A good way to start

What is the best way to start your first day back from vacation, other than a good night’s sleep in your own bed? Going to your early morning appointment and being released from PT two weeks early because you are pain free and symptom free. It remains to be seen what effect a return to work will bring (wow, could work stress be the foundation of much of this pain?) but for now I am happy to get good news. I’ll be on a home-based program unless and until I need more.

I miss my mom and my family in Florida already, but it also feels really good to be home. There were two cats and one dog that were very happy to see us at home again. We’re gonna lay low and close to the house for a while, I think.


Construction at momma’s house

This is what we arrived to last night in Tallahassee. This footage was taken this morning. A remarkably efficient construction crew. It is all part of the road widening and holding pond project that is taking half of her two acres. I have quite a few mixed emotions of seeing half of my childhood yard ripped up and stripped of all life in order to build a dry holding pond to accomodate some federal drainage requirements that haven’t been necessary for more than 50 years. Well, anyway ….


Peony “we have no idea what it is”

One of the prior owners planted this peony – and in the entirely wrong place – nestled under an ash tree with little. The brave little thing clung to life but never thrived. When we lost the ash tree to last fall’s ice storm, we were glad that we had moved it. Now it lives in the back of the garden – Peony Lane – and is thriving in the full sun that peonies so much love. And the bloom opened even more when we cut it and brought it in – with the most heavenly smell. One neighbor said she hadn’t smelled a peony like that since her grandmother’s garden. Lovely, just lovely.

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Peony show at Countryside Gardens

Today we went to the annual peony show at Countryside Gardens. (Actually, we showed up last Saturday too because we read the date wrong.) Anyway, I thought you might enjoy some of these photos from today’s visit. We got two new plants today, Red Charm and Do Tell. Can’t wait to see them joining the rest of our peony beauties which are just coming into bloom now.

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One last weekend beauty

I thought I would leave you with one final glorious picture from this weekend. Our neighbor Margaret grows several patches of poppies along the west side of our yard. They are so ethereal and vibrant, flamboyant even, yet tissue thin. I adore them.

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We had a wonderful Sunday – shopping, gardening, cooking, dinner with neighbors (who brought a homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie warm from the oven!), lots of play time with Juliette and even enough time for some chores. Perfect, just perfect,