Garden Remembrances

The gloomy sky offers another day of cold rain and I have been struck down by a dreadful winter illness.  In between my bouts of coughing and fevered exhaustion, I can't manage enough energy to do much of anything.  You know what I need?  Summer garden photos.  If we can have Christmas in July, why can't I have summer garden in January?

The garden wasn't really at its best in 2014, as a number of shrubs were damaged or killed by the Polar Vortex.  We lost a big rosemary plant in the front garden and had to severely cut back the hydrangea and crepe myrtle shrub in the back garden.  I still have some work to do to fill in gaps in the back garden that will continue this spring and summer.  The vegetable plot wasn't very productive, perhaps due to the increasing shade from the nearby tree.  But we had lots of new garden art, and there were lovely annual flowers.  We had some very nice (i.e., not too hot) days and I tried to keep up better with tending and weeding.  There were bunnies and butterflies and birds, including a number of hummingbird sightings, which I always find thrilling.

So let's explore the garden, shall we?

Front garden, west side (Aug 2014)

Living in Limbo

As I mentioned in my last post, we are in the midst of a home renovation project.  That means that the house is in chaos, since everything needed to be packed up and moved out of the rear parlor (some of the furniture from the dining room needed to be moved, as well).  The remaining rooms are crammed with towering piles of boxes and furniture and stuff.  Watering the plants in the sunroom has become a challenging exercise of tiptoing carefully around the electronics on the floor and stretching over piles of boxes to reach the various plants. I feel as though I'm doing some bizarre yoga-parkour mix.  The living room calls to mind one of those unpleasantly overcrowded antique stores, where one fears to even wander amongst the eclectic mix of vintage items for fear of dislodging a china shepherdess or stumbling over a wooden settee.  The remodeling zone is framed in translucent plastic, its cloudy film creating a sense of distance and unreality.  I stand in the kitchen, looking through the plastic sheeting, and it feels as though I am encased in a bubble, ungrounded from my real life.

A home for imagination and creativity

When I was a child, I was given a dollhouse.  I played with it throughout my childhood and kept it set up even after I stopped playing with it (my younger sisters continued to play with it while I was in college).  When Q and I moved in together, I set up the dollhouse in our apartment.  Eventually, though, I stored the dollhouse and all its furnishings in a closet, waiting for a time I could bequeath it to another child.

Looking spiffy with the fresh paint --
and the open door invites us to peer inside.

Appreciating the Commonplace

I've been thinking about birds recently.  In particular, I've been pondering the thrill that runs through me every time I see this woodpecker visit our yard.  Sightings cause me to rush to the window, crying out "Look -- the woodpecker is at the feeder!"  Q has been very tolerant of these outbursts (even when they interrupt our conversations), but I suspect he doesn't understand my fascination with this red-headed avian.  Why does this bird make me so happy?  Obviously, it's a beautiful creature, with an elegantly long beak and rich coloration.  The brightly colored birds do tend to catch my eye (as I've noted before, I'm a sucker for color).   

The Great Material Continuum

Among the Ferengi people of the Star Trek universe, there is a belief in the Great Material Continuum.  This represents the trade that they see as the force binding all life in the universe, the river that flows from those who have to those who need.  The Ferengi see the Continuum as an opportunity for profit, but I attempt to traverse the river on a nonprofit basis. 

Maid: Unpacking Ambivalence

Sometimes, while I am engaged in some unpleasant cleaning task, I think about how nice it would be to hire someone to do some of these cleaning jobs.  I'm not talking about a weekly whole-house cleaning (I can't envision that, somehow), just having someone in occasionally to clean the kitchen and bathrooms.  When I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor, the vision of a professional service sweeping in and leaving behind clean, gleaming surfaces beckons to me.  And yet, apart from the time we hired a cleaning service when we moved out of our rental house (it seemed a good investment to make sure we got our deposit back), I haven't succumbed to the temptation of professional house cleaners.  In part, this is due to entropy (the irony of doing hours of scrubbing because I'm too lazy to call and arrange the service does not escape me) and being worried about the quality of their work (will things get broken or damaged?  I know I can do this safely and carefully -- will they?), but I also have a strong discomfort with the prospect of handing off my cleaning to professionals.  It seems the epitome of bourgeois privilege to not have to do one's own cleaning.  Let's face it, even with all my careful talk about cleaning professionals, the term that comes to mind is . . . maid.  And I'm not ready to have a maid.

