Da Count in 55-My Brother

FRIDAY 55

There once was a sister who had a brother she loved very much.

Sometimes he was annoyed to be the little brother.

Sometimes he WAS the annoying little brother.

When brother and sister got along it was good.

The brother didn't speak to the sister for many years.

When they reconciled I was VERY glad.



DA COUNT

The estrangement and subsequent reconciliation both occurred many years ago. Nonetheless, each time I have a conversation with my brother that is easy and comfortable I am deeply thankful for it. Yesterday provided one of those moments and the topic of conversation revealed even more to be thankful for. I love him and I am so proud of him.

I am not posting current pictures of him because I think he would be less than thrilled by that....the old pictures were already on my hard drive and well....sometimes big sisters are annoying too.

Happy Thanksgiving

Norman Rockwell titled this Freedom from Want. There are many in want in our nation and across the world. May those of us in plenty be truly grateful and may we work toward a world where no one is in want.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Da Count-A Child Shall Lead

I planned to do a post about the way we cook our turkey because it's a bit unusual. However, this morning I came across this video. I was stopped in my tracks. So instead of that I am doing Da Count early this week as I consider how blessed I am.

Please take a few moments to watch it and consider your response. I believe there is a special place in heaven for Brenden Foster.

UPDATE (11:00 am): I found this report from CNN which gives a little more information on Brenden and an additional small wish he had. May he rest in peace and may his mother find comfort in knowing how many people's lives he has touched in such a profound way.

Quilts on Tuesday-Learning a Little

Anyone out there getting tired of this quilt series? If you are fear not, this is the last one for a while. I've showed you a lot of my mom's work that was done for me. I've shown you work by other family members and friends. I've told you how I grew up playing under quilt frames and how my mom has been willing to make the types of quilts I love even though it involves a lot of piecing which she is not overly fond of. This week I'll finish up with a little of my own work (and still more of my mom's).

This first piece is just a four block table runner. The friend who made the batik wall hanging ran a workshop to teach the log cabin technique. I was eager to give it a try. The idea of doing an entire quilt was more than a bit daunting. Doing four blocks and putting them together under the supervision of someone experienced was doable. You might ask why I didn't learn from my mom. Well, she had taught me to hand quilt and I was halfway proficient at that. I like the piecing of traditional patterns though and that has never been her thing. Here is my finished project. I don't use it on a daily basis but I do use it when I have a big meal with guests because the quilting of the runner makes it like a nice thick hot pad.

Here's a close up of one of the blocks so you can see some of the fabrics a little better. I did the quilting on this "in the ditch." That means the hand quilting goes right into the seams joining the strips of fabric so it it only enhances the piecing design as opposed to drawing attention to the design of the stitching itself. It was a fun little project and when I explained the technique to my mother she was interested in learning it herself. It was kind of amazing to me to be able to teach my mother something about quilting since I am only a beginner and she's been doing it her entire adult life.

Finally, we have the quilt mom made to replace the tattered log cabin quilt she made me 20 years ago. Once again, she told me I could choose any pattern I wanted. Once again I asked for a heavily pieced quilt. This time I found a pattern in the Amish style which means it is done in all solid. You'll notice the table runner is made of prints like calicoes and such. This quilt has only solid colored fabrics. If you know anything about me you know I like bold color. As I looked through different books this one just grabbed my eye immediately.

Mom, in her great love heaved a sigh and agreed to make it for me. She also suggested it might be fun to work on together. She agreed to do all the large and complicated blocks that you see running up the sides. I agreed to do the pinwheel patterns that go up the middle as well as the flying geese strips on the other sides of the large single blocks. I realized this picture doesn't show the flying gees so here is a picture to let you see what that pattern would look like. Pinwheels and flying geese were reasonably uncomplicated blocks for a beginner like me and if I did them it would free Mom to figure out how to do some of the crazier ones that she'd never done herself. It also makes it special to me that we worked on this quilt together.

