Gardening firsts

Not that this year's home garden is our first, but it is by far our most extensive. The vegetable garden is hubby's project while the flower garden is mine. I admit that hubby does most of the manual labor and I simply decide what I want and where I want it to go.
This is the first year that we have really taken the garden seriously. I am now the proud owner of my very first bloom FROM SEED!! It is an annual called Nasturtium, shown below. We have many other items growing from seed, but this is the first to have a beautiful showy bloom.

Our next first in the garden is our brand new rose bush. I got it yesterday at Witherspoon Rose Culture. They were having their Annual First Bloom Festival where all rose bushes were on sale for $15! One of the experts there helped me select an excellent bush, choosing it based on its overall balance, not the number of blooms. She told me exactly how to plant it and what fertilizers to use on it.

This is probably the best it will ever look, so I'll share photos now.

It is a hybrid tea rose called Peace.

Best gift ever

To those who know me even slightly it is no secret that I love chocolate. My philosophy is that every meal deserves to be followed with dessert in the form of chocolate. I am constantly buying chocolate to ensure I have a steady supply. I am also given chocolate regularly. For example, even though I’m a grown woman, my mom still gives me chocolate in my Easter basket and in my Christmas stocking every year. Friends will often bribe me to walk their dog or pick up their mail when they are out of town in exchange for a bag of truffles.
Recently, a dear friend of mine drove from Durham to NYC. She passed through Hershey, Pennsylvania on her journey. She brought back with her a gift I have wanted all my life, but never received: the giant Hershey’s Kiss.


I have known people who have received a giant Hershey’s Kiss before as a gift. I have always been secretly jealous. Then, as if to rub it in my face, they don’t ever consume the giant Hershey’s Kiss. They let it sit on their mantle as decoration. Or perhaps it gets lost or neglected (gasp!) in their pantry. I consider it a felony.
The giant Hershey’s Kiss is no ordinary Hershey’s Kiss. The nutrition label says it feeds five. It is huge. Here I have placed my ginormous Hershey’s Kiss beside a Sunkist grapefruit for comparison.


I have now photographed the Hershey’s Kiss so I’ll have a memento of it. I have proof that it once existed. It will now be greedily consumed. Thanks Pam!!

Just like riding a bike

Whoever made up the metaphor “just like riding a bike” was mistaken. We may have all at one time in our young lives been very experienced at riding a bike. But at that tender age we were trained by our parents how to do it. We wore helmets and never strayed far from our neighborhoods. To get right back up on a bike nowadays isn’t as easy as “riding a bike.”
The muscle memory just wasn’t there when I attempted to go bike riding at the Outer Banks this weekend. Yes, I could still pedal myself forward at a slow speed, but I was ungraceful and unbalanced. My rear end, my hands and my belly ached for the duration of the bike ride.
I’m not about to deny that the experience was fun. I’m just going to call it what it is: unnatural.
There’s something about going on vacation to a small coastal town on the eastern side of the United States that makes tourists want to rent bikes and ride them. The people who usually decide to ride bikes are the same ones who would never consider working out back at home sweet home.
I’ve now experienced two biking disasters while on vacation:

The attack of the bush
Hubby and I were biking early this past Sunday morning on a well-paved sidewalk through the town of Duck. We biked a little over 5 miles. Hubby was ahead of me by about 4 yards. We were enjoying views of the sound, of shallow, marshy ponds, and of nearby beach mansions when suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant honeysuckle bush leapt out onto the path in front of hubby and tackled him to the ground. IF hubby had been facing forward this MIGHT have been avoided, but he’s not to blame. The bush was out to get him. Hubby seemed fine after the fall, walking away with a bruised ego. The cars passing by surely had a good laugh. But it just goes to show that sometimes adults need not ride bikes.

Alligator Pond
While visiting Hilton Head one summer, my mom, my Tia Irene, my sister and I all rented bikes and went out exploring through the island. My sister and I were still young and well-versed in the ways of bicycling. My mom and my Tia Irene were not. The biking trails along the island are a smorgasbord of fun. You can meander along the beach, through little swampy areas, through town, and trek deep into the woods. You can easily get lost, as I’m sure we did. But what sticks out more than anything else was our approach on Alligator Pond, a body of water with a clearly printed sign stating the dangers of the pond’s ecosystem – aka alligators. There was a wide, two-lane bridge going over Alligator Pond. My Tia Irene just failed to get on it and plunged straight into the pond on her bike. We were all scared for her life, sure an alligator would eat her. Once again, it just goes to show that sometimes adults should steer clear of bikes, or at least of ponds known to house alligators.