Looking back on 2011

Rabbit on our driveway (6/2011)

New Year's Day is traditionally a day of new beginnings.  I love new beginnings -- the excitement of starting fresh with the allure of pristine new projects.  Accomplishments are just over the horizon, glittering in the near distance.

But taking stock of where we are means pondering the past as well as looking to the future. Yet I'm less likely to mull over tasks completed than to dream of what is to come.  So I'm challenging myself to spend some time thinking back over what I've done.  Rather than compile a list of individual achievements (as in Lisa Call's 100 Accomplishments for 2011), I wanted to think about how my activities fit into my goals.  Perhaps I'm considering my cosmic footprint for 2011 (to borrow a concept from fellow blogger and academic Jill Kronstadt, whose blog is really worth reading).  So in the larger sense, what did I do in 2011?

New bloom

Just when I thought you would never bloom again, you surprise me.  You remind me that we hold within us the promise of new growth that can burst forth at any time.  Delicate and ethereal, you have the drive to flower that cannot be denied.  You give me hope.

Snow

We've had more than 30" of snow in the last week -- it is truly "Snowmaggedon". The snow is beautiful. Every tree is frosted with snow, each branch outlined. The streets are fresh and clean, coated with a sparkling blanket of blue-white. I've seen this emerge even with a light dusting of snow, as we had last week. But this massive snowfall transforms the landscape. Our front yard is unrecognizable -- all of its distinctive landmarks are completely submerged, leaving only a homogenous, undulating snowbank, rising more than three feet above the ground level. The driveway hosts two enormous snowdrifts which completely obscure the cars within them. One neighbor's evergreen tree is bent almost double under the weight of its snow burden, and I could swear that another tree hosts a menagerie of snow beasts -- a snow walrus rests in the topmost branches, and surely that's a polar bear underneath it.

Walking through the neighborhood is equally disconcerting. The sidewalks have become corridors, flanked by high walls of shoveled snow. When there is no sidewalk to be found, we stagger through the drifts or follow the lone tire tracks of some adventurous traveler. It is quiet and peaceful. There is a friendly camaraderie that emerges among those of us braving the weather. Upon seeing a group of children making an igloo, I'm pleased to pass on my experience of using water to create an icy shell on top of the snow. We greet those shoveling their walks and chat with those out for sledding or cross-country skiing.

It is as though the world has been remade.

Happy New Year!

I've never been much into celebrating New Year's Eve -- it's just not a holiday that speaks strongly to me. Some years we've gone out to a party. One year we hosted a party. One year I had a gig. But our latest tradition is my favorite. We stay home, build a fire in the fireplace, and spend the evening together. Q does a great job of building a fire, and we have fun putting in special pinecones that make colored flames. A quiet, peaceful evening is just what I most need after the stresses of end-of-semester grading and holiday shopping. And I get to start the new year with my best friend and beloved. What could be more perfect?

I hope you all have as much fun as I will. Happy New Year!

Various projects

Summer projects have begun! I have been working in the garden a lot (weather permitting). There are a number of lovely new pathways, thanks to Q (yay!), so I've been trying to design within the new structure. For all my effort, the front garden needs another weeding, a few more plants, and some mulch, but for now it houses a baby bunny most days, so I am content. The back garden has some vegetables and a few flowers, but I still need to work some beds and put some more vegetables and flowers in. I put in some new shade plants in the beds along the house, which were looking a bit unkempt. The deck strawberries have been producing a bit of fruit (yum!), and the Alpine strawberries have been fairly prolific. The first crop of raspberries is just starting to ripen, and I put in two new blueberry bushes. So I'm running a bit late in the garden, but it is slowly getting done.

I made my first bellydance costume bra from scratch this week. I ended up making muslins of three different sizes of a Kwik Sew underwire bra, none of which fit perfectly. There was some gapping in the cup under the arm, so I just put in a dart there, and I cut down the center connecting piece a bit. I think the sizes run a bit big, because the cup is bigger than I am used to. For the final version, I wanted it to be sturdy enough to take a lot of beading without collapsing. So I made the main bra out of reinforced denim (from old jeans) with some stiff interfacing, and then I created the front cup section out of two layers of buckram and fusible fleece and basted that into the denim bra. It is super sturdy! Then I made another version of the bra in the velvet I am using for the costume and covered the bra with the velvet (with hand basting). Now I'm beading it, which will take a bit of time, but is the part I like the best. I'm repeating motifs from the belt, but changing them around a bit. I finished beading the belt a while ago; it just needs to be lined and sized for me (have the hooks sewn in). It's been quite a while since I've had a new dance costume, so I am eager to finish this one.

