Monday, August 10, 2009

Pink Tulip Has Moved

Due to unfortunate circumstance, Pink Tulip has been transplanted to another site. If you still want to follow her time in the sun please feel free to either drop me an email or comment on this post with your email address (I won't publish the comment...) and I'll forward on the new address.

Thank you for all the love, water, food, sunshine and everything else that helped this beautiful flower bloom!

Love to all of you,
Pink

Monday, July 27, 2009

Tiger Lily is home!

Tiger Lily is home finally and I’m so happy she is back. She had a great time playing with her cousins, shopping, riding horses and just being on vacation. She flew home by herself and even had to change planes in Houston. She was rather offended though that someone had to escort her between gates but…in true Tiger Lily fashion she managed to get the guy driving the cart to stop along the way so she could get something to eat. As always she managed to make friends on all the flights as well. On the way out she sat 1 row in front of my sister and before they had even left the gate she already knew the names, where they we going and why of both her seat mates. On the way back she met someone who works at Fannie Mae that showed her his house along the Potomac as they flew in (my favorite route!!). She told me we need to go visit him sometime at work…. I wish I had her gift.

Our week is somewhat up in the air, she leaves Thursday for a long weekend with Ted so no camps. We are hoping to get a manicure/pedicure in today and she is getting her hair cut tomorrow. We are also hoping to squeeze in a movie and a bike ride. I’m flying to SC Thursday night and we will both be home Sunday. She then turns around next Tuesday and flies to Iowa for a week to spend time with more family. She is looking forward to time with her grandma and is hoping to see her brother and sister-in-law (she is supposed to email them to let them know she’s coming but…). Again, she’s flying by herself and I can hardly wait to hear about the new friends she makes on this trip. After this trip the rest of the summer will be with me. We have some busy times ahead and a few trips planned as well to look forward to.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Friday, July 24, 2009

Getting ready for a quiet weekend

So, Tiger Lily is still visiting my sister, my oldest nephew and very good friends are all off to a crab feast and my SC friend is spending the weekend on the softball field with his kids which means… I have no plans for the weekend!!! Lately I’ve been so busy I need a short breather!!! I’m also all banged up with a bum ankle, an eye infection and a leg full of spider bites so maybe a few days of rest wouldn’t hurt.

Have talked to Tiger Lily multiple times a day and she’s enjoying herself but has had a few dramas along the way. She lost the ring I bought for her at Tiffany’s last Christmas just before she left and almost lost the necklace we bought during our shopping day in May! My sister actually had to have one of her employees break into her office at 8:00 at night to make sure the cleaning crew didn’t clean up the necklace—not sure having an employee break into the boss’s office is a good thing…. She has also reached the point where she realizes that having thick curly hair isn’t so great—she can’t get a comb/brush through it some days without a struggle (I feel her pain) and she called today asking if I would make a hair appointment so she could cut it all off. We'll see if she actually goes through with it, as always I'll post the "new do". She will be home Sunday (yippee) and will be home for a few days before she heads off for an extended weekend with her father. August is already shaping up to be just as busy and I’ll update everyone on all her plans in the next few weeks. I don’t think she’ll be home for a weekend until sometime in late September (she has already started planning a trip for my birthday). Her fall schedule is also beginning to shape up and I’m starting to get emails about volleyball and acting class already. My fall is also filling up with trips planned to give talks in Chicago and New Orleans (two of my favorite cities!!!), to visit family and a couple of races that I missed out on last fall.

For those of you that have signed up for the Army of Women, thank you. They are looking for women to participate in a study in the Baltimore area if anyone is interested. Blood draws and a few other minor tests are the only procedures listed Again, these are all studies designed to determine the cause and hopefully prevent breast cancer. They also are listed in the causes section on Facebook and a big thank you to all my FB friends that included this on their pages. I’ll stop bugging everyone soon, I promise.

Whether is quiet or busy I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Lake fun and concert screams

We are just about recovered from our weekend (actually, Tiger Lily was recovered by Sunday evening since she flew out yesterday morning to visit my sister for a week). We had a good time as always. The weather was a little chilly (still haven’t figured out why July is so nice this year!!) but the kids still got in the water and enjoyed riding on the inner tube. Tiger Lily even went fishing with a few old friends.

