When I fell asleep Friday night I had gobble a couple of Advil and a Tagament to prevent feeling ill Saturday morning. I woke Saturday morning pretty early – 6:15am feeling anxious like I might have drank one too many beers the night before. I laid in bed for another 15 minutes deciding whether or not to get up and get moving. I jumped out of bed at 6:30am sharp. Mindy, right beside me, chose wisely to stay in bed and sleep. All I needed to see were the deep blue skies waiting out the window to get my weekend juices flowing.
Before 7:00am rolled around, I had already exercised and walked Ykraps. It was coffee time upon my return from the walk. I spent the next hour writing & publishing my Friday blog, which isn’t something that gets done on too many Saturday mornings these days. Just after 8:00am I dressed for a run and took Mindy a cup of coffee although she was still sleeping. My goal was simple. I wanted to be free of my routines before 9am leaving the better part of the morning still to get cranking on my weekend agenda.
The weather outside as alluded to earlier was clear but cool. It was only in the mid 40’s. Still, with the rising sun it felt great. As I was heading down the home stretch, I came upon a character trash picking in the sub-division that looked an awful lot like my dad. On closer inspection, it was, in fact, my dad. He was picking up bagged grass clippings to help amend his garden soil, and at the same time was attempting to load a heavy skid constructed of treated lumber onto his trailer. I stopped to greet him and lend a quick hand. I also took the opportunity to confirm plans for tomorrow AM’s hot tub lowering party.
I arrived back at home somewhere close to 9:00am. Mindy was already up and dressed for our trip to Straders and eventual planting. She had cooked up a batch of scrambled eggs for us to woof down quickly before departing. I changed into some street clothes and we were off. We headed through Arlington to the Grandview Straders, where we had stopped just the evening before just after closing. The Grandview Straders is, I think, the original store. It’s very small by comparison to the Riverside Drive store. Lucky for me, they had everything I hoped that they’d have and in very good shape. We weren’t there longer than thirty minutes and dropped another $95. We were back home and unloaded in short order.
After placing a little snack under our belts we were ready to get on with the task of sinking the annuals. We began as I usually do, in the large front yard beds. We sunk the better portion of four flats of Midnight Blue Petunias between the two beds. By the 4th of July they should pretty much fill in creating a solid blanket of blue (it’s more like deep purple). After petunias we moved on to sinking two thirds of a flat of Cranberry Impatiens at the foot of my giant Boxwoods and Taxus where there’s abundant shade all day long except for a couple of hours each evening. That went quick. The extra time I spent this year removing all the little rocks that inevitably rise to the top along with the ‘mulch trash’ has gone a long way in making the planting go much, much smoother. Next, we moved onto a transition bed where I typically plant begonia’s, and did again this year. Before taking a break we planted a few Petunias around the mail box bed and filled the three front stoop flower pots – two with Gerbera Daisies and the other large one with a mixture of wave Petunias, Geraniums, a Spike, and some Vinca. We accomplished all of that in a little over 1.5 hours. Time for a break!
After a snack and a little rest, we moved onto the back deck and yard. On the deck there were several large pots to create and fill. Mindy really seemed to enjoy doing those. I do too. I allowed Mindy to do the more creative ones while I tended to planting two Hibiscus. When she was done filling the containers, she planted her Poppies and then more wave Pentunias under and around the two Red Maples that shade my lower tiered deck. I sunk the new giant Hosta back under the weeping willow which should provide the ideal conditions it seeks. We still had a almost a full flat of geraniums to plant around the back in full sun but we opted to cease the planting and move on to some other stuff. Most notably, we began draining the hot tub for tomorrow’s big sinking event. I have had my hot tub raised on the deck for almost a full year now (It’ll be a year June 3rd). While it drained, Mindy watered in most of the flowers we had just planted, and I took care of some last minute preventative measures with the hot tub.
The last laborious task we undertook was scrubbing the last two deck chair cushions and the four plastic stackable deck chairs that have collected lots of dirt and mildew from sitting under the maple trees all year. The Clorox cleaner with bleach worked miraculously! After they dried we coated them with a vinyl protectant much like Armor-All. It worked perfectly restoring their original luster. By now it was just after 5pm, and time to change gears. It was also time to walk Ykraps again, although it’s not like he’d been cooped up inside all day. He was tethered to his screw and chain in the backyard while we worked on the beds most of the afternoon. There’s no question, having and keeping a beautiful yard takes lots of work.
After returning from our walk, we took a shower. Both of us were grimey, stiff, and tired. After freshening up in the shower I readied for a quick trip to the grocery, not wanting to waste anytime. We hadn’t completely nailed down our evening plans but had loosely determined that we’d skip the DaVinci Code, but still go out to dinner, and El Vaquero was our first choice. Mindy stayed back and read and napped while I grocery shopped. I like to grocery shop by myself. I had thought about another trip to Straders for still more annuals but decided that could wait. I knew in the back of my mind that I could see what Wal-Mart had in the way or inventory and quality while grocery shopping.
