We're Back!

Hi everyone!  Hope you all had a fantastic Independence Day weekend.  We went on a river running trip down the Green River.  It was great fun, but we're all glad to be back home again.  I'll upload photos and post stories in the next few days!

In the meantime, etsy seller NativeSky did a very nice feature on my shop in her Surviving the Etsy Madness blog.  It's a great blog with, of course, a great feature.  Check it out!

I was also pleasantly surprised to come home to find that a couple of my Stars & Stripes bead crochet bracelets were featured in several patriotic treasuries over the weekend.  There's The Spirit Remains, From France to America, Baby You're a Firework!, and Land Of The Free.  There's some very nice items there, definitely worth taking a look at.

All in all a very nice week.  I can't wait to tell you more about it!

Hanging Out!

Well, the dryer went out last week.  Hubby thinks he can fix it, but we have to order the part online.  So for a few weeks, we're 'hanging out'!

The boys rigged up a clothes line for me on the old swingset.  I'm glad I had all my old clothespins saved!  It's comical, though, as it's too high to reach from below so we are climbing on the monkey bars to do laundry!  I seriously hope the neighbors aren't watching out their back windows :D

It did remind me, though, that I do love hanging my laundry when I can.  When the dryer gets fixed I'll probably still hang at least some of the clothes.  I will, however, be very grateful to have it be by choice!

I'm Getting Excited!!

And why, you ask?  Here's the answer!

Carrots

Cucumbers

Okra

Peppers

Tomatos

Pumpkins

Beans and Corn

Blackberries

Oregano, Thyme, Basil, Cilantro

and Canna lilies!!  Plus, last but not least,

Strawberries!  In fact,

definitely not least!  A little bit of heaven in my mouth - I don't care where you get them, strawberries are always best right from your own garden.

Directly related to that, I don't often buy something simply because I fall in love with it, but a couple of weeks ago I did just that.  I added a new strawberry plant into my already well established patch.  It's a new breed called I believe ABZ, and it's supposed to have delicious fruit.  But the reason I fell in love with it?  Well, see for yourself!

I'm wondering if it will cross pollinate and I'll end up with lots of light pink flowers.  Okay, I'm hoping!

The outdoors is a wonderful thing.  Find an excuse to go out and play today and every day!

The Garden Is Done.... Maybe...

Well, it's been a lot of work but I got my garden pretty well in in under a week.  I usually take my time and take three to four weeks to get it all in, but since spring didn't arrive until June 4th this year, I was under some pressure!  I'm still searching for two very particular peppers - paprika and orange bell -- but other than that all veggies are present and accounted for!  I'll still be putting canna lilies around the upper garden, so I'm only psuedo-done.  Sigh.  Still, that's a lot better than last week!

Both gardens.  Those little green specks are plants!

The upper garden.  Beans, corn, pie pumpkins, lumina pumpkins, tomatos, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, carrots, watermelon, cantaloupe, okra and peas.

The lower garden.  Onions, thyme, oregano, cilantro, basil, garlic, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, gladiolas and canna lilies.

Why so many canna lilies?  Well, first off, they are an incredibly beautiful flower.  Secondly, the deer hate 'em!  Seriously, I ring the gardens with them and after the plants hit about 9" high the deer pretty well don't come in!  Around here, that's enough to love cannas even if they weren't gorgeous.  But I'll post some pictures when they bloom.  You'll see what a good deal they are!

On a totally different note, Father's day is just over a week away.  I wanted to share a beautiful mosaic Father's Day box created by one of my etsian friends, Second Look Mosaics.  It is incredible!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/75739883/fathers-day-mosaic-box

It's definitely worth a look. 

Have a great evening everyone!

Camping in Vernal

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend!  We spent some of it camping in Vernal, Utah.  It was a nice weekend for it, with warm but not hot temperatures and mostly overcast skies.  Great hiking weather!  One of our hikes was out to Harpers Corner, overlooking the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers.  There is some very beautiful country out there!

The fam at the corner

We also checked out lots of very cool petroglyphs and pictographs, a few more scenic canyons, and a historic cabin.  All in all a nice trip.  We came back early Sunday evening, as we knew the weather was supposed to get pretty bad.  And it did - it snowed on us most of the way back!  Not that I mind snow on May 30th - okay, I lied!  I do mind! - but at least we woke to it on the grass in the yard, not on the tent!

All in all, an enjoyable weekend.  I do hope yours was too.  And, please remember.  Memorial Day might be set aside as the day to remember our servicemen and women, but it's never the wrong time to thank them for all they  do.

Tuesday was Terrific!

I know I'm getting older because it takes me two days to recover from staying up very very late (in fact - early!) for a concert.  But, believe me, U2 360 was totally worth it!

We got tickets for the whole family well over a year ago.  We checked the calendar for the date - June 2, 2010 - and it looked free so we went for it!  As the date slowly drew closer we got more and more excited.  Then older son's high school put out their spring calendar.  Guess what night graduation was scheduled for?

With heavy hearts, we decided our oldest would only be graduating from high school once, so we started to look for takers for our tickets.  Even *he* thought long and hard before deciding which he would rather do!  But negotiations started with my sweet cousin, who was almost as excited as we were disappointed!

And then the last leg of U2's concert got postponed for about a year!  No conflicts any more!  Wonderful for us!  Not so wonderful for my cousin.  Bono had, as he put it, his spine replaced.  And let me tell you, he's not just fixed.  He's BETTER!

So the four of us went to a wonderful concert last Tuesday.  The Fray opened, and were quite enjoyable.  But it was definitely U2 that rocked Salt Lake City!  They were on stage for over two hours, played 25 songs, plus led the crowd in singing Happy Birthday to Bob Dylan, who turned 70 day before yesterday.  Bono told everyone with cellphones to go post it on youtube :D

And Bono thanked the crowd many times for their patience.  No problem, Bono.  It was worth the wait.

Just goes to show you, sometimes things don't work out.  Sometimes they do.

Some Things Are Not Meant To Be

I wanted to post a wonderful blog entry on Saturday night about how much I got done in my garden!  It was the first totally rain-free day in a week, and I was looking forward to sharing.  BUT...

I could not log in to my google account.  None of my google applications were working. I couldn't post.

Soooo, I decided I would do it Sunday!  BUT...

My internet was down.  For hours and hours.

I gave up!  It's supposed to be nice all day Wednesday.  I'll work in the garden and get lots accomplished.  And I'll probably tell you all about it!

Until then, have fun and find an excuse to go get dirt on your hands :)

Time to get started...

Well, I have been playing around with my blog layout for days now, getting it to look mostly like I want.  It's still definitely a work in progress, but close enough now that I can't really use that as a delay tactic any more for the hard part - actually blogging!  So I guess a good place to start would be to introduce myself...

Hi!  I'm Nona.  I live in beautiful Bountiful, Utah with my wonderful husband of 23 years, Jim, and our sons Walker and Randall.  I love all things creative, even the ones I can't do - yet!  As my profile says, when introducing myself to a group of people one time, I was asked to name my hobbies - tell then what I do.  I promptly informed then that it would be quicker to tell them what I DON'T do!  Rather than try to list everything I'll be talking about, I'll just talk about it when the time comes.

Thanks for checking this out.  I'll be posting actual interesting stuff soon, I promise! :D  In the meantime if you're interested, you could check out my Etsy shop,  my artfire shop, or my facebook page.  Hope to see you back here soon!