A picture for you of the siberian iris out by the garden fence. I love these little jewels of the garden. They seem to like this spot very much. They bloom much better here than they did by the house. I woke up this morning and realized we only have 8 more days of school (not counting today, today is here and being spent)! Yay! Since I work for the schools that means in just a little less than 2 weeks I will be free to tackle a long list of fun projects I have decided to try to tackle. There should be lots of fun things to show you and tell you. Can't wait!

I just wanted to show everyone the cool old cookbook I found at the youth garage sale Saturday. It is called the American Woman's Cook Book. I believe it was originally printed in the UK because it has some interesting spellings of words and some parts of the book are copyrighted by a company in England. Anyway, it is from 1938 and has some of the most interesting recipes, such as cream cheese salad which amounts to pressing cream cheese through a ricer onto lettuce and adding french dressing. Hmmmm... or the recipe for wedding cake which calls for pounds and pounds of raisins, currants, almonds,and citron, 20 eggs, a cup of black coffee, a cup of molasses and a glass of tart jelly among other things. Yes, that was a wedding cake! Or how about some marshmallow fig cakes? LOL, I don't know how many of the recipes I will try from this book, but it is certainly entertaining to look through and I do see some old fashioned recipes for cookies and cakes that I might try. Just not the wedding cake!

Here is a picture of coconut cream pie that looks tasty. The explanation of the color plates in the book explains that the color photos are courtesy of the Irradiated Evaporated Milk Institute. Yum-O!

New Look.

Now you know what I have done with my rainy day. I have been messing around with the way my blog looks,(again). I can't say this is how it will stay but for now I think I will keep it until I can do some work and know what I really want. This is a huge step for someone who didn't know how to post or add a picture a few months ago! That is all for now, I should go spend some time on my house and with my family. Have a great weekend!

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

I am sure most of you aren't looking forward to a rainy Memorial day weekend, but I woke up this morning to the sound and scent of a soft rain on the roof and I am loving it!

I find rain so relaxing. We don't have a lot of plans for this weekend that will be ruined by it, and it is supposed to be sunny Monday so I might as well enjoy it and I am.

I am headed over to the church this morning to help with a teen garage sale to benefit a mission trip and then probably to the farmers market. Rain cannot keep me from the flowers! By the way, did you ever notice how a rainy day seems to make colors seem brighter? I ran out and took these pictures of the garden this morning and the colors are amazing. The snowball bush blooming beside the garage just pops in this light. And the clematis is so bright and pretty.

If the rain stops we will work on garden chores (I have a LOT of weeding and planting to catch up on), and I found a tutorial for putting a picture in my blog header and my daughter is going to help me try to figure it out. Hopefully I will have a beautiful header by Monday! Wish me luck.

Monday we have a picnic planned with friends at a lake house. It sounds like the perfect weekend to me. A little rain, a little sunshine and family and friends. Happy Memorial day to everyone, and a big thank you to all our servicemen and women,past and present for their dedication and sacrifice.

I thought I would share some of my interesting "wild" columbine plants with you. These columbine self-sow every year in a crack in the cement in front of our shed. There is no way to dig them up and put them someplace more appropriate or beautiful. There they are every year where the door rakes over them every time we open it! I have never seen these particular columbine in the garden stores. Maybe I should do a search online and see if I can come up with what kind they are.

The really funny thing is that I have bought and planted other types of columbine in my garden beds without much success. They just don't seem to come back very well, but these have been here in the crack of the cement for about 6 years or more. I think they are very pretty, but I would much rather have them in my garden!