At Wal-Mart, my first stop was the garden center. And to my surprise, they had a beautiful assortment of annuals and perennials. Plus, they had ten inch potted geraniums that I transplant to hanging baskets for $13.47 compared to $19.98 at Straders with little if any difference in quality. I grabbed two for the two hanging baskets in my White Ash trees. I also found a variation of the Swedish ivy I wanted to add to my deck pots. Good quality and very good prices!
I finished my grocery shopping in about 45 minutes to an hour. It was a little tough getting my food haul in the same cart with the flowers I wanted but I managed. I made it home by 6:45pm and began putting everything away. Bob had left me a VM while I was driving home to see what Mindy and I were gonna do. We all had tickets to tonight’s Clipper game thanks to Lee, from Barley’s but Mindy and I had already decided that we wouldn’t be going. Bob stated in his VM that they weren’t going either.
Mindy called Bob back while put groceries away. Mary Ann was just getting home from work and he would call us back with their plans shortly. We invited them to dinner with us. A few minutes later they called back and let us know that they decided to do the Clipper game after all. May be another time! Mindy and I finished getting ready which was no big deal and headed off to El Vaquero on Riverside. We had made back-up plans for the Greek Cuisina in case there was too long of a wait at the Vaq. They can get ridiculous crowds in there and a line wrapping halfway around the building at times. The wait was quoted as 15 minutes, we opted to stay and sit at the bar while waiting drinking Margaritas and eating chips and salsa. Hell, that’s why I go! They have decent Margaritas and the best chips and salsa.
Mindy ordered #168 & ordered #11. To complement the meal I ordered another jumbo raspberry Margarita. And while woofing down some chips I suffered through a serious ‘brain freeze’. One easily forgets just how bad those hurt. I thought I was dying!
Our food was good. The only complaint was when our bill arrived, they had charged me for the two Margaritas we had in the bar again. I notified the waiter and he quickly removed the erroneous charges. By 9pm the sun was beginning to set and we were on our way home.
At the house we couldn’t get in the hot tub since it was drained. We opted for a fire and a movie. Instead of a DVD, we watched a Pay-Per-View movie – Brokeback Mountain. I dosed off a couple of times throughout the movie. It takes a while for the story to unfold, yet it was a good movie – strange but good. I thought for certain that one of them two fellas was going to sneak off with one of them there sheep – now that's baaaaaaaaahhhhhh-d!
At the movie’s conclusion, we went to bed.
When I fell asleep Friday night I had gobble a couple of Advil and a Tagament to prevent feeling ill Saturday morning. I woke Saturday morning pretty early – 6:15am feeling anxious like I might have drank one too many beers the night before. I laid in bed for another 15 minutes deciding whether or not to get up and get moving. I jumped out of bed at 6:30am sharp. Mindy, right beside me, chose wisely to stay in bed and sleep. All I needed to see were the deep blue skies waiting out the window to get my weekend juices flowing.
Before 7:00am rolled around, I had already exercised and walked Ykraps. It was coffee time upon my return from the walk. I spent the next hour writing & publishing my Friday blog, which isn’t something that gets done on too many Saturday mornings these days. Just after 8:00am I dressed for a run and took Mindy a cup of coffee although she was still sleeping. My goal was simple. I wanted to be free of my routines before 9am leaving the better part of the morning still to get cranking on my weekend agenda.
The weather outside as alluded to earlier was clear but cool. It was only in the mid 40’s. Still, with the rising sun it felt great. As I was heading down the home stretch, I came upon a character trash picking in the sub-division that looked an awful lot like my dad. On closer inspection, it was, in fact, my dad. He was picking up bagged grass clippings to help amend his garden soil, and at the same time was attempting to load a heavy skid constructed of treated lumber onto his trailer. I stopped to greet him and lend a quick hand. I also took the opportunity to confirm plans for tomorrow AM’s hot tub lowering party.
I arrived back at home somewhere close to 9:00am. Mindy was already up and dressed for our trip to Straders and eventual planting. She had cooked up a batch of scrambled eggs for us to woof down quickly before departing. I changed into some street clothes and we were off. We headed through Arlington to the Grandview Straders, where we had stopped just the evening before just after closing. The Grandview Straders is, I think, the original store. It’s very small by comparison to the Riverside Drive store. Lucky for me, they had everything I hoped that they’d have and in very good shape. We weren’t there longer than thirty minutes and dropped another $95. We were back home and unloaded in short order.
