A few words to the wise...or in my case advice from real life stupidity

Never ever use your shoulder/chest area as a fulcrum when using loppers to cut a largish branch. (A fulcrum is the support or point of support (pivot) on which a lever turns in raising or moving something around.) It results in a lot of pain in your shoulder and chest which has its own fulcrum business to tend to, and you won't sleep very much until you get to the doctor.

Just some advice gained in a very painful way while trimming a shrub the other day. Probably serves me right for working on Sunday, except I never consider gardening work. Today is Thursday, if this thing posts properly, and as of Wednesday night I'm feeling better...and I did find my favorite rocks that are my "sculpture". I have reclaimed that part of our garden.

Tonight, while we were waiting for So You Think You Can Dance to come on and tivo to a point where I don't have to mess with commercials *gasp* do you think they might have thought of that and make me watch hours of commercials or other weird stuff like in that movie...A Clockwork Orange? Will I wind up like he did, all crazy and stuff...I'm just saying...it could happen.

Anyway in the waiting period we watched some 3o minute shows and one was P. Allen Smith, who I think is on PBS. He had some women on that show, which was all about him and his new home, who had made some of the most fabulous embroidered pillows. They were AWESOME...I just got off Amazon from ordering some books and transfers. I think these women don't do transfers, but I need to get started again somewhere....and it might as well be a tea towel or something. However, these transfers are Jacobean, so probably not a lot of cutesy things. I'm going to have to watch that show again to see who they were exactly. They used a fern leaf design for one largish throw pillow. Now that would be a nice gift for one of my children. The others are barbarians who drink out of jelly glasses. One made me mad today.

The xeriscape garden is coming along well. Hubby is so happy I hurt myself just when it was time to start digging. I did go out and tell him how wonderful it looked, but wouldn't it look just so much better if that plant that looked exactly like the stones was in a pot. And that way it it actually did get REALLY cold this winter it would be saved in the greenhouse that would utilize the plastic windbreak I used to use in the winter to knock the harsh wind off me when I went out on the patio for smoking purposes. Those days are long gone and that plastic is just going to waste out in the shed and there is a fire pit thing (like anyone in Texas needs a fire pit except on those days it is below 0) that could heat the greenhouse when it gets cold. Which seems like never right now. It is still 90F at 11:20pm here. However, I may sleep with one eye open tonight. You never know.

I'm always looking for a way to save money and to be ever so green. These days it is just the thing to do. My cousin posted the other day about going to one of our favorite shops to get some more yard goodies and holy smokes they had the Christmas stuff out. I could have told her, it happened to me at Garden Ridge BEFORE July 4th. I guess those "sluggards" who thought they'd wait until the pool warmed up a bit or they had some vacation time and thought they'd throw a party were outta luck on that. There was not a garden gnome or light to be had sometime in June, I'm guessing. They were marking stuff down in June. I just thought I had a bit more time to pick up some extra stuff. I guess summer is over.

The working shed idea is going to have to wait a bit to become anything other than a shed for our gardening tools. There is just a lot for hubby to think about right now. One is that his mom does not have to go back for another MRI. There is some down time right there. I suggested it would be a good idea to check with her doctor's office and all, since she really wants to go to Houston to see the kid who lives there. The nurse told him it would be about 6 months, for real, for the clot area to heal. However, if we thought we could get her there with frequent stops and getting her in and out of the car and moving around then it would be okay. We are going to start this business of getting out some with going to get her hair done. Where I go there is just a tiny little ramp that I don't think will give her any problems with the walker. I talked with my hairdresser the last time I was in and she thought it would help her feel a lot better. It will probably help her feel a lot better to get out of the house where she has been homebound for months, it seems, with the clot. Her hip is really bad, but the only help for that is surgery and she is 89...will be 90 at the end of August and she doesn't think it would be a good idea to jump off into something like that.

That is another thing....a party for her. It will have to be probably at her house, because it is difficult for her to get down the front steps. We'll see. If it is at her house, then I'll have to go over and clean for a LONG time. They won't have someone come in to clean. Last year we had my father in law's 90th here and it was still cool enough to be outside. It was a lovely party and they did enjoy it a lot...but I do think they were expecting to maybe have a surprise party. We just couldn't pull that off. We did have a 65th wedding anniversary party for them at their church a few years back. That was a great time....we weren't thinking and got icing in the anniversary colors and everyone had burgundy teeth. Oh well, live and learn. The kid in Houston will be coming up for the birthday parties. Mine is on the 24th and hers in on the 28th, so we will have them together with hers the main attraction since kids will be traveling to get here.

Hope this thing posts in the morning at 8:30am. It didn't and if you don't hear from me for a few days, my shoulder is very stiff today. I did too much yesterday.