So, Taylor Swift…. She puts on quite a show!! The opening act is Gloriana which sings the song “Wild at Heart”, Tiger Lily knew it. The second opening act is Kellie Pickler and she opened with a rather significant song for me. She sang for about 45 minutes and included several introductions to her songs. I enjoyed the fact that about half way through her set she kicked off her 4 inch heels and ended the set barefoot—I would have lasted about 10 minutes in those shoes…. Of course, Taylor Swift was greeted by an entire civic center of screaming girls (it was hard to find many men in the crowd) and she opened with the song Tiger Lily sang in the talent show this year. Her show was about 2 hours long. About halfway through her set she repositioned herself in the civic center and sang a song in the back, walked through the crowd to a stage in the center, sang a few more songs and walked through the crowd back to the main stage. Along the way she hugged the fans, smiled for pictures, and even thanked many of the people for coming to her concert. For a 19 year old girl she handles herself with a sense of grace that many people twice her age still haven’t mastered. We stayed until the very end which was well worth it since the end of her encore has a surprise (won’t tell in case anyone gets to go see her in concert). I will also say that for the first time at a country concert I actually wished I had brought hearing protection (yes, after not being able to hear for two days after a White Zombie concert I learned to always take earplugs to rock concerts) since she has several guitarists that are definitely fans of Edge (lead guitarist for U2).

My week ahead is quiet, Tiger Lily will be home Sunday and of course I really really miss her. She called last night to say it was 112 degrees and really hot!!! They are not having the lovely weather we are having… Hopefully I can catch up on all my chores, work in the yard and finish up my chair this week.

Have a good week.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Army of Women

I have a new cause to talk about which I found out about at work since the founder of the movement, Dr. Susan Love, is coming to give a lecture next week.

The cause is The Army of Women (website is www.armyofwomen.org). This is a new movement to recruit up to 1,000,000 women to participate in a wide variety of research to try and discover the cause of breast cancer and also to prevent it. They are looking for women from all walks of life (there is a study looking at lesbian women, a study specifically for African American women and a study looking at the benefit of yoga for survivors) as well as survivors and healthy women (not that survivors aren't healthy...) to participate in the studies. If you're interested please join, if not please pass along the website to someone who might be.

As always, early detection is the key to survival but prevention would be so much better.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Happy Summer

Hope everyone had a good weekend and is having a great week.

I ended up going to Stonewall Jackson Lake last weekend where I am lucky enough to share a boat with some great friends. It was a very low key weekend and my friend from SC ended up riding his Harley up to join us as well. We spent most of our time motoring up and down the lake and enjoying the scenery. We also got in a winery tour and an evening out and about. I missed my Tiger Lily though and am happy that we are going again this weekend.

Tiger Lily had fun at the beach and came back very tan although the tan is now peeling away as I think it started as a burn. Hopefully we can get back some of that tan at the lake this coming weekend. She is in swimming camp this week and had a great time the first day. She was very tired at the end of the day though… We got tickets to the Taylor Swift concert Saturday night so our weekend is full with the lake and a concert.

We have company coming later this week (my sister) and it’s always great to have her visit. She even gets to go to the lake with us!!! I’m looking forward to some relaxing time with her—she works too hard and needs some down time!

Have a great rest of the week and I’ll post a picture of us from the lake (or the Taylor Swift concert…).

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Home again

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July.

My trip to South Carolina was great and I enjoyed seeing a part of the country where I’ve never been before. My fireworks show this year was put on by my friend’s children as SC is a state that allows fireworks. Several other neighbor’s also stayed home and enjoyed their own shows so the neighborhood was filled with fireworks. We went on several rides on the Harley and I can see why people enjoy riding so much—but boy the seats aren’t designed for passengers. The city he lives in has a revitalized downtown area so we rode there one night and had a glass of wine on a patio overlooking the river that is central to the redesigned area. Our second ride was in the mountains near his house to Starbucks. Obviously, we don’t fit the “Harley” stereotype… All in all it was a relaxing weekend spent enjoying time together.

I haven’t spoken much to Tiger Lily and miss her terribly of course. She was in a parade on Saturday and enjoyed herself! She is actually coming home earlier than planned (Monday, yippee) because of her father’s work schedule so I will post all the stories next week.

Hope everyone has a great week. Since Tiger Lily is out of town mine will be filled with longer hours at work and plans to go into DC for Happy Hour one night. I’m off on another adventure this weekend and will post more as the week progresses.