Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day saying "I'll try again tomorrow.”

Mary Anne Radmacher

 



 I lost a best friend in December, her name was Schuster and she was a few weeks shy of twenty years old.  She saw me through good times and unfortunately, some really bad times. She loved Bruce so much.  We will both miss her.

 

 Just an image from online that I love and want to recreate in my own garden, maybe in a barrel of garlic.

 I bought this lovely necklace from an amazing artist.  It is my favorite scripture, our minister even included it in our wedding ceremony.



I believe this was from 1968.  Our old blue Dodge van, my older sister Cathy, whom we lost last August 9th, and one of my younger sisters, Maria.  We were at Little Rock AFB in Arkansas. The tree casting it's shadow was a Mimosa, otherwise known as a sensitive plant. If you ran your finger down the leaves, they would curl up.  I was 10 years old.

 

 

 



Homemade Soup

It doesn't take much--it can be just giving a smile. The world would be a much better place if everyone smiled more.

  Saint Mother Teresa

 

My husband makes the best soup when I have a cold.  I am blessed.

Family

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.  

Thomas Merton

A wedding in the family had a wedding. My two sister and brother.



A death in the family, my sister Cathy.  I didn't know the last

time we spoke would be the last time.

More Changes

Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.

Jesus Christ

 

We are planning an addition on the house...right over the top of my beautiful rosemary bush.  I took cuttings before we try to dig it up to move it, you know...just in case.

 

I have been anxious although the problem is not mine alone and I am not at liberty to share.  This passage comforts me. May I ask you for an unspoken pray, please?  It is life and death.

I have shared my dill with a tribe of these greedy bastards.  It is okay, it will grow back and we will be delighted with the black swallowtails that will follow.

Birthdays

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.

  Noam Chomsky

 

 

I share my birthday with the United States Coast Special.



Beauty

People often say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.

 

  Salma Hayek

 

Gardening from a wheelchair is a challenge. First two ghost peppers.

Schuster's catnip, she is 19 and we were told she has a lung mass. A large one.

We have the best looking basil, headed for frozen pesto for a taste of summer this winter.

We have baby figs!

Watercolor Gerbera daisy.

Look on his shoulder.

It is a Tiger Bee Fly.  She is after our Carpenter Bee nests.

Schuster

I will always be beside you until the very end, wiping all your tears away, being your best friend, I will smile when you smile feel all the pain you do, if you cry a single tear, I promise I will cry too.

-Unknown

 

Little Miss Schuster and I have been friends for 19 years.  I didn't think she was feeling well and I was concerned she might be losing weight.  I was told over and over she was fine. 



 

I finally took her to the vet to ease my mind.  She had lost 3 of her 9 pounds.  She has a large mass in her left lung.  She is on anti-nausea meds and steroids.  They told me they could do a biopsy and more testing but I said no, I do not want to cause her pain.

 

I want her to have quality of life.  She has been my constant source of comfort.  She has seen me through pain and happiness.  She was there through divorce, surgery, the lost of my dearest friend.  She loved my Bruce the first time she met him.  She was happy to move here so we could marry and start a new life together.  He loves her, too.

 

Summer is coming.  I love this time of year.  I love the green and freshness. My friend, Vicki, gave me the Passion Flower in the black pot.  Bruce is going to make me a trellis for it. 

 

Every year I grow a yellow Gerbera for my friend, Penny.  I miss her everyday,  Yellow was her favorite color. These flowers comfort me.

 

Last year, on our trip out west to Jenny's wedding, we stopped to see my cousin, Linda.  She shared her Mother's irises with me.  They are beautiful this year.  I am looking for their permanent home,

 

The love if my life and I take care of a feral colony of cats.  A momma cat started bringing her three babies around.  This little Miss has adopted Bruce.  She runs to meet him and loves being rubbed and scratched.  She will be coming in the house very soon. A door begins to close, a window begins to open.  There will be pain and loss.  There will be comfort.  Life marches on.

Multiple Sclerosis

Grateful living is important in the world because in our constant pursuit of more and better we can easily lose sight of the riches that lay right in front of us and within us.

Guri Mehta

The Ben Franklin Bridge

 

A trip to Philly to see my Neuro.  The new MS drug is not for me.  More risk than benefit.  We talked about Biotin.

Spring Garden Beginnings

If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't get that you don't want.

 

~Oscar Wilde

This is a Passion Flower dug up from my friend, Vicki's, garden and gifted to me,  How wonderful is that?!

Hostas in pots really do come back stronger some years.