Once all the blocks were done she assembled the entire top and did the quilting and binding. Since her arthritis has made hand quilting too painful she machine quilted the blocks in the ditch and then added some other patterns within the black strips. I didn't want the quilting to detract from the patterns of the blocks so the patterns in the strips are just parallel lines with the occasional, random mirror of either a flying geese or pinwheel pattern. The top came out beautifully with the traditional look I really wanted. The totally non-traditional part is the backing, which was as close to tie dyed as we could find. I love this quilt for so many reasons. The love Mom showed again in being willing to make it, the time we spent working on it together, the traditional top, the crazy back are all things that make this MY quilt in ways that no commercially produced quilt could ever be. Oh, and one more thing...Mom has her own tradition. She says a quilt is not complete until a drop of blood has been spilled on it. Some people think that's a bit gruesome. We're not talking crime scene spatters here, just the natural occurrence of pricking your finger at some point during the process of handling needles and such. When the minor accident happens the quilt is christened with that little drop of blood. Yes, Mom and I both "completed" this quilt in her traditional fashion.

I Wanna Be a Librarian

I really do want to be a librarian some day. I like the idea of connecting people to information they need and books they love. I like the orderliness of shelves. As a kid I could entertain myself for hours at the card catalog following cross references just to see how far I'd end up from where I started. I know the cutter number for my name. I helped inventory a brand new library and it was FUN! I know this is all very geeky behavior by most standards.

Librarians aren't complete nerds though. They can be very creative and cool. Unshelved.com runs an annual Pimp My Bookcart contest. Here is this year's winner from Columbia's Butler Library.

View from the back.

Here are the rest of the winners of the "2008 Pimp My Bookcart".

Still too geeky for you? Check out the comic strip Unshelved.

Ok, fine. I know comic strips are considered nerdy by some. So watch the Book cart drill teams! The first one features a routine set to Queen's We Will Rock You. The second goes classical with choreography to Flight of the Bumblebee.

Still not convinced because you're thinking it's just a bunch of band geeks who grew up to be librarians? Here you'll find a whole gallery of belly dancing librarians. I've always wanted to learn how to belly dance too. Apparently that and an intimate familiarity of the Dewey Decimal system are not incongruous.

If you are still unswayed how about librarians as guardians of intellectual freedom who stand up to the Man by finding legal ways to warn patrons of governmental intrusions?

*last two images from library.net's technicality page.

Da Count-Da Dentist

DA COUNT

This week I'm counting our dentist. Yep, you heard right. He is a former neighbor who has joked that because my girls and I have not a single cavity in any of our mouths he's never going to make any money on us. Isaac is his only hope and has provided a steady stream of cavities to fill and dental injuries to remedy. Through all of that our dentist has been friendly, personal, and encouraging such that when Isaac sees him in public the boy doesn't duck and run but gives a friendly hello.

This week the dentist proved himself again when Isaac was having awful jaw pain. He gave a very thorough exam and although he couldn't find anything definitive he offered some ideas and reassurance along with telling us to call immediately if the pain returned and tell the receptionist to work us in while the pain was still occurring. We went home and a couple hours later the pain hit like a ton of bricks. We called and high-tailed it back to the office where the dentist had a eureka moment as he very patiently conducted the same thorough examination a second time. It wasn't dental at all but a sinus infection with referred pain. Whoda thunk it? He offered to let us call the pediatrician's office from the front desk. I apologized for dragging Isaac in twice in one day but the dentist was reassuring as he said he was just glad to get to the bottom of the pain so it could be treated properly.

There are a lot of very frustrating things about trying to get decent health care in my area but this week I am counting having a dentist who has always been terrific, whether it's just a check-up or otherwise.

Slice of Lime-Batik Edition

On Tuesday I mentioned a batik dress I had made that prompted a friend to beg me to carry some batik back from Trinidad for her. Cooper asked, "Where's the dress?" Since I felt like crap with a migraine yesterday and the night before I didn't get new pictures taken for Slice of Lime. I dug out some old pictures of the batik dress. They aren't the greatest shots of it but they are all I have.

It's not easy to see the cut of the dress with a little guy clinging to my legs but it's a pretty simple style...column dress with just a couple of darts at the bust. Eeeeeeeasy peasy to sew. Obviously, I've had the dress a long time because all three of those little kids are now noticeably taller than me. Where does the time go?

In this one with my friend Aggie and me you can't see much but the pattern of the fabric itself. She is from Ghana and this was the day of her daughter's naming ceremony, which was a beautifully meaningful experience.

Aggie's brother, the tall guy in green, is a traditional African drummer who has his own group. He provided the music for the event but was currently taking a break while his pal kept the music going. Aggie, her husband, and her brother have always welcomed me as a part of the family. In fact, she asked me to be her daughter's godmother. I always giggle when they introduce me though because it usually goes something like this. "This is Michelle. She is Akua's godmother. She's American but she is more like one of us and she doesn't dance like a white woman. She dances like a Ghanaian." Aggie left the dancing to attend to the baby then grabbed the camera and called to me from the balcony as I was dancing with one of her cousins.