There are a couple of home repair/renovation projects that need to be finished, too, so I've been calling contractors and trying to get those underway. Hopefully soon! Then there will be some painting to do when they are done.

It's amazing how busy I feel, given that I'm on summer break. There is always so much to do!

Highlights of 2008

So what did I do in 2008? In no particular order (and I'm sure I'm forgetting things):

• In addition to my regular teaching schedule at Montgomery College, I taught a section of General Psychology at Georgetown (Spring & Fall semesters) and in the Winter 2008 session at Montgomery College (with a wicked flu the entire time -- blech!)
• Continued to refine my teaching and try out new assignments and classroom activities
• Became a faculty contact for the Writing in the Disciplines program at MC
• Organized a conference panel about writing at AFACCT, and gave two presentations about writing at MC
• Coached the Vagina Monologues at MC (was this my fourth time?!?)
• Continued to organize the Psychology Brown Bag series at MC, and gave two talks as part of the series: Lusting in Your Heart: What do your feelings say about you? and Viagra: The Solution, or Part of the Problem?
• Wrote an Ask the Sexpert column for the student paper on whether homosexuality is natural
• Had a panel presentation accepted to the Mid-Atlantic Women's Studies Association conference
• Continued to be the faculty advisor for the People's Alliance club, which met fairly regularly and put together a display for the Health Fair at MC -- they did a great job
• Organized the annual silent auction to raise funds for the Women's Studies Student Scholarship Fund at MC -- put up advance pictures online for the first time
• Went to Boston to visit a friend who showed us around the city and was a wonderful hostess
• Got to see my father sing the Major General song on stage at George Mason University (with full orchestra and chorus backup, including a verse he wrote himself about academia)
• Went to my father's talk at GMU about writing over 100 books (wow!)
• Became a regular at the local farmer's market (during the growing season)
• Gardened extensively: Put in my vegetable garden and various annuals, did my regular maintenance, and began putting in new paths in the garden (well, Q did most of it, really, but I helped)
• Watched the bunnies and birds in our yard -- ooh, and I saw deer, and a fox, and a woodpecker while at my father's house
• Cooked and baked with the wonderful summer produce and helped Q make our usual summer pesto; discovered some new recipes, including delicious blueberry muffins and and raspberry coffeecake
• Made pizza from scratch for the first time -- and it was yummy!
• Finished painting the basement, including the finishing touches on the peach pit (the stairs) and the bathroom (with its violently orange faux finish and a lovely sump pump cover that Q built)
• Started painting the bedroom (still in process, but it looks fabulous so far)
• Researched and purchased a new washer and dryer and a new refrigerator (more energy efficient -- yay!)
• Went to Quebec for a wonderful vacation, which included climbing a mountain (with only moderate whining and gasping), seeing whales, eating sugar pie, and going to some cool museums, including a terrific exhibit of Inuit art and an exploration of the historical layers of Montreal buildings
• Continued my dance education with regular classes with Yasmin, Turkish workshops with Artemis, workshops with Leila from Egypt, and going to Folktours Dance camp and the Herdeljezi Festival
• Put on three Starlight Shimmy shows at the New Deal Cafe
• Created some new dance performances, including some new comic fusion pieces, but also stretched myself to create more emotional depth and explore some new aspects of dance
• Continued to dance at local gigs, including restaurants and private parties, and did some substitute-teaching that has led to an ongoing teaching opportunity
• Went to a number of dance shows (too many to keep track of!)
• Went to Wisconsin to visit my grandparents, and put on a dance performance for their community
• Sewed: Finished a jacket, finished beading a costume belt, and made progress on a couple of other projects
• Saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with stellar performance by
• Saw Kooza, my first experience with Cirque de Soleil -- amazing!
• Saw a performance of the Song/Dance Ensemble of West Africa
• Saw a local performance of the Pirates of Penzance that included a very effective use of trampolines
• Went to a couple of Batala performances, and they were fabulous
• Did a lot of walking and increased my use of public transportation to get to work
• Read a lot of books (and articles), including both fiction and non-fiction
• Saw some good movies (and some not so good movies, too); I was also a discussant for two film presentations at MC (Secretary and Chak De! India)
• Began a Facebook account
• Had semi-weekly brunches with my father
• Got to see my brother and his family a number of times -- my nephew and niece are great kids
• Spent lots of time with my sweetie and with good friends -- many thanks to all of you for being such good friends

It was a busy year!

