So, living in a newer subdivision has it’s perks. Like new houses that come with landscaping. I was very excited about this as I have a black thumb. I have never been able to keep a plant alive. Ever. I even killed a corn plant, which I was told was very hard to do. Nana’s beautiful plant (we don’t know what it was, but it was so big and beautiful). Yep, I killed it. When we moved in here, Mom bought me a gorgeous planter for the front yard. This is my fourth summer here and I cannot keep anything alive in there either. I swore last year, I was going to fake flowers. It didn’t happen and our current flowers from this year are struggling already and it’s not even summer! Anyway, all this to say, I was so excited to see bushes and trees already flourishing in our yard. Then one bush died. So we replaced it. We replaced it with a hearty bush from Cheri. It was already well established and looked so pretty. We watered it, babied it. It lasted one summer. Then it died. Then another bush died. Arg! We are NOT having good luck with bushes. Now, I probably have a black thumb because I know nothing about trees/bushes/flowers. Nothing. But I have enough going on with my life, learning all about plants and trees just isn’t going to happen. However, you can’t have dead bushes just sitting there, so here we are trying again. We went with a pretty little hydrangea bush with gorgeous white buds. I wanted color added to our green bushes. We planted it with love and care. It’s been in for a couple of weeks and while hoping for it to make it, it began to change.
Turns out, hydrangeas turn colors, pink or blue, depending on what’s in the soil. Very interesting. So, now, they’re a gorgeous blue. I was actually looking at them tonight, and they’re even more blue than when this picture was taken a couple of days ago.
I’m trying not to get too attached to this pretty bush. But blue is my favorite color!! Maybe if it dies, I’ll just keep buying new bushes each year.
Even though I don’t know much about plants, I do know of a few I do not want. One of them is a hosta. Mom used to have a ton of them and they’re just too plain for me. And I think their flowers are awkwardly ugly. So I swore, no hostas. For the other bush that died, we found a cute plant that said it was a lily. There was no flower yet, and I mentioned its leaves looked hosta-like. But I was excited to see this special lily once it bloomed. We brought it home, planted it and I now know that hosta flowers are plantain lilies. Really? Ugh. Oh well, I guess some look different than others, so we’ll see what we get next year.
My ugly hosta
Figures, they’re almost impossible to kill, I hear.
12 years ago, we bought our first (and probably only) brand new car. It was my gorgeous, silver Protege. I test drove it once and knew I wanted it. I don’t name my cars, but I always wanted a great name for this one. It really became part of our family, and served us well. It was the best car and we knew we would drive it into the ground. While Shannon has been through three cars, I kept this one. I never wanted to replace it. Until last year. It started having brake issues, so we replaced parts. Then other parts went bad. Then it had idling issues. It was going to cost a lot to repair them and I decided with the boys getting bigger, I wanted a minivan (much to Shannon’s dismay). In December, I stopped driving it and traded vehicles with Shannon because it died every time you came to a pause or stop. I was just exhausted from driving it. However, we decided to limp it along (literally!) until the Taurus was paid off. And now the time has arrived! While I love my new minivan, I did feel a little sad leaving my car at the lot. I felt like such a traitor. So this is in honor of my silver Protege. Goodbye, No Name.