Good Stuff

Well, I've been planning for a little while to draw attention to some new bloggers and some fun sites and it works out well for today since a migraine laid me out flat yesterday evening. Migraines have a way of killing creativity. So without further ado.

Check out these new bloggers who I think have something interesting and worthwhile to share.

Luann Dunkinson has a whole website as well as a blog featuring her watercolors. A mutual friend showed me her site and I think her paintings are really very lovely.

Misticblu is another brand new blogger who has already shared some interesting observations from life and her job. She said I inspired her to start blogging. Whoda thunk it? I'm flattered, and glad to introduce her.

Lulda is our third new blogger and although I know she is making the rounds through institutions like Friday 55 I wanted to draw attention to her. She's written some marvelous 55s and shared some terrific insights.


If you need a chuckle these sites do it for me.

Totally Looks Like is a collection of side by side shots of celebrities who either look like each other or celebrities who look like strange objects. The Phil Spector entry cracked me up.

Lolcats is animal pictures, mostly cats, with ridiculous captions. Ok, like the previous entry it is for those who are easily amused but I like it.

Cakewrecks is for those looking for baked horror. It's a fairly new site but has taken off like wildfire. Who knew there were so many professional cake decorators completely lacking in any ability?


Other regular haunts...

Here's a game I am compelled to play every day. I have a deck of Set cards at home but no one will play with me anymore because I'm too fast. In addition to Set, I play the Quiddler game on that site as well.

Postsecret is part of my Sunday morning ritual. It's a confessional in art. Some of the secrets shared are silly, some are sweet, some are heartbreakingly sad.

Finally, when I am really trying to avoid any kind of productivity I head over to Mental Floss. It's got trivia, quizzes (not of the "which underwear style is my soul" variety though those sorts at Blogthings can be fun to shred like I shred memes), snarky t-shirts, fun articles.

EDIT: Published it hours ago with the wrong date so it's been sitting several posts down the line...that's what a headache does for me...

Quilts on Tuesday-By Another Hand

So far, all but one quilt I've shared has been one my mother has made. This week I'll show you quilts from other people. As most of you know I have a special love for tie dye. Batik is another of my favorite ways for fabric to be designed. When I lived in Trinidad I was able to buy some really beautiful and good quality batiks for far less than the cost in the US. I took advantage of that. I have a batik dress I made from fabric purchased in Trinidad that is still a favorite. One day I wore it to church. When a quilting friend there saw my dress she immediately started salivating and asked where I got the dress. When I told her she begged me for scraps. In fact, she went so far as to check my hem and ask me to shorten the dress so she could have more. If you know anything about fabric prices in the US you know buying enough batik to make a below the knee length dress ain't cheap.

I handed over some of my scraps and then my friend asked when I might next be traveling back to the island. When I told her I planned to go that summer she very sweetly implored me to take money from her and bring back batiks from Trinidad...pretty please? I thought she'd weep when I told her I'd be perfectly happy to do so and countered with my own request for some small thing made from a few of the scraps of whatever I brought back. A deal was struck.

When I went into the shop I knew had the largest selection, hauled about 10 bolts of batik cloth to the cutting table, and asked for only half a yard of each the clerk was perplexed and had to ask what on earth I planned to do with such pieces since they were far too small to make garments. I told her the story and because she was so "flattered" that Americans would make a special effort to come shop for batiks at her store for the deals, variety, and quality she excused herself for a moment before returning with an armload of "special" batiks from the back room. Yes, she smelled a sale. Yes, she made the sale...when she offered me a "special" price that stayed within my friend's budget. My friend was ecstatic with the selection I provided her.

Flash forward to Christmas. At my church we have a secret pal group. At the beginning of the year you pick a name out of a hat and for the year you send anonymous notes of encouragement to the woman whose name you choose. At Christmas we all reveal ourselves with a small gift exchange. Imagine my surprise when the gift I received was from the woman I had done the batik shopping for.

Isn't it beautiful? We shared quite a giggle over me having carried back the materials for my own secret pal gift. I treasure it though. Sadly, she is no longer with us but my little wall hanging is a lovely reminder of her sweetness and her skill.

