Took the day off or what was left of it. couldn't sleep last night so was up drinking hot chocolate milk at 2 am and took a pill then went to sleep and slept until 10.30. Which is very late for me. I am not a real early bird but usally 8 or so. by the time I had coffee and read the sunday paper it was time to make lunch so we skipped breakfast today and had brunch. Went outside later to water the grass seed we have put down and put some impatience nto pots that go in my grape pickers cart. The bottom of the wooden part gave out this year so Harv is making me a new one with help from a neighbour who cut all the boards to size. At least this way when the cart is finished the flower parts can just pop in there. I love mucking around outside. I go for a minute and next thing you know it is 2 hours.

I have a picture for you today that I made reference to the other day. I purchased the picture post card from jo in nz (wwwnzjo.blogspot.com) . I am sure all of you are fans of hers and between winning posts and her sending me gift cards I have 3 of her post cards and now I have the ultimate one. The workmanship on this card is just spectacular. there is even a small piece of driftwood at the bottom.
This card is the one she made for the Art Gallery show a few months back.
She spent about 29 hours of handwork on it and it is just beatiful. I am such a fan of this young gals work that I treated myself and bought it. she is only in her thirties and has 3 young children and amazes me at what she does. She also has a Mother and Nana who are into quilting and do beautiful work so must be a family gene. The first two pics are of Jo's postcard but when in florida I found a little bag of these neat mermaids and when I saw Jo' s card in person I hunted up the mermaid and just placed her there for the pic. I hate to add on to someone elses work but she just looked right standing there in the middle. What do you think Jo? Good or bad? What is the verdict from the rest of you. Go to Jo's etsy site as she has some neat things.

I will bring this with me to Omaha so everyone there can get a really close look at it.

It hasn't rained since I put the stain on the deck yesterday so I lucked out. It is also the color I wanted. They are calling for thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow but it said 24 hours to dry and it has been that. When I get all the pots and the furniture back I will take a pic or two.

Hopefully this is the last I will post about the deck. You must be pretty tired of it about now. I know I sure am. I finished putting the stain on this afternoon. Took about 4 hours but I am happy with it. Just hoping it will not rain for the next day. They are calling for occasional showers but a thunderstorm tomorrow night. Hopefully it will be dry by then.

I am posting a picture of the puzzle pieces I made for Pat winter's puzzle swap. I made the fabric on the embellisher and used felt as the bottom then added various fabrics in the same color and netting to match. I added 2 shades of angelina fibres - gold and a peach color for the glitz. I embellished the ribbon roses also. I put either beads or a charm on each one. I had a bit of a time doing the blanket stitch around it all. I used steam a seam 2 to add the background fabric to the embellished fabric. I almost did not put any fabric on because the back was as pretty as the front but the rules were to have a fabric backing so I did. Hope whoever gets one likes it. I also have a pic of the one I am trading with Pat but will not show that until Pat has received the package and sees hers,

Did not get the pictures I had planned on as I am still working on the deck.
Will this never end?

I called Olympic stain and he gave me the name of a product that would remove the stain I had just put on that I knew in my heart I could not live with. That was to be done on wed. but it rained and I stayed inside and finally made and just finished the puzzle pieces for Pat Winters swap. I have them bagged and ready to go to the post office tomorrow and Pat should have them first of the week.

Well thurs. I spent stripping and power washing the lower deck and even getting on my hands and knees with a brush trying to get some of the darker color out. I am pleased to say it is not reddish orange anymore. Down to a light tan with darker accents. One more cleaning and power washing and it should be done. In the meantime back to Loews and talked to a fellow there who advised me to look at the Cabot line if I wanted just a hint of natural color. Well ended up bringing 4 gallons of that home and this afternoon I put it on the top part of the deck and I think I finally got what I had wanted all along.
My daughter came over for the afternoon and helped me haul 6 large bags of potting soil that I put in a spot in the yard where I have ground cover that part of it mysteriously disappeared over the winter. She was pulling hers out and kept it in buckets and we loaded up the good dirt and then put her packasandra down. Good recycling. Will keep watering it and hope for the best. She helped seed some of the side yard with Harv. and then pulled weeds while I worked on the deck. It is so nice to have someone to help you when you are overloaded. I finally feel better then I have for a week. Hope to get the rest of the deck stain down tomorrow except for the lower part and then I can get my furniture and flower tubs back and my flowers planted. Will take piks when done. Adios amigos.

Where did that week go. I can tell you. It went with me outside trying to work on this huge deck. Rather then write it all over I copied and pasted my tale of woe I sent to my good friend Barb.