For the Memorial Day weekend, hubby and I were invited to our friend Becky's beach house in Duck at the Outer Banks. Duck has all the beauty and serenity of your typical North Carolina beach but has the added bonus of picturesque villages, biking trails, and lush magnolia trees, mulberry bushes, and honeysuckle.

Feather on the beach

Great Dane on the beach. He was so friendly and made me miss Paxton the dog who was back home in Durham staying the weekend at the kennel.

Giant Great Dane paw prints.

The Great Dane paw prints beside a normal dog's paw prints.

One of the small shopping villages of Duck overlooking the sound.

The marsh at the sound.

Sun setting over the water at the sound.

Chocolate ice cream being eaten by a pregnant woman at the sound.

Pregnant woman's husband eating ice cream along with her so she doesn't feel as guilty.

Another sunset photo taken at the sound.

Some of our fellow beach goers (there were 9 of us total).

Mark and hubby staking out a prime piece of real estate for the giant sandcastle I wanted to build.

The giant sandcastle in its completed state.

Hubby and I proudly standing in front of our masterpiece.

The boys (Mark, Micah, hubby).

The girls (Aimee, Hannah, Katherine, Meredith, me, Becky).

Hubby and I before dinner.

Hannah, Katherine and Micah.

Splashing waves at sunrise.

Goodbye beach...

Memorial Day Tribute

Here's a small photo essay to honor our fallen military service men and women. I took these photos at a cemetery on Fayetteville Street in Durham. This particular cemetery displays mini flags on Memorial Day, Flag Day, the 4th of July and Veteran's Day on all the graves of those who died serving our country.

Lost

There is a running joke in my family about ‘shortcuts.’ Often you’ll hear my mother ask, “Should we take a shortcut?” The question is always sure to be met with groans, followed by laughter. “Noooooooooooo...don’t take a shortcut!,” my sister and I will always protest.
It wasn’t always this way.
We moved to Morganton, a very small blip of town, when I was 6 years old. It’s not so small a town that I could give you a stoplight count or anything, but it’s small. We had lived there maybe a year or so – enough time had passed that we should have all been able to recite every street name in the town; its tiny grid should have been burned into memory.
Sure enough, one evening as we were leaving a restaurant, my mother behind the wheel, my sister and I in the backseat, my mother asked, “Should we take a shortcut home?” There was optimism in her voice. She seemed excited about the small journey ahead.
My sister and I were too young to know any better, so we gave my mother a thumbs up. What should have been a 5-minute drive home slowly became a 40-minute frantic journey through a maze of streets in Morganton. I think back and will never quite understand how it happened that we got lost. But we learned from that experience to never go on a shortcut with my mother ever again. We had been introduced firsthand to her not-so-good sense of direction.
Now two decades later I’ve been informed that my mother’s sense of direction is even worse than I gave her credit for. She promises me that the following fact is true.
When we first moved to Morganton it took her 3 WEEKS to figure out which direction – left or right – to turn out of the driveway. THREE WEEKS!!!!
I am now even more grateful for the invention of the Garmin. I honestly believe it is the only thing getting my mother from point A to point B.
I love you marmie!

How could you?!

For those of you who have read my blog for any period of time now, you've been previously introduced to my niece Madeline. She is now 9 months old and has offered to be my guest blogger for the day.

Hi, my name is Madeline. My Tia Mel calls me Magpie though. I hung out with my mommy, my Tia Mel, and my Mimi this past weekend for Mother's Day. We had a blast, even though I was sick with a fever and double ear infection.

My mommy has recently been experimenting with my diet and attempting to feed me a few solid foods. She just put a small bite of cantaloupe in my mouth here.

Wow. This stuff is slimy and yucky and flavorless. Not at all like the pureed chicken and rice I am used to.

I think I just puked a little bit in my mouth.

This is miserable. GET IT OUT!!!!!

Please stop trying to feed me the cantaloupe. I won't take a moment more of this treatment.
Thank God those crazy women finally stopped feeding me the cantaloupe! Why is everyone laughing at me when I'm so obviously grossed out?!!!

Since I'm growing baby teeth, my mommy sometimes gives me carrots to nibble on. They help my gums feel better. I'm shoving this one in Tia Mel's face to show off that I have a carrot and she doesn't.

This doesn't taste as good as I remember.

Look, I'm still cute even when I make a disgusted face.

Okay, yep. Add carrots to my list of foods I don't like.