Next is a quilt that was cross stitched by my paternal grandparents. In their later years when their physical health did not allow for much activity they'd spend many hours doing embroidery. Yes, my grandfather did too. After his mother died when he was a child he lived with his grandmother for a time. She taught him how to cook and sew and do needlework. He produced work as fine as any woman...better than many, in fact. He could fix a diesel engine, plumb or wire a house, coax crops from the earth, and sew or embroider with skill...but I digress.

When I graduated high school my grandparents filled my cedar chest with hand embroidered tablecloths, kitchen towels, and pillow cases among other things. They both died before Diana was a year old. A few "works in progress" were found among their things. Unbeknownst to me, my stepmother salvaged one before my father went through the house indiscriminately throwing things away. She paid a quilting group at her church to bind and quilt the top my grandparents had embroidered and it was my Christmas gift the year after their deaths.

Here you can see a close up of both the hand quilting and the embroidery. It's one more treasure that holds special memories of loved ones.


Finally, among the "works in progress" my stepmother also found some long ago completed works. She and my mother looked through what had been saved from my father's fit of declaring things garbage and were able to identify the source of most of the quilts. This one remains a mystery. It shares some of the fabrics my mother used in her first full sized quilt but it is not one she made. Mom's best guess is that my grandfather may have decided to attempt making a quilt around the time she did but it's really only a guess...although it's based on knowing he enjoyed sewing and my grandmother did not. It's just a little too small to properly cover a twin sized bed so we use it to curl up with on the couch.

A quilt is a hug from someone who loves you.

Fancy Memeing You Here.

Retired and Crazy has tagged me.

7 things I plan to do before I die
1. Finish this meme
2. Find a pair of jeans that doesn't make my butt look big or else hook up with Sir Mixalot.
3. Reconstruct the 7 wonders of the world in mashed potatoes
4. Figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop
5. Paint my kitchen.
6. Sort through the junk in the 2 boxes I have yet to unpack from when I moved 5 years ago.
7. Develop some loftier goals.


7 things I do now
1. Produce ATP
2. Convert oxygen into CO2
3. Eat
4. Digest my food
5. Eliminate waste
6. Slough off gazillions of dead skin cells
7. Live a life of wild ambition, I mean really...just look at that list.

7 things I can’t do
1. Defy the laws of physics...as evidenced by my ziplining misadventure.
2. Explain quantum physics
3. Remember the words to Olivia Newton-John's "Let's Get Physical."
4. Remember much of the Mandarin I once learned. Heck, I can't even count to 7 in Mandarin anymore.
5. Wear a mandarin collar. They bug me.
6. Collar a crook.
7. Walk a crooked mile. Well, ok, I probably could but then I'd be limping off to the chiropractor.


7 things that attract me to the opposite sex
1. Cheesy pick up lines
2. Mad alphabetizing skillz
3. Timely payments
4. Powerful magnets
5. Delicate features
6. My basic heterosexual drives
7. When he does that....ooooh....uh-huh....oh honey...*gasp*......mmmm.....



7 things I say most often
1. The last time me and Mrs. Gassman played with your keys we put them right back.
2. AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
3. @#!%&*&^#$%^$!!!! (It's really hard to pronounce but the up arrows indicate sounds like those clicking people make. The vowel sound that corresponds to the ampersand is trickiest, especially when it's in a digraph with the asterisk.)
4. Whatever the sound of one eyebrow rising makes.
5. Were you raised by wolves?
6. Supercallifragillisticsexpialladocious
7. Go back to your own damn state, you festering pustule on the ass of humanity. (Oh wait, this one I only say in my head. Does that still count?)


7 celebrities I admire
1. Paris Hilton, for her intellect
2. Britney Spears, for her fashion sense
3. Lindsey Lohan, for her charm and class
4 & 5. Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus, for their self restraint in avoiding overexposure by saturating every conceivable market...not to mention their musical genius.
6. William Shatner, for his nuanced portrayals
7. Phil Spector, for his great hair

And to add a category from Palm Springs Savant's Saturday Seven....7 Random Things found in my house.

1. A replica of a famous forefather's mansion. Said forefather was an early settler in Pennsylvania and a noted local abolitionist.

2. A penis gourd...hanging on the china closet. Kind of a What Not to Wear meets Top Design bit of decor, no?

3. A stuffed armadillo I bought in Texas because when Isaac was very little he had a bad dream and spoke in his sleep about needing an stuffed armadillo to draw on. He was very upset because we were all out of stuffed armadillos. The only thing that got him back to bed was to promise I'd get him one as soon as I could. It took a while but I kept my promise.


