179 out of 182

The landscape design was drawn up last summer.
Our friend Debbie did a WONDERFUL job creating our garden.

We patiently waited through fall & winter to begin implementing the plan...

Let the transformation begin!

We borrowed our neighbor's Tundra & loaded up every available spot with the plants on our lengthy list. Well, we got almost all of the plants. We have 179 out of the 182 plants required for the garden plan. We are waiting for our local nursery to sell us 3 pots of Bee Balm. (The girls don't really like this photo because of their sun grins. I think that the plants are grinning, too.)

Some of the favs: Coral Bells, Liriope, Daylilies, Ajuga,
Hydrangea, Geranium, Peonies, & Hostas

Even the back seat of the pickup got loaded up!

This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago --
we only had a handful of plants in the ground at this point.

Lots o' pots!

Millie, Millie, oh, so silly, how does your garden grow? :-)

All three of the Smithlings have helped with this project, but I 

only have one photo of Millie in the garden with her daddy.

"We" still have irrigation work (Mr. Smith's specialty) to complete & lots of "barking" to do, but you can pretty much see how the finished project will look. We are amazed at how quickly things are growing. Let's just hope that California has enough water to keep these plants alive! We're now ready for butterflies & hummingbirds.

Now that you have seen these photos, you know why I have not been adding any new items to my blog this month. I'm in the garden & not at the keyboard.

Wow! It looks as if I need to get our lawn boy out there to give the turf a trim... I guess we have been too busy playing in the dirt to notice that the grass is tall!

Double Duty

Double your pleasure, double your fun... 

We've been summoned!

Mr. Smith and I BOTH have to report for jury duty. He's up for the week of March 30th, and I get the first full week in April. What are the odds that a husband & wife get called one week after the other? I'm really looking forward to making that $15/day. :-) HA!!!

The silent treatment?

There has been a lot of activity going on within the Smith fam. the past several weeks, but you'd never read about it here. No news -- no updates. Nothin'.  I have been noticeably silent, huh?! Complain/reply/comment all you want -- I'm not going to read any of your responses, since I turned off the "comment" feature. I guess that was more of a rhetorical question anyway. :-)

We have all been busy with life, and sadly, I really do not have time for virtual stuff. I have purposefully not been spending a lot of time sitting at my computer lately. Why? 

(Note: Answers are not necessarily in order of importance.)

1. It's too nice outdoors, plus we have a lot of landscaping/gardening to do. We are implementing the lovely landscape design that our friend drew up for us. That will be a topic/slideshow for another blog entry. We have 33 plants in the ground and 149 more to go...
   
2. Mr. Smith has been traveling every week for the past month -- TX, MO, and AR. It takes more time & energy to do the single mom routine. (I miss that boy, but he'll be home later today. Hooray!) 
   
3. The red pen has a grip on my life, or I have a grip on it.  Ah, the joys of homeschooling! Liesey Lou has completed most of her work for the entire year, but she's (patiently) waiting to see what her grades are. I tend to wait to grade tests, quizzes, and papers until I have a stack a mile high to review. We start out the school year with things flowing a little more smoothly, but now that we are nearing the finish line, I allow things to literally pile up. I also have a LOT of grading for M's classes. Ugh! The good news? I am caught up on grading Millie's work. The goal is to be finished with school by the end of April or first week of May.
4. I have been taking time to read more books. At one point this past week, I was reading four books -- not all at the same time, mind you! I finished reading No (Why Kids - of ALL Ages- Need to Hear it and Ways Parents Can Say It) by David Walsh while I was waiting for the car to have its oil changed. It was an interesting read. As an added note, I have never had trouble telling the Smithlings, "No!" Just ask 'em. I also completed Food Matters by Mark Bittman, but this book will be revisited again & again for the tasty recipes contained in the final chapters. The other two books will remain unfinished, for now... Maybe I'll get them finished next week, if I complete all of my grading.
5. Lie to Me. We rarely watch TV at our house, but I happily allow this new show to steal away an hour of my time every Wednesday night. We have also watched an episode or two of American Idol this season, but it really is not that interesting to any of our family members.
6. I am trying to get back into the routine of walking a few times a week. Those dark dreary winter days make it hard to get out of bed, but now that spring is officially here, I have no more excuses. 
7. We are trying to plan a little birthday bash for a soon-to-be birthday boy. Who could that be? Fifty's nifty?
8. My Canon is throwing a hissy-fit. I don't know what's wrong with it. Honest, I didn't drop it. Spring broken? It refuses to take photos, so I don't have any images to download to iPhoto; therefore, I have nothing to show you. I am "allowed" to borrow Millie's lil' Canon, but I miss having my own camera.
9. There are more reasons, but I can't write EVERYTHING here!

So why am I sitting on my keister typing on my computer when I could be out enjoying the beautiful morning? I don't really know. I just thought perhaps you would like to know why I've been the unblogger this past month. 