Resisting completion

I have always found it much easier to start projects than to finish them. New projects are exciting and full of possibilities. I can dream about what I could do and how it will look when it is finished. I get excited about the vision of the final product. I pull out materials, look at designs, consider alternatives. This part is fun and can last a long time. Then at some point I get inspired to start -- I cut into the fabric, I sew together some of the pieces. At some point the project stalls. Maybe I can't figure out one step of the instructions. Maybe I can't decide what color to use for the binding. Maybe I just get too busy with other things. Then the project may languish for months or years before I get back to it. At that point, the enthusiasm has faded; the bloom is off the rose. While I still have the vision for the project, there is less impetus to keep moving on it. I'll often put the project away and start something else. While I do occasionally come back to an old project and work on it, sometimes even finishing it, I have all-too-many incomplete projects (I hesitate to even call them works-in-progress) to testify to this pattern.

In the last few months, I've been trying to revisit old projects and complete them -- to clear the boards for the new academic year. The unfinished projects have started to feel like an albatross around my neck (and no, it doesn't come with wafers). Plus, I am sick of feeling guilty about the incomplete projects, and I want to be able to have something to show for the work I have done.

I've made some headway -- I finished two house-painting projects, and I'm pleased with how they came out. But I've also figured out one reason I resist finishing projects. When something is finished, its possibilities are complete. It is all it will ever be, for good or ill. And sometimes (many times?), it is for ill. I finished two skirts, and while they are well constructed, they just don't look good on me. My vision was not realized, and the work seems wasted. Frankly, it's disheartening and depressing. I would rather have the incomplete project, with its dream of beauty, than the completed object, with its flawed reality.

I guess I understand why someone might be a dreamer -- having your head in the clouds means you don't have to see the dirt you're kicking up behind you.

I know that I have to be prepared that some projects won't work out the way I thought. I know that everyone has a certain "crap quota" -- we need to make a lot of bad stuff to get to the good stuff. I know that I should see these as learning experiences and think about what I could do differently next time. I know that it doesn't mean that I'm incompetent. I know that (in theory) I can make things that do fulfill my vision and make my heart sing. I know.

But in the meantime, maybe I'll just dream up a new project and live in its possibilities. What's so great about finishing things, anyway? Shouldn't we just enjoy the journey? ;)

Fragments of my life

• I finally finished painting the basement bathroom. It is a VERY BRIGHT orange color with yellow glaze ragged on over it (actually, ragged off). This room glows in the morning -- it looks like a light is on even when it is not. Q did a great job building a much nicer sump pump cover and moving the pvc pipe to give us room for shelves. I even painted the pvc pipe to match the walls, so it isn't so glaring. I got a little orange and yellow rag rug that matches the color scheme from Etsy. I even replaced the shower head, although we still need to find a suitable shower curtain. So that room is mostly done, and I keep going by to look at it -- it makes me smile.
• The house is remarkably clean at the moment -- we had an out-of-town guest last weekend and I did a major housecleaning. I wonder how long it will last.
• I am two weeks into teaching my five-week summer class. My second class got canceled, due to low enrollment, so I have more free time than I expected. This is a wonderful treat, and I am enjoying it.
• I am beading the fringe on the black and silver bellydance belt that I have been hand beading for years. I enjoy this process, but it is very very SLOW. And when the belt is done, I still have to work on the bra and accessories.
• Our summer pesto factory officially opened today. I did a major harvest of our basil plants, and Q made 9 batches of pesto. We haven't even finished last year's pesto, yet -- our freezer is full of pesto!
• The garden is a jungle, as always -- the tomato plants are huge and entangled with the berry canes, and the front garden is in desperate need of weeding. I find it hard to work in the garden when I am constantly being attacked by hordes of mosquitoes. I have never found an insect repellent that really works, and I am unwilling to use insecticides in the garden. What I really want is a Rent-An-Insectivore service, where handlers bring in critters to eat the bugs. For mosquitoes, it would be trained bats, for ants it would be anteaters, for crickets you could have hedgehogs. The handlers would bring in as many insectivores as you need for as long as it takes to reduce the population to a reasonable level (keeping them in your yard in whatever way is cruelty-free and appropriate), and then they would go on to the next patron. Wouldn't that be an eco-friendly solution? And then I could venture out to pull the weeds and pick the tomatoes in relative peace.
• I've been working on building some "greener" habits. I think I am a bit more mindful and aware of my choices, but I find that these habits often require a lot more time, and I'm not sure whether that is something I can reliably maintain when my workload is high. I'm figuring that anything I manage to do is better than nothing, so I just try to be cognizant of my choices.
• Movies I have seen recently: Wall-E, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Notorious Bettie Page, Provoked
• I taught a bellyrobics class (subbing for a friend), and it was more fun than I remembered. It made me think about trying for a regular dance teaching gig again, but I probably don't have enough space in my schedule.
• I made a batch of orange muffins today from a new recipe, and I didn't care for them -- too much oil, I think. What do you do with something you cooked that came out badly (or at least, not to your taste)? Do I feed them to the birds, or anonymously fob them off on coworkers?