4. Pendulum Man on a backdrop of Magnetic Poetry. He's a real swinger when pushed to it.


5. A Christmas decoration hanging in the kitchen doorway. No, I am not decorating already. It's been hanging there since last year because I didn't realize I missed it when packing things up to put them away and the idea of dragging out the boxes of decorations from the crawl space before this Advent season was more than I was willing to do. Mr. Lime curses it on a daily basis because he bangs his head on it.


6. A dried up orange peel hanging in my kitchen. It's a Trinidadian remedy for a gassy belly. Break off a big chunk and steep it in boiling water like tea.


7. An embroidery project I made for my dad when I was 11. When I went to help my stepmother clean her house a couple weeks ago before her knee replacement surgery we uncovered this and she presented it to me. There is a strange jumble of memories that go with this. I'm thinking I might frame it and hang it in my kitchen...if I ever get it painted.


Finally, VE tagged me to share the most embarrassing songs I will admit to owning. He said he can't wait to see me do this straight. Now how a guy who says I shred memes more than he does can honestly expect me to do this straight is beyond me. Thus it shall be...

7 songs I have mortified a family member with (Keep in mind, VE, this makes it a ThemThem)

1. Kiss by Prince. My kids will not allow me to play this in the kitchen if they have friends over because, as Diana puts it, all I need is a pole and fishnets.

2. Love Shack by the B-52s. I have been in the grocery store when this came on. I danced down the frozen food aisle. The kids pretended I was off my meds that day.

3. Who Let the Dogs Out by the Baha Men. After a 15 hour drive to visit the mother-in-law, who lives in an upscale gated community, we checked through the gate then put this on at full blast and rolled the windows down. We let it finish playing as we danced in the driveway.

4. Some random and vaguely calypso sounding piece of garbage. At a wedding reception the DJ played some generic island music and "instructed" folks how to dance to it. His rendition looked like C-3PO trying to use a hula hoop and people were following his lead. It was appalling. When he made everyone circle up and invited a volunteer into the center to demonstrate they'd learned his moves I went in and showed 'em how it's really done. All yuh would know since I lived in Trinidad I could get on bad and wine dem hips and shake meh bamsee. It caused a mild uproar and afterward a guy at my table asked for a lap dance (I declined). No, I was not drunk. It was a dry reception. Mr. Lime was not pleased with me. Sorry, the reputation of the islands was being besmirched with that crap. I had to do something.

5. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Everyone in our house loves this song....when I sing it, not so much.

6. The Barney Song. Whenever someone gripes about having a song stuck in their head I sing this to them. I have had things thrown at me and been called very nasty names. Such ingratitude!

7. For this I will give VE the one straight answer I have for this particular theme, and it's not a single song but an entire album. Drumroll, please....

Kristy and Jimmy McNichol's album. I was 10 years old when this ridiculous thing was released. Lacking any taste at all, I spent my allowance on it. Shaddup. Just shaddup...

Friday 55 & Da Count

FRIDAY 55

Flowers look up in expectation
waiting for the water to flow,
so they may drink deeply.
The girl enters the garden
bearing a greater burden than just water.
She stoops
and lowers the vessel
gently tipping it.
Tears flow with the fresh water.
She rests among the roses.
She rises
with her own soul quenched.

DA COUNT

I think it's fairly evident that my main count is the time away I enjoyed so I won't repeat that. I mentioned yesterday that there are sick people around here. Diana has been puking for 3 days. I don't know about you but I sort of loose my sense of humor when I spend that much time horking. To Diana's credit she hasn't lost that entirely....ok, well, maybe it's just me finding the humor in her situation and her comments about it.

Yesterday during her third day home she peered up from her position on the couch and implored me to teach her something. "I want to go to school. My brain is devolving. I need you to put something new into it." I obliged her by explaining the concept of amortization and how insidious debt is. (I was paying bills when she asked. Can you tell?) You know the child was unwell because she hung on my every word and thanked me. (Most days, by her estimation, I am just barely intelligent enough to dress and feed myself.) I found this more than a bit surreal and entirely amusing.

Later in the day it was time to take her to the pediatrician's office so we could get the required doctor's note for readmittance to school. Upon settling into the waiting room we noticed the TV was playing health spots for parents. The topic of the current episode was diarrhea. She informed me this was not helping her queasy stomach in the least. When the phrase "explosive, watery stools" was used she threw up her hands in despair before plugging in the iPod to drown it all out. I snickered even as I rubbed her back empathetically.

