I think the cats and Simba (our dog) liked the pond as much as we did because I found them helping themselves to a drink from it quite often.

Another project that was completed was the wood deck over the part of the cement surrounding the pool that had settled creating a discrepancy between it and an adjacent section. We extended that to the nearby existing deck around a large oak tree.

A flagstone walkway was set in from the patio to the pool. Irish moss and creeping thyme now grow in between the flagstones and the walkway is well on its way to looking like it's always been there.


We discovered wild grapes growing behind our house along Cunningham's Ditch. I wish I'd kown before that they were there, because I would have learned how to make wild grape jelly long ago. We are just now finishing up the last jar of it and I've already got plans to make strawberry jelly as well as more grape jelly next year.




I planted several English roses for the first time. While they are strong growers and have an amazing fragrance and form, one thing I don't like is that they generally are weak-stemmed. Maybe as they continue to grow over time they'll overcome that.




The garden was once again host to several swallowtail and Monarch caterpillars, so the garden earned its designation as a Certified Monarch Waystation. One of the Monarch cats was brought into the house and metamorphosed into a butterfly there.



We started a compost pile at the end of July and we're watching it grow and shrink and grow and shrink as time goes on. No finished compost yet, but it's well on its way. Each time I turn it, I can see the progression of decomposition from bottom to top. It's looking good on the bottom, but it needs more time in order for it to be worthwhile to harvest for the garden. We will add to it with leaves we're in the process of raking and other dead plant material from the garden as that continues to wind down for the year. On the agenda for next spring is for Romie to construct a bin for the compost. I don't like looking at just a heap of dead stuff, even if it is located in the back corner of the property.

The bed in front of the porch was replanted this summer due to the death of everything that was planted there previously (vinca and flowering almond). Variegated euonymus and several grasses were used and all are looking good.

Several new hydrangeas were planted around the oak tree deck, including a variegated, both cultivars of Endless Summer, and Forever and Ever. A couple of them are still blooming now. I'd like to have an oak leaf hydrangea although I don't think I'd plant that with these.

Mom and I had lots of wonderful adventures visiting flower shows and botanical gardens. Grand total for the year: 9
Romie and I made our second trip to Marie Selby Gardens in Sarasota in March, and I visited Gene Stratton Porter's Limberlost in July.

Yes, it was a good gardening season. Time for the garden and gardener to rest and think about plans for next year.