I now return you to your regularly scheduled activities.

What do you do with "found time"?

Your meeting has been postponed; your client just canceled; it's a snow day. . . In short, a day that had previously been all booked up is now gloriously, splendidly free.

What do you do with this "found time"?

Do you decide to make some progress on that big project you've been working on? Or spend the day playing? Maybe you read that trashy novel you just bought. Do you rest, recuperate, and nap? Maybe you take the day to pamper yourself. Or possibly, you just fritter away the day with no plan or purpose and wonder where the day went at the end.

I love found time. It feels so liberating to have a vista of uncommitted, unscheduled time open up in front of me. I often feel positively giddy. (This is probably a sign that I am over-scheduled and over-committed, but holding that aside. . .) I feel that found time deserves special activities -- something unusual, something I wouldn't ordinarily do or that I haven't had time to do. Sometimes I recuperate and take a guilt-free nap. Sometimes I play in my fiber studio. Sometimes I get a chunk of work done on an ongoing project and feel virtuously productive.

Tonight, my gig canceled, and I cleaned a room that I haven't had time to clean for a while. So I feel virtuous, and I have a sparkly clean room now!

Latest backyard sighting

This is for Q

Fiber studio redecoration

So I'm in the process of redesigning and redecorating the fiber studio in the back parlor of our house. We're going to replace most of the furniture, paint the walls, and have built-in storage put in along one wall. We've been drawing up plans, playing with layouts and choosing furniture.

Yesterday, we ordered our first new furniture piece, a cabinet/hutch unit for fabric storage. It will arrive in 4-6 weeks, and then we'll have to finish it. It will hold my quilting cottons, and we'll replace the glass in the top cabinet doors with something opaque so as to avoid fading of the fabric. It won't be as deep as the unit we have now, so it will be better for fabric storage, and the look fits into our decorating style better.

Current paint choices for the room include deep reds, such as "Santa's Suit", "Aniline Red" or "Italiano Rose" (Benjamin Moore). I'm going to get a bit of each this week and see how they look on the wall. It's definitely going to be a different look from the off-white that's there now!

But I'm not allowed to paint that room until I finish the solarium and the kitchen, which are next on the painting queue.

Now it's back to grading papers for me. After gardening all day yesterday, it feels nice to sit down. I have to get back into gardening trim -- all my muscles are protesting.

Random musings and fiber studio thoughts

What's going on with me, you ask?

I am at the tail end of a wicked, awful, horrible cold that knocked me out this week. It happens at least once a year, and hopefully this will be it for this season. My voice was sexily husky for a day or so, then creakily unpredictable for a day or so, and was often accompanied by coughing and sneezing (oh, so attractive!). On Friday I was so lethargic that I couldn't do more than sit on the futon and watch DVDs, a rare feeling for me. Thankfully, I got other dancers to sub for me at the restaurant this week, because performing would have been hard. Hopefully I'm really on the mend.