Outdoor succulents on a shell from the fair Bruce and I went to last week.  A lovely memorial for a great day.  We have an Amish market and a Church Farmers Market tomorrow.

“Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”

― Robert Louis Stevenson

 

 

Bruce bought me blood oranges at Christmas.  One of them had 3 seeds.  Just as I had given up hope, one tiny plant finally broke through the surface and a week later we have the first true leaves!

ZOO DAYS

“Zoo: An excellent lace to study the habits of human beings”

  ― Evan Esar

We have a family pass to the Philadelphia Zoo, A very large group of us go often. The meerkats have always been my favorite. These little African birds were very friendly, staying one step ahead of my wheelchair.

Thanks for stopping by. God bless.

March 2017

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

  ~Henry Stanley Haskins

Time moves on. Happier than I have ever been, this is a good marriage. The MS progresses but I fight.  I lost my physical therapist, he moved on to more pay, a job closer to his home. Now we start over again.

A freshly brushed Dexter, my daughter's cat.

 

Look Who Came For Dinner

Fear the vulture, and the vulture will come.  Fear nothing, and you are the vulture,

Suzy Kassem

 

 

I looked out the French doors to see this bird.  He remained just so until Freddie Peepers (a wild cat Dear Husband feeds) spotted him and decided this could be dinner on bird feet.  Very interesting face, don't you think?  We do feed birds, just not these.

Spring is Here

“Every day may not be good... but there's something good in every day”

― Alice Morse Earle

I am ready for Spring.  This Bleeding Heart was a $1 special at Lowes last year, I am very proud of it.  Turned out much better than I thought it would after the first winter in the ground.  It is well mulched.

These are a new kind of chives for me.  Instead of sending up blossoms, it sends up tiny plants much like an Egyptian Walking Onion.  I bought the plants last year from Burpees after having read an article about them.  Dear Husband is going to help me bend wire so I can peg the little plantlets into pots to start new plants to share.

The little plantlet. I feel so proud.  They are doing just what was advertised.

I told my Husband a month or so ago that the pole the wren house was on was crooked.  Last week he decided to try straightening it.  The little wren came flying out, probably off her eggs, cussing up a storm. She flew up in the tree right above, flying from limb to limb and chirping in short bursts, most likely asking just what he thought he was doing! She did eventually go back in. She blocked the door. Not a happy camper and you should have seen his face.

Vernal Equinox 2016

Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes.

~Author Unknown

I don't know about you, I am ready for fresh tomatoes and herbs from the garden.  It is time to get my fingers in the dirt.  Right now, it is snowing but I am looking at seeds and dreaming.  We have been talking about the greenhouse and trying to plan where everything will go.

We will still be putting in lots of different cherry and grape tomatoes.  All of us miss the colored jewels that graced the family table last summer.

I am looking forward to the rosemary blooming again.  Summer garden dreaming, on such a snowy day.  Homemade pesto :)

 

“It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

― Mark Twain

Last week, the first week of March, our Queen Elizabeth rose decided to put out leaf buds.  I really need to get it pruned.

Rose is the theme.  My friend, Vicki, gave me a wonderful present, a rose scented geranium. the scent is wonderful, I am ready for Spring.

The Rosemary made it through the winter! It has a new little buddy from Vicki's shop, a concrete bunny.

   

While I was there for a visit, she broke off  a bloom from her pretty camellia.  There was enough that I am trying for a groot.

Flowers don't bloom where no seeds have been planted. If you want kindness, be kind. If you want acceptance, be accepting. If you want encouragement, be encouraging. If you want forgiveness, be forgiving. If you want love, be loving. If you want respect, be respectful. We should not expect from others what we fail to give to them.

 Tom Krause

A friend gave me this young bulb last summer, it was left outside after the first few frosts.  I thought it was dead, but brought it in anyway and my man closed it up in a cardboard box.  My dear husband checked it for me every time he watered the lemon and lime trees.  It threw up three tiny leaves, we put it in the sun. It has four blossoms.  I have never had one rebloom before.

Today, we enjoyed weather in the 60s, in February.  In celebration, my Granddaughter and I planted amazing tulip bulbs.  Granted, I began and my hands would not cooperate.  I gave instructions and she did a fantastic job.  I am very proud of her!  My dear husband gets credit for the soil work.

I hope we really will have an early Spring.  The hellebores are not blooming yet but we have tulips and daffodils are coming up.  The fig tree, as well as the cherry and peach are pliable.  Chives, all three kinds, are coming up, the cats have catnip coming up.  I am wondering if I will be able to garden this year.  Need to be stronger.