Here it is: "sorry I haven't got back sooner but since thurs. am I have been slaving outside on our deck which is 20" deep and runs on 3 levels the complete back of the house.I was going to have someone come in and power wash it then went to Lowes and was lookin at stain and they had a deck cleaner that you just sprayed on and waited 5-10 minutes then spray it off with the garden hose. Sounded real easy. It worked really well and we had picked out what they call a tone stain. Just a hint of color in the clear stain. They sell little samples so brought 3 home and tried them on a piece of the bench. Decided the light cedar would work. Well by Sat. morning the bottom deck had dried for two days and I decided to put the stain on. First I didn't nderstand the direction on the item I bought to apply the stain. There was a container that you poured the stain into and then just went down the wood with the pad. Well the stain poured out like a lake because I didn't have the on -?off switch in right. After 2 gallons of stain I finally knew something was wrong and got the old boy to help me fix it. He figured it out. Well the color came out so strong it is just horrible and where there was still dark color underneath it came out black. I could have cried. Of course Harv says "its not bad" trying to make me feel better. With the rest of the deck I went over it again with the cleaner and then used my neighbours power washer and the dirt just rolled off so if I had used the cleaner and the power washer it would have worked fine. Well I have now cleaned the whole deck twice and can't do anymore because it poured rain last night and it is supposed to rain thru Thurs. Maybe good - give me a break from it. I called Olympic stain this morning and talked to a tech and he said they didn't sell anything to remove it but Lowes should have a deck stripper made by another company and that should take it down. So off to Lowes again and get the stripper and see if I can at least get the orange out of it. So that is my tale of woe. Of course I haven't been getting any flowers in because I can't put them on the deck."

Well off to Loews I went this morning and bought 2 gallons of the stain remover and now I just have to wait for this rain to pass thru and pray the stripper realy works. At least it should take some of the orange color out plus the block. I took pictures but it looks mild in the picture as in real life.I roughly measured the deck and it comes close to 1000 sq. feet.

I also have some pics of the top deck to show it nice and clean and for Susan from "Plays With Needles" I have to clarify something. In the very last picture on top it looks like a giant mushroom in my yard and Susan came back and said she liked my mushroom. I laughed so hard I almost fell off the chair. It is really my bird bath turned upside down for the winter and is too heavy for nme to turn over. Well it is turned over now and the birds are enjoying it. Susan maybe I should get a mushroom as it looked kind of neat.

Hope you all had a good weekend with your friends, families, etc. I will have something special to show you tomorrow if I can get a good picture of it.

I have started working in the garden now I have the house a little organized. I went to our local plant sale on Sat. and bought a bunch of flowers plus one lady sells old antique garden items. I bought 3 hosta leaves made in plaster - one large and 2 smaller. They were all she had. They were new not old. Gardening in a lot of shade I love hostas big and small. I placed the cement ones by some hostas emerging near our back shed.Nothing grows there except weeds so we just put hostas and bark there and now these stones will dress it up a bit.

I bought a metal twig basket to go on our table - just a change. I always have a plant of some kind on there so will fill this up also.

We have been fighting on one side of our house trying to grow grass every year and worked so hard on it last year then decided if it didn't grow I would have to get a new landscape plan but it was a large space. Well to my amazement when I walked around there it was all green with just a few bare spots. I have seeded them and am watering them everyday. I was so excited to see grass. The other side that usually has grass with just a few spots that we always have to fill in has less grass then usual. Go figure.

I took some "before" pics of parts of my garden. We live on a 6 house wooded court and our lot is very wide in the back but shallow and the whole back of the house is a deck with different levels. I mention my garden on the deck and people look at me like what is she tallking about so I too a pic of it. It will be cleared of weeds and impatience will go in there.

Yesterday was the first of the summer birthdays in our family. My son's youngest Tommy will be 6 on thurs. and we celebrated yesterday. I snapped a couple of pics of he and his 6 year old cousin who is one of his "best friends" he tells me. These are the two in kindergarden together. Luke is my daughter's youngest.

Our oldest son is actually May 11 but he lives in Minneapolis so is too far to go for a sunday party but we do love him . I was browsing through old pics on the camera and I have one of he and his wife Kim when they were in Florida at thanksgiving. He is the one who started me on the blog if you read the very beginning. He is a great guy and a wonderful son.

Birthday parties follow every month all summer through Oct. when we leave for Florida. My daughter has them all summer as my son's other 2 are Feb. and we are not here. She has all our family and her husband Jon's family and it is always fun. Will show pics when the time comes.

Susan sent over the pictures today and I am surprised they turned out that well. Because they said no pictures she thought they meant outside also and I told her I did not think so. There were no picture police outside checking. In fact I saw plenty of gals clicking away with their cell phones inside. Well she tried to hide hers under her jacket so as not to be seen but they still came out. I cannot imagine this home being 25 million dollars except for the fact it is in Lake Bluff right on Lake Michigan and is on 22 acres. On the north shore 1 million an acre for land alone would not be out of line.

The first pic is the front of the house. the second inside the pool house or cabana. the third is the pool itself. Fourth is a large arrangement in front of the back of the house. Last is the back of the house.

There is a funny story that goes with the pool. The property line actually runs right thru the middle of the pool so when the house is sold they would have to buy the adjoining land which is still empty or someday have half a pool. Only 2 families have lived in this house since it was built so I guess it was never found with the first sale. Now a north shore real estate mogul has bought it and is renovating it for sale. That is probably when they found out the actual property lines.