Why are you sitting there reading this list? Hmmm... I will only have to imagine your response(s) since I'm not accepting comments any longer. :-) HA!!! (Imagine me with my fingers in my ears as I'm chanting, "La, la, la, la...I'm not listening, I'm not listening. I don't hear you!")

I challenge you to get up outta your chair & go enjoy the beauty & splendor of the real world. 

This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it. -Psalm 118:24

The Duchess Reigns

This is not a pretty picture.

Thankfully "our" Duchess looks NOTHING like the illustration from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Liesey's noggin is a normal size, & she's pretty;
however, she's got royal 'tude...
(The attitude was only for the photo shoot. No drama is allowed in real life.)

Placer Theatre Ballet had a publicity photo shoot today for Alice in Wonderland, and I was able to take some photos of my girl in her costume. I'll only share this one. She looks lovely -- nothing like the hideous character that Carroll imagined. Whew!

Three of Liesey's friends (L to R: Kyla, Chloe, & Anya) posed in this photo as Tweedle Dum, Alice, and Tweedle Dee.

I hope to get some photos of our ballerina girl in her Fairy costume. She gets to wear a beautiful flowing dress complete with colorful wings. I do not recall that Alice meets up with any fairies in the original version of the story.
Ah, but this is a ballet and it is a FAIRY tale. :-)

Stay tuned for more photos. You know how I love pictures!!!

Millie's Photo Gallery

Millie-girl recently downloaded her camera onto my Mac -- all 250+ images. Oh! There were numerous videos, too, but I didn't count those. Although my budding photographer has her own PC to store her pictures on, she just knew that I'd want all of her photos in my iPhoto Library. That girl LOVES to share!

Millie received her camera as a Christmas present from her big bro. & sis. It was the perfect gift for her -- I had no idea that a camera would get used so frequently. Most of the pictures she snaps are of our cats, Bartholomew and Jemima, but there are some other "interesting" things that she captures. I might be in trouble for sharing these images without the written consent of the photographer, but I simply couldn't resist sharing how our 10-year-old sees her world. I have added captions & comments to help tell the story behind each artistic shot.

Enjoy!!!

"Teamwork"

Millie's stuffed animals are attempting to keep a bear in a pink tutu from falling off the edge of the bed. This makes me think of Toy Story. At least she doesn't blow up her toys like Sid...

"Sweet"

"Shadows"

Okay, I warned you about the cats appearing in the majority of the photos.

Here goes:
"Stupid is as stupid does."


"Tastes just like Jelly Belly's ear wax jelly beans."

"Yuck"

"Splish! Splash!"

"Portrait of 'Mima"
I laughed as my girl staged this shot.
Miss Millie reminded me of Deb (Glamour Shots by Deb) from Napoleon Dynamite.

"Paraffin Therapy"

"A detected detector"

"$&¢"

"Oh, nuts!"

"Jolly"

"Oh!" (A self-portrait)

What's goin' on?

I have not taken the time to update the ol' family blog for a while. Have you noticed? When I started INOKWACA, I never intended to post details/tidbits about our family on a daily basis. Weekly? Maybe. So, I figure I'm doing well if I manage to get a few things written each month. Our lives are just not that interesting! If I don't think we are that exciting, why should you?! 

So, what IS going' on with us? Not much.

After several people twisted my arm, I created a Facebook account. It was really kind of entertaining for a few days. I reconnected with several long-lost friends, so that was a plus. As fun as it is, I simply do not have time to spend lurking in cyberspace to see what my friends & relatives are doing. If I check what's going on once or twice a month, that might be plenty of Facebook time for me. 

Life at the House o' Smith been good, despite the fact that Liesey was ill this past week. That girl rarely gets sick. She had a fever for a few days -- her highest temperature reading was 103.8 degrees. Yikes! Thankfully, no one else has caught the crud. Our ballerina is feeling well enough to take a dance class from 4-9 p.m. tonight. I am sure she will be tired after so many hours of dance. Or perhaps ballet will have some therapeutic value... 

Miss Millie continues to baffle our optometrist as to how she has perfect 20/20 vision when everyone else in the fam. is sooooo myopic! (We had eye doctor appointments this week.) Millie's a genetic fluke, I guess, or else she managed to draw from her grandparents' perfect vision gene pool & bypassed the "love is blind" genes her parents offered.

M&A Magoo are counting down the years until they will be old enough to opt for LASIK surgery -- or whatever the option will be at that time. It's been five years since I had my eyes corrected, and I am still seeing perfectly. I continue to be amazed that I am no longer "blind." I liken my LASIK experience to the story found in the 9th chapter of John regarding the blind man that Jesus healed. My opthamologist didn't use mud and spit... I'm so grateful (every day!) to see clearly w/out any correction. And the mono vision thing seems to be working out, too, as I do not need reading glasses. 

