Sprucing Up The Yard For Spring

Gerard and I always like to get our yard looking nice after the long winter. Although Gerard does most of the yard work, he lets me choose the flowers to plant every year. This year I chose the blue Labella for our flower pots and swan planters.

For our front circles, we got petunias again since I thought they did so well last year. We got red, white and purple ones this year and Gerard planted them all because I still had a cold. Usually I'll at least dig the holes.

In the back we went with some perennials for Dickie Bird's garden. It's called silver mound.

I think and on the other side of our air conditioner, we planted something that is supposed to get some flowers on it during June but I don't remember the name of it. Do you know what these are called?

In the back, I trimmed our neighbor's tree that comes through our side of the fence and we planted coleus again in Moe's garden.

While Gerard planted them, I attacked the weeds that were growing behind our garage and got most of them out.


Gerard had fun trimming our front bush with the long clippers for the first time. Now all we have to do is sit back and watch our flowers grow bigger.

Do you enjoy planting flowers in your yard every spring? What kind do you get?

Having Fun Playing Softball Again--Like Night and Day

We played softball last night against two teams from North Olmsted Friends Church; it was like the difference between night and day. This is the first game we played in our new team shirts so we at least looked like a team. It was a gorgeous day as opposed to our previous game days of being cold and rainy. We got a picture of Gerard and me as well as the team afterward, but I wasn’t looking at the camera! I thought I was. My head is turned in the picture though, don’t know what I was looking at.

We looked liked Charlie Brown's team or the Bad News Bears, (take your pick) the first game of our double-header, losing 20-0! (Something like that.) It was HORRIBLE! Some of our problems were:

• Had a woman at short who doesn't play short and who couldn't get anything.


• We kept making outs and when we did get on base, didn't have a third base coach and Ed was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple.


• We were throwing to the wrong bases.


• I played first and got a grounder, thinking our pitcher would come over to cover the bag, but he didn't. By the time I realized it, I couldn't get there fast enough.


• Some of us got some good hits, but not enough together to score a run.


• The other team had great hitting--most of them could really give that ball a ride and the few who couldn't were scrappy and fast enough to be able to run out infield hits. Plus, they had black shirts which were intimidating and mean looking.

The three highlights:

1. We nailed one of the guys at the plate with our woman catcher, Elly! She did great, even when he tried bulldozing her over and should have gotten thrown out of the game according to the umpire who mentioned it to me the second game. This is a "fun" church league--not a competitive, die-hard league, after all, they had 20 runs!


2. The second highlight for us was when Gerard threw out the runner to me at first on a grounder to him. It made us feel good that we contributed in a positive way since our hitting is so pitiful.


3. The other team had a little cute dog in the stands near first base that I could see which always made me smile.

The second game we actually won 2-0! We looked like a completely different team, setting the other side down in order several innings. Things I feel made a difference were:

• We rearranged some positions, bringing in one of our young guys to play short.


• We clumped all our good hitters at the beginning of the lineup.


• By this time we had our base coaches figured out too.


• The team we played the second game wasn't very good either.

I almost got a hit, a blooper up the middle, but no, their girl second basemen ran over quick and made a leaping catch to snag it. She really made a great play on the ball but then doubled off the runner at second too--frustrating for me! Can I get any worse? Yes! I also got called out on strikes on a pitch I thought was low and outside (we only get two strikes in this league to keep it moving). That made me feel really stupid. I'm still looking for my first hit! Cory, the young guy we moved to short, nailed a runner at home where Elly again stood her ground, giving us our first shut out as well as our first win!

We look forward to our next game on June 20 at 3 p.m. against Columbia Road Baptist Church.

5 Things I Learned This Week--Part 22

Cars

At More Than Sew So I learned cars are now being made without pedals or steering wheels--the new Benz!

Yahoo Answers

UPDATED 6/12/09: Here's a post I found with more ideas for getting rid of ants in your house without chemicals: Rid Your Home of Ants Without Chemicals at http://blog.wereliving well.com.
I found ants in my cats' food bowl Friday when I got home from work. How do you keep ants out of the cats' food? I looked it up on http://answers.yahoo.com and sure enough, it has been asked before. The best answer by Katslookup--not suspended yet was to spray Home Defense around the OUTSIDE of the house, windows, doors, foundation but also place the bowl inside a larger dish filled with water so there is a moat around the cat's food bowl. Ants can't swim so won't be able to get to it! I tried this and it worked! No ants crawling in the food since, just some around the bowl which I promptly squashed with my fingers. Have you ever used Yahoo Answers find a solution to a problem? You might want to give it a try. (Here is a link to the post I wrote about it: Keeping Ants Away With a Moat and Use For Good China.