I'm in the midst of coaching/rehearsals for the yearly V-Day campus production of Eve Ensler's play, the Vagina Monologues. It's always very intense to put it together, but it's a great show and the students really love the production. There's one show on Saturday, Feb. 10 at 8:00pm in Rockville, MD and one on Friday, Feb. 16 at 8:00pm in Germantown, MD. Tickets are $12, or $7 for students/seniors. All proceeds go to organizations working to end violence against women. Check out the press release for more information or to reserve tickets.

I'm also almost done with the first major wave of fiber studio reorganization. This involved reorganizing how I was storing fabric and patterns. (The second part will probably involve different furniture/storage solutions, painting the walls, etc.)

I have been using a large, wooden entertainment armoire for storing my fabric, but it's not a great solution, since it's too deep and has too few shelves. It also doesn't have enough space for my current fabric stash, so some of it was going into plastic bins which I put under the tables. This made things a bit scattered and disorganized in nature. So I decided that all the quilting cottons would be organized into file boxes, and the garment fabric would go into the armoire. I have been ironing quilting cottons, folding them, and organizing them by color or style into boxes for months now (I started in August). I also organized the smaller pieces, fat quarters and scraps, into boxes by color and style. I basically finished that part of the job this week. Yippee!

I cleared out the fabric from the plastic bins and reorganized it. I put the costume fabric back in the bins and other garment fabric in the armoire. I also cleared out part of a second entertainment armoire (that previously held my herbs) for more space for the garment fabrics.

My patterns had been jumbled together in big plastic bins, which really wasn't working for me. I put all my patterns in clear 9"X12" envelopes (excellent suggestion by Q -- we found them at Staples). This makes all the patterns the same size (pattern envelopes vary WILDLY by size), allows for more space to put the pattern pieces away (the tiny envelopes are so annoying in that respect) and it means they all fit well into file boxes. So I put each pattern into a plastic envelope and organized them by type into file boxes. Later on, these will be transferred into file cabinets, when we get them.

I also put works-in-progress into plastic bins -- one bin per project. That way, all the elements of the project (fabric, thread, pattern, beads) are all together, and I can pull out the project, work on it for a while, and then put it all away.

I also spent some time just clearing off the tables and putting all the stuff away, which I hadn't done in a while, and I found a better spinning caddy for scissors and rotary cutters.

So it's pretty much as organized as it can get without adding additional furniture or shelving. What I have learned from this endeavor:

• A major reorganization takes a long time.
  
• I have a LOT of fabric. The quilting fabrics filled 10 file boxes, with an additional 9 photo boxes of fat quarters, and ~7 document boxes of small scraps. The garment fabrics filled up 1 1/2 entertainment armoires, along with 3 medium plastic bins and 2 large Rubbermaid bins.
  
• I don't enjoy ironing fabric for hours on end, although television helps.
  
• I have a LOT of unfinished projects.
  
• I have a LOT of patterns. It took 5 file boxes to fit all the patterns.
  
• I have too much stuff for the current space/storage solutions to fit. :( I was really hoping the reorganization would allow me to put everything away somewhere, but it is not possible at the moment, so there are still bins which have no place to go, and it makes the place look messy. :(
  
• Did I mention that I have a LOT of fabric? I may even have . . . too much fabric . . . although it pains me to even consider such a possibility.
  
• I really still like most of my supplies -- there were very few things I really wanted to get rid of or couldn't imagine myself ever using. I like most of my fabric. I like most of my patterns. I have pretty beads. Although there is too much of everything, I'm still attached to it and unwilling to get rid of it.

The conclusion is clearly that I need to actually make more time to sew and use some of these wonderful supplies I have amassed. And I shouldn't buy any more fabric unless there is a very very VERY good justification for it. One of the good things about the new organization system is that it means that every new piece of fabric requires a certain amount of work (ironing, folding) in order to come into the studio. Since I basically dislike that part of the work, maybe I won't be so eager to buy anything new for a while.

Now back to grading student papers, and then out to dinner with Q. The latter is far more fun than the former.

Overdoing it again . . .

Too many hours of gardening today . . . hurty hurty! Still not done, either. *Sigh* But it was a lovely day and now we have more flowers in the garden.

Too much time on your hands?

Try creating creatures from bed linens and towels! Martha Stewart, eat your heart out.