After placing a little snack under our belts we were ready to get on with the task of sinking the annuals. We began as I usually do, in the large front yard beds. We sunk the better portion of four flats of Midnight Blue Petunias between the two beds. By the 4th of July they should pretty much fill in creating a solid blanket of blue (it’s more like deep purple). After petunias we moved on to sinking two thirds of a flat of Cranberry Impatiens at the foot of my giant Boxwoods and Taxus where there’s abundant shade all day long except for a couple of hours each evening. That went quick. The extra time I spent this year removing all the little rocks that inevitably rise to the top along with the ‘mulch trash’ has gone a long way in making the planting go much, much smoother. Next, we moved onto a transition bed where I typically plant begonia’s, and did again this year. Before taking a break we planted a few Petunias around the mail box bed and filled the three front stoop flower pots – two with Gerbera Daisies and the other large one with a mixture of wave Petunias, Geraniums, a Spike, and some Vinca. We accomplished all of that in a little over 1.5 hours. Time for a break!
After a snack and a little rest, we moved onto the back deck and yard. On the deck there were several large pots to create and fill. Mindy really seemed to enjoy doing those. I do too. I allowed Mindy to do the more creative ones while I tended to planting two Hibiscus. When she was done filling the containers, she planted her Poppies and then more wave Pentunias under and around the two Red Maples that shade my lower tiered deck. I sunk the new giant Hosta back under the weeping willow which should provide the ideal conditions it seeks. We still had a almost a full flat of geraniums to plant around the back in full sun but we opted to cease the planting and move on to some other stuff. Most notably, we began draining the hot tub for tomorrow’s big sinking event. I have had my hot tub raised on the deck for almost a full year now (It’ll be a year June 3rd). While it drained, Mindy watered in most of the flowers we had just planted, and I took care of some last minute preventative measures with the hot tub.
The last laborious task we undertook was scrubbing the last two deck chair cushions and the four plastic stackable deck chairs that have collected lots of dirt and mildew from sitting under the maple trees all year. The Clorox cleaner with bleach worked miraculously! After they dried we coated them with a vinyl protectant much like Armor-All. It worked perfectly restoring their original luster. By now it was just after 5pm, and time to change gears. It was also time to walk Ykraps again, although it’s not like he’d been cooped up inside all day. He was tethered to his screw and chain in the backyard while we worked on the beds most of the afternoon. There’s no question, having and keeping a beautiful yard takes lots of work.
After returning from our walk, we took a shower. Both of us were grimey, stiff, and tired. After freshening up in the shower I readied for a quick trip to the grocery, not wanting to waste anytime. We hadn’t completely nailed down our evening plans but had loosely determined that we’d skip the DaVinci Code, but still go out to dinner, and El Vaquero was our first choice. Mindy stayed back and read and napped while I grocery shopped. I like to grocery shop by myself. I had thought about another trip to Straders for still more annuals but decided that could wait. I knew in the back of my mind that I could see what Wal-Mart had in the way or inventory and quality while grocery shopping.
At Wal-Mart, my first stop was the garden center. And to my surprise, they had a beautiful assortment of annuals and perennials. Plus, they had ten inch potted geraniums that I transplant to hanging baskets for $13.47 compared to $19.98 at Straders with little if any difference in quality. I grabbed two for the two hanging baskets in my White Ash trees. I also found a variation of the Swedish ivy I wanted to add to my deck pots. Good quality and very good prices!
I finished my grocery shopping in about 45 minutes to an hour. It was a little tough getting my food haul in the same cart with the flowers I wanted but I managed. I made it home by 6:45pm and began putting everything away. Bob had left me a VM while I was driving home to see what Mindy and I were gonna do. We all had tickets to tonight’s Clipper game thanks to Lee, from Barley’s but Mindy and I had already decided that we wouldn’t be going. Bob stated in his VM that they weren’t going either.
Mindy called Bob back while put groceries away. Mary Ann was just getting home from work and he would call us back with their plans shortly. We invited them to dinner with us. A few minutes later they called back and let us know that they decided to do the Clipper game after all. May be another time! Mindy and I finished getting ready which was no big deal and headed off to El Vaquero on Riverside. We had made back-up plans for the Greek Cuisina in case there was too long of a wait at the Vaq. They can get ridiculous crowds in there and a line wrapping halfway around the building at times. The wait was quoted as 15 minutes, we opted to stay and sit at the bar while waiting drinking Margaritas and eating chips and salsa. Hell, that’s why I go! They have decent Margaritas and the best chips and salsa.
Mindy ordered #168 & ordered #11. To complement the meal I ordered another jumbo raspberry Margarita. And while woofing down some chips I suffered through a serious ‘brain freeze’. One easily forgets just how bad those hurt. I thought I was dying!
Our food was good. The only complaint was when our bill arrived, they had charged me for the two Margaritas we had in the bar again. I notified the waiter and he quickly removed the erroneous charges. By 9pm the sun was beginning to set and we were on our way home.
At the house we couldn’t get in the hot tub since it was drained. We opted for a fire and a movie. Instead of a DVD, we watched a Pay-Per-View movie – Brokeback Mountain. I dosed off a couple of times throughout the movie. It takes a while for the story to unfold, yet it was a good movie – strange but good. I thought for certain that one of them two fellas was going to sneak off with one of them there sheep – now that's baaaaaaaaahhhhhh-d!
At the movie’s conclusion, we went to bed.
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