Photos to Paintings

At I found out there's a site, called Paint Your Life that takes your photo and makes an oil painting of it! Wouldn't that be a cool gift!!

Entrecard Ad Change-Yay!

Big Change to the Ad Network: Only Entrecard Blogs
Moving forward, we're making a big chance to the Ad Network. From here on out, only Active Entrecard Members can advertise via our ad network. We listened carefully to all your feedback during the trial phases of our ad network, and one thing that kept recurring is that you only wanted bloggers and other Entrecarders advertising on your widget. So, we're going ahead and making that change. From now on, the only advertisers approved into the Entrecard Ad Network will be advertising an Entrecard blog with an Entrecard Widget, just the way you like it!

Someone Read and Liked My Book

Lucky Lady did a nice review of my book on her blog and gave me permission to repost it on my blogs. I was so glad she liked it because she worked so hard to find eight correct answers to the give-a-away contest I ran. For Lucky Lady's reviewclick here

An Interview With Kathryn Miles, author of "Adventures With Ari"

Kathryn Miles, author of Adventures With Ari graciously answered some questions that Gerard and I had for her after reading her book and we thought we'd share them with our readers. Following are the questions we asked and her answers:

Did you do the research on the different nature things because you were really interested or because you wanted to include it in the book?

Both. I wrote the book because I became so interested in the different aspects of nature that Ari and I investigated. When I set out to start my year-long experiment in canine naturalism, I didn't set a lot of rules for myself, because I wasn't certain what sort of form the project would take. But I did know that I value environmental thought and wanted to know more about the world in which I live. As our progress progressed, I found myself wanting to learn more and more. I'd sit down to research the gestation period of frogs, and end up spending an entire day reading about the secret lives of amphibians. The same was true for any species, really. It's a wild, wonderful world out there. I don't think I knew the half of it until I met Ari.

How is Ari doing now?

Ari is fantastic. She is three years old now, and a lot more grown up than she was in the book. But she still has the same exuberant energy and curiosity that made our time outdoors so pleasurable (and, luckily, she's outgrown some of her more naughty puppy behaviors).

Do you have plans to write another book?

I'm currently at work on a very different sort of project: a narrative about a legendary Irish famine ship called the Jeanie Johnston. It's a different style book--popular history--but it's also very rooted in landscape and place.

Why did you decide to write this book?

The project actually began as more of a personal journal or almanac--a way for me to get in touch with the seasons and the ecology around my house. As I came to realize how much I was learning through Ari, however, I realized that other people might benefit from adopting some version of canine naturalism in their own lives. So the book became a way to chronicle my experience and do some of the foundational work I thought might be helpful for others. I also wanted to pay tribute to Ari--and to relationships in general. At it's heart, I think the book is really a love story: love for place, love for the creatures (2- and 4- footed) in our lives, love for the sense of connection we all seek.

Stop by Kathryn's blog, Out With Ari at .
(Pictures in this post used by permission)

Disappointed in Wii Bowling

I've heard so much about the Wii that I was excited to try it out at our library. They had the Wii bowling set up on a Saturday morning for all ages to play. There were two units set up with about six people on each. I thought it was okay but certainly not great, probably since I didn't do well. Perhaps I would have done better if I had actually taken 5 steps as I do when I actually bowl, but there really wasn't space enough and everyone else was just taking one step forward and letting it go so I did the same. After playing this, I'm glad we didn't get one.

I suppose for someone who is housebound or unable to bowl for real due to a physical problem, it would be fun but for myself, I much prefer doing the real thing. I assume I would feel the same way about the other games as well. I can't imagine tennis being anywhere close to reality based on just the space limitation. I don't know if I'll try it again or not, but probably not. I wasn't much impressed. If I want to play video games, I'll play on pogo.com where I can at least earn tokens to cash in for a chance to win real money and other prizes (I haven't won anything yet though).

What do you think of the Wii? If you bought one, do you still use it 6 months later?