The lady at the office Diana refers to as "dirty nurse" called us back. Dirty nurse usually has stringy, greasy hair and a runny nose which she sniffles back every few seconds. She also doesn't listen very well when you answer her questions. Diana was irritated to have to deal with her. When we reached the exam room Diana snarled about Dirty Nurse's incompetence. "She's an idiot. Can I quiz her? Tell me a different biochemical process related to each system of the body. Locate each major internal organ. Explain basic practices to prevent cross infection." I stifled giggles.

Diana went on to say sitting in a Pooh Bear decorated room as a 17 year old was utterly beneath her. In her words the entire office was thick with "the stench of young people. The air here is heavy-laden with immaturity." By then I was guffawing and reaching for my notepad so I could write all this down to share with you lovely people out in blogland.

Ok, I tried to upload a video she insisted on taking later inthe evening when she felt perkier, but blogger is being horrid....so far I've waited an hour for a 2 minute video to upload. It's funny. If I can get it on youtube I'll add in it later.

Slice of Lime-Spa Days

Just a few more pictures of the lovely surroundings I found myself in last week. Here's a tile in the ladies' locker room.

Window in the quiet room

Floor of the Rain Shower

Detail of window in the aromatherapy room

Another detail of the same window

Waiting to be called for my next bit of pampering

Aaaaahhh....This is what relaxation feels like.

I'm wanting to know when I can go back. I've had a slow transition back to reality but now find myself fully immersed in it. Mom taxi, sick kids, going on a hunt to find all the bills that came in during my absence since no one put the mail where it belongs (I am finding bits and pieces all over the house), less than stellar report cards, general teen and spousal surliness.

Nope....clinging to the bliss....

Hershey Gardens

As I mentioned on Monday, my visit to the Spa at Hotel Hershey entitled me to free admission to the botanical gardens. Since it is November I didn't expect to see much more than what this shot displays. True, it is no where near peak season in any sense of the word but there were still some lovely sights and pleasant surprises to be found.

First I noticed this large tree trunk which had been carved. Apparently it was a rather revered old oak tree that had been struck by lightning earlier in the year. They did not want to have to cut down the whole tree so a chainsaw artist did some rather impressive carvings over the course of three days. There are various carvings of wildlife on all side of the trunk.

Here you can see the two owls, the eagle and a butterfly at the top of the tree. Can you believe this was done with chainsaws?

Since it was November and a little bit further south than where I am there were still a few trees with some lovely colored leaves on them.

This one and the prior one were in the Japanese garden. Don't ask me the names of trees and plants. There were signs telling me but I don't remember.

November also seems to be an interesting time for ornamental grasses.

There was a small section devoted just to ornamental grasses. The blonds and brunettes come out this time of year.

The big surprise was the rose garden. Number one, it was massive. I'd estimate is was roughly the size of a football field. Number two, it was still in bloom. They haven't had the hard killing frost we've had a bit to the north fortunately so that gave me some really lovely things to look at.

May I say, I took over a hundred pictures of roses alone. But when you are confronted with such surprising expressions of color it's hard not to. Plus, I didn't have anyone tugging on my arm to drag me along. That was nice.

Did I get carried away? Yep.

But even the monochrome roses were hard to resist. Doesn't that look like something Georgia O'Keefe would have painted?

Have you ever seen a rose with one color on top of the petal and another color on the underside of the petal? I hadn't.

This one you'll need to click to make it bigger. I was impressed that my camera caught the tiny insect on the edge of a petal. It's just a Kodak point and shoot. I was kind of tickled to get that detail. I still drool over higher quality cameras with macro lenses.

I took this and a couple other purple ones for my mom since it's her favorite color. This was my favorite because of the ruffly texture of the petals.

More surprising color. Getting tired of roses yet? Be patient, please. I had to narrow this all down from over 100 remember?

I thought the pastels and the radial symmetry (help me out geometry experts, is that what I mean?) were nice here.

I just call this Old and New. And there ends the tour of the rose garden.

The herb garden also had a few things in it that still had some life. Here we see Hens and Chicks.

Lavender. For you, Susie.

Don't ask me what this was called. I forget.

This looks like milkweed to me but it was growing very close to the ground whereas milkweed is quite tall. So I don;t know if that's what it was or not.

The evergreen section was in full pine cone bloom.

finally, I crunched my way out through the fallen leaves and headed off to my dear friend's house.