I met with Dr. Dutton, my radiation oncologist, on Tuesday so she could explain the results from my recent mammogram. Thankfully, it was great news that she had to share. I'm in the clear for another year!  It has now been three years since I completed my radiation treatment & was declared cancer-free. Hooray! I am participating in a breast cancer clinical study, so I get to answer "fun" surveys at each follow-up visit, and they also take digital images of the "treated area" to compare from past visits. Or perhaps they take the photos just to humiliate/embarrass me. The nurses always assure me that no one sees the photos besides my doctor, and they never fail to mention that my face is NOT in the photo. I smile, just in case. 

Next week Mr. Smith is up in the air again as he travels to St. Louis again. (Is St. L. still the "Gateway to the West" when one is traveling from the west to do business there? Or does it depend on which side of the Gateway Arch one is standing on?) Smitty has several trips scheduled over the next month to Little Rock, St.L., & Ft. Worth. This traveling man gig is short lived, so we don't mind it.

Life is good -- it's never dull --- but see, we really are not that exciting.

Guess what appointment I had this morning!

Millie Camillie :-)

Our young gardener made me smile by offering this beautiful bouquet of Camellias. She then went back out to the garden to find other things to add to this arrangement. There's not much to work with this time of year, but she managed to find a few flowers and decorative grasses to make it an interesting & balanced centerpiece. My Millie Girl is sooo thoughtful & creative!

It's been a fun weekend, but Monday is coming quickly. At least I've got pretty flowers (and a great family!) to help me ease into a new week. Yep, I am pretty much blessed.

A Flock of Flamingos

I'll bet you didn't know that when flamingos migrate, they do so mainly at night. (Oh, the things one can learn from using Google!) These bright birds can travel about 370 miles in one night at approximately 31-37 mph. 

Over the weekend a flock of pink flamingos landed on our lawn. It was indeed a nighttime migration. We do know that these birds only traveled about 7.5 miles from Daisy Court. Thanks, Youngs!

 I wonder where they are migrating to?  

In order to make 'em fly away, we merely needed to make a donation to "Avon Walk for Breast Cancer." For a $10 donation, the birds would be removed. For an extra five bucks, we could choose who the next recipient (victim?) would be. That's a pretty clever way to run a fundraiser, eh? 

Our neighbors were wondering what was going on with the colorful lawn art, so they also were willing to pay somebody to make the foul fowl vanish.

I wanted to contribute to this fundraiser since breast cancer research is near & dear to my heart (or someplace relatively close), so the birds are off to a new location. 

I do not know the gal who is raising money for breast cancer research, but I appreciate what she's doing. Check out her donation website & sponsor her, if you feel compelled to do so. I am sure that any amount will be appreciated.

Avon Walk for Breast Cancer

A little sleep, a little slumber

It has been reported that cats sleep an average of 16 hours each day. Zzzzzzz.... I'll bet that was a really fun job collecting the data for that research project. Ha! Although I have not conducted any scientific research on the matter, I would say that our two cats appear to sleep even more than 16 hours out of every 24. True, they are large and lazy beasts, but those are attributes of the Maine Coon breed that appeal to us. Bartholomew and Jemima are very low-maintenance, non-demanding pets. Quiet, too. That's only because they are asleep all of the time.

Purrhaps Millie could take this "cat nap study" on as a 5th grade science research project. Well, maybe not. I don't really care how much sleep B and J are getting. I know it's a lot more slumber than I'm getting. Just look at 'em.
I'm jealous. Nothing seems to bother these two kitties once they are asleep. Not so for me. I awoke again at 4:30 this morning, probably because that's what time I got up yesterday morning. My internal alarm just went off. And there, at the foot of my bed, lay a sleeping feline. Or maybe he was lying... ;-) It wasn't long before I began questioning the proper usage of lie, lay, lain. Arrrgh! Next I contemplated the horribly abused apostrophe. (But that's a topic for another day.) Then I tried to remember if I had really locked the back door before I went to bed. It's these kinds of silly thoughts that keep me from going back to sleep. It's really dark at that hour, and quiet, and kind of boring if you are the only one awake pondering proper grammar and such.

I know why the cats can sleep the better part of the day. They don't have to worry about word usage, punctuation, etc. -- their only concern is if the litter box is clean or if there is enough food and water. It's a rough life. They are both napping right now.

Our cats seek out the sunniest spots they can find for an afternoon snooze, but they don't need directions or a map to get to the land of Nod. They wake up just long enough to reposition themselves so as to stay in the direct path of the sunbeam. Why does warm sunshine make people/animals so sleepy? I have to admit that I, too, sometimes fall victim to the sleep-inducing properties of a sun-drenched sofa when Millie is reading her history lesson aloud to me, especially if I've been awake since 4:30 in the morning. Uh-oh! It looks like this afternoon is going to be a tough one for me. I'm sleep-deprived, and it's sunny. I just hope that I don't start snoring too loudly. I am my father's daughter, you know.