The Best Things in Life

I spent a lot of money over the years, trying to have roses like my parents had, a beautiful rose garden, with a huge variety of colors and sizes. I would do everything right, feeding, spraying, covering them with mulch in the winter, only to have very limited success in summer and all of them dying over the winter. I had given up until I saw some roses for sale a few springs ago at the hardware store. They were $1.99 each, so I bought three, thinking six bucks for a few roses that summer was a bargain. Here they are three summers later still alive and blooming for the third or four time this year! I do little more than dead head them and they have been spectacular.

This is one of the many sunflowers that pop up all over the garden, a gift from the birds that drop them randomly as they eat. This actually is growing in a huge pot by the pool. I have culled them back in the garden to a manageable amount and there are a couple of small plots that I fill with sunflowers from a few packages I bought in the spring. It makes for a sunny display at a time when the garden is shutting down as we race toward fall! (It is 59 degrees this morning, no pool again today. I'm having serious withdrawal.)

This is a spiderman afghan that I have started for Baby D's 2nd birthday. Not sure I will have it completed by the 6th of September, but I'm going to give it a try. I knew hanging on to all those skeins of Reynolds Utopia that I have had in my stash for years, would come in handy some day!

Cheap, free, stash diving, it's all good!