spoken for

I think I’ve really only mentioned it once, probably due to lack of posting, but my father-in-law was diagnosed earlier this year with lymphoma. I’m happy to say that this past week he’s officially in remission. He had to do several rounds of chemo and four long weeks of radiation. He held up pretty well, especially when compared to other people I’ve seen with cancer, and he’s doing good. And his hair is even growing back rather quickly (despite what you see reflected on his son’s heads, he had some thick, full hair before all of this).

The other day, in a little mini-celebration (until we can do a bigger one) of his remission, we went over there and took a cake I’d made. I totally screwed up the outside and due to the icing trying to melt on me and then running out of time, I didn’t get to fix it, but the inside was what was important. I called it “After the Storm” – just like a rainbow comes out to remind you that everything’s a-ok, so comes his remission. He cut the cake and was VERY surprised to see the inside and called everyone over to see. Everyone had a piece and thankfully it tasted good, too. I have to admit I used box stuff, but I’m not ashamed. Like is said on this inspirational post, “Betty’s been doing it way longer than I have, and has pretty much perfected the art.” I am so not a baker. Maybe if I had a kitchen that was bigger than a closet, things would be different, but in the meantime, I don’t but I’m happy with how the cake came out. I did make some mistakes that if I do this another time, I won’t make them again. It also had E bouncing off the friggin walls… no left-overs for him!

And I wish my father-in-law many, many, many more years of good health and a cancer-free body!

Saturday I had a little mini-shoot with Sheila. Here’s my absolute favorite shot from the day. If I must say so myself, it came out stunning in black and white.

I’m going to try and blog more of my shoots, hopefully I’ll remember. :) Here are a few more of my favorites.

It was quite fun, she really is a natural, completely comfortable in front of the camera. You can’t even tell it was about a bazillion and a half degrees when we were shooting. Can’t wait to shoot her wedding in September!

I used to adore morning glories. Now they just annoy me, any time I walk out my door! I was blaming this on the year my sister-in-law and I planted a bunch here but the ones that are annoying me now seem to be a wild breed. Instead of the large blue or pink flowers, they have tiny white flowers… when it actually blooms. In past years, that’s how it’s bloomed, I’m not sure if it is blooming this year, or just growing absolutely out of control.

Last year with everything happening and all the hospital stuff, the weeds in the boxes here got really out of hand. I ended up paying a friend’s son a little something to just rip everything out in the early fall, and I mean everything. But the morning glories, they have come out again. I started out in the spring with good intentions. I was pulling them out every time I’d find one but I missed one day and it was a big job then I was gone for a couple of days and there was no turning back.

Now the box in the back is just totally over-grown with these stupid things. We have a tall metal stick thing to hang a bird feeder on, I think it’s completely covered. I only had 2 gladiolas peek through and I wouldn’t be surprised if the one remaining rose bush is near death.

But I decided, as horrible as it looks right now, I don’t care!! There is no way I can manage this, it’s absolutely insane. So when fall hits, the idea is to just totally re-do everything. Totally dig it out, dirt and everything. I’m not sure how effective this will be but maybe if I can get rid of even the good stuff, when the bad stuff starts peeking out, I can get rid of it. If I can do that, maybe I can prevent it from getting out of control and seeding next year, even if it means a year of NO vegetation in the back box.

Plus, I have another motive. Out front we have a rather steep hillside that’s pretty much useless. For example, when it snows, you could sled it but you’d end up in the middle of the highway. Technically, we don’t own that land, it’s state land, the easement to the highway, but apparently we have to take care of it anyway. We did find when the lawn mower was broken for a couple of weeks that if it gets too bad, the highway department will weed hack it but they don’t do a very good job. Steve has been annoyed by the hillside of death ever since we moved in. He mows it but a few years ago he came up with a new idea and planted some ivy.

The idea is to get the ivy to grow on the hillside and no one has to mow it and risk their life in a battle of wits with a mower or weed hacker. So he spent a whole $50 gift card and a lot of time on ivy… that subsequently croaked. Dead as a doornail.

Then he tried some he found out at his mom’s, dug it up and replanted it. Most of it has died.

The little bit that survived? The guy who mows the neighbor’s lawn thought he would be “helpful” and mowed 3 feet into our side and cut it all down. Steve had to tell him, hey, dude, I’m trying to grow something here…

So I thought – and I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this before – why not let the already out-of-control wild morning glory seed out then plant or at least throw the seeds on the hillside? The way this thing grows, if no one messes with it, it could work. Of course, when fall comes it all dies off and turns brown, but who cares?! Everything is brown in the fall and winter. When spring comes, it’s so hardy that the green will soon overtake the brown again.

It would be so nice if this would work. And in my sleep deprived mind, I don’t see why it shouldn’t work. After all, so far my brown thumb grows morning glories so well that I can’t get rid of them. Would be easy to mow it at the top of the hill so it doesn’t extend too far, but the biggest pain with cutting the grass would be over. So we shall see what we shall see. Oh it would be really nice too, to fill the ditch alongside the highway so the trash people throw out of their vehicles doesn’t clock the pipe that goes under the road. Dirty litter bugs. :P

(Seriously, why should WE have to pick up YOUR trash because you are too LAZY to take it to a trash can? I don’t want to touch your spent beer cans, ew!)