Hey Everybody!!

Boy, it has been awhile since I have taken the time to post, but believe me, we have been busy.  Since my last blog entry we had a virus that attacked out PC so we bought a new one and fixed the old one.  Once new PC was on-line we lost our internet/phone connection for two weeks.  Apparently our phone line traverses a heavily wooded, nearly inaccessible area in our neighborhood that needs to be replaced/updated, but will only be patched until enough of us complain to AT&T to get out there to make a permanent repair.  Every time we get some serious rainfall the phone and internet get real noisy or just drop off all together.  Of course when you turn in the trouble to AT&T they always assume the trouble is in the dwelling--well, they don't know that I am married to a retire AF Telephone Technician that can easily spot and repair a phone problem in our dwelling. 

On top of that our baby had some behavior issues at school, got a paddle from the principal, so I had to quit my long term sub job a week early to take care of her since we all decided it would be best for her to only go to school half a day.  Half days at school and trying a new medication has worked wonders.  All is well and she has been promoted to 1st grade.  She is ADD and we suspect she has Asperger' Syndrome, although trying to get a proper diagnosis is worse than pulling teeth. 

We have spent the last 6 weeks and beaucoup bucks having our yard landscaped.  Erosion was a problem in our backyard so we called a guy for some grass, now we have a three flower beds in the back along with a stone pathway.  The beds in the front have been cleaned, landscaped fabric installed and completely covered with granite chips/stones.  New plants also, Japanese Maple, Purple Fountain Grass, Nandina and Mounding Juniper were planted in front.  I put Purple Fountain Grass, Sweet Potato Vine, Red and White Flame Petunias in my big pots and I have one hanging basket of bright red trailing Geraniums.  It all looks really nice, I am so glad we had it done because our backyard was so depressing.  There is one more Japanese Maple and a Crepe Myrtle to be planted along with changing the edging in the front.   
Oh, we did have some sod put down in the back.   The picture is in our back  off the patio.  There is a similar bed on the other side of the pathway.

Then we had the end of school.   As usual, I decided to make gifts for the teachers.  What did I make?  Baskets.  For how many teachers/staff?  Eleven.  All the bases had a laser engraved image of my kiddos names written by them.  Neat thing that laser engraving--good thing my friend's husband has an one.   I made six pencil cups with variegated reed, I made variations to the weaving pattern so that each one was slightly different.   The other basket is called an Oval Gift basket.  I made four of them (the one pictured is my hubby's) with different colored accent reed.  One was red/black as pictured for the nurse, another had smoke/black accent for the principal, I used kelly green/natural accent for DS and DD#1's teacher and then golden yellow/purple for my DD#2's teacher. 

I have been busy with making cards and cross stitching as well.  Now that school is out I plan to make some changes to this blog and post more frequently as well as stop by your blogs to see how you all are doing.  But most of that will have to wait till next week, right now I am preparing for a neighborhood garage sale Thursday-Saturday.  Wish me luck.



See ya!!

CJ