Life's better on the porch . . . .

For those of you who are Starbucks frequenters, you know that the theme this summer has been all about the porch at Starbucks. The games, the coffee cups, the drinks with raspberries and pictures of porch swings all represent relaxing times around home. Greg and I do a lot of porch sitting, and this is the time that I enjoy my flowers the most. They smell nice and attract the butterflies and the buzzy bees, and they generally give me a lot of pleasure. This post is just to share some of my pretties with you, and to show Dori that the plants I adopted from her are happy campers in their new home on our porch and deck.

The first one is my hibiscus, which I bought a couple of years ago at Home Depot to fill in where we took out a shrub by the front porch. The first two years, it managed to hang on and to show one or two blooms. But this year, it seems to have decided to make a home. There are about 100 buds on it, and they are opening up a few every day to impress me and dress up the yard.

The poinsettia and the hanging basket are also out on the front porch where we sit after work to read the paper and watch the neighbors coming home from work and decide what's for dinner. The rocking chairs with the striped chair pads and the papasan chair are great vantage points for all these activities. Just to the left of the poinsettia is our herb pot with basil and chives and marjoram and rosemary. This is convenient so that I can pop out with the herb scissors and snip some seasonings for the meat or vegetables when we cook. MMMMMmmmmmm!

We haven't totally abandoned suburbia, because we still have the deck on the back of the house with our table and chairs and our grill. Although we sometimes eat so much cheese and crackers on the porch that dinner is abandoned, the "real meals" we eat outside are usually on the deck in the back off the kitchen. We scare the birds away from the feeder and sit back there at our table. Dori gave me this daisy, which looks like something from a Van Gogh painting in the middle of the table, don't you think?

Happy summer! Starbucks is right. Life's better on the porch.

A busy month for Oma!!

It has been a really busy month, and I am way behind on my blogging. Melanie had a birthday on August 8! She was a great age . . . 22! My baby is a lovely young woman. Greg and I went to Columbus to see everyone and to take Melanie out to dinner for her birthday. I forgot my camera! It was unbelievable. So you will just have to imagine the wonderful dinner we had with Melanie and Drew and Brian and Emily and Katy and Greg and me at the Cap City Diner. There is no such thing as a bad meal there; and we got a GIANT piece of chocolate cake with a candle. We sang Happy Birthday and shared the cake and then went home to sit on the porch.

All summer long I have been working on a benefit for Sojourner House along with my co-chair, Michelle Reese, and a small committee of dedicated team members. We held our event at Pittsburgh's finest restaurant, LeMont, on Mount Washington overlooking the city on Thursday, August 16. It was called Jazz Explosion at LeMont because we had jazz musicians to provide music and entertainment and there were fireworks at the Pirates baseball game at PNC Park that evening. The picture here is of me with our new executive director, Joann Cyganovich, at Lemont last week. The evening was beautiful, and we raised over $30,000 for the families at Sojourner House. So I was very pleased.

On the physical activity side, Greg's boss gave us a membership to the Oxford Athletic Club in Wexford near the church! Greg and I have been going there and getting fitness assessments and starting to work out with the weight equipment. That is a lot of fun and makes some of the aches and pains go away! It also helps my golf game because it gives me some upper body strength. I signed up for a women's golf clinic on Saturday afternoons for 4 weeks. The second one is tomorrow on chipping and putting. Last week was on driving, and I ended up ordering a new driver from the Internet as a result of the clinic. I don't think I can afford to buy a new club after every session, but hopefully I will learn to use the ones I have a little better.

I have a couple of sewing projects in the wings. I made a skirt last weekend and started on a pants suit that I cut out last spring and never finished. But my biggest project is a winter coat for later in the season. I got some lovely wool/cashmere coat fabric from Sawyer Brook in a lovely geranium pink. It is very soft, and I can't wait to begin this project. But I need to finish the pants suit first.

Finally, we have been having dinner with friends and hanging out with our home group. My friend, Dori, moved to Seattle and gave me a number of her plants when she moved. So I have been enjoying my new adopted flower children. The rain over the last week or so has brought out a number of blooms for the late summer perennials. And one more week until Labor Day! Where has summer gone?

Sew, Sew, Sew . . .



Here is the outfit I sewed recently from the "Potting Shed" fabric I bought from Sawyer Brooke. It is difficult to see in the picture, but the fabric is predominantly shades of green and tan with threads of pink and lavender running through it along the grain. The buttons are pearlized in a beautiful shade of taupe. I worked on this a couple of weekends ago and have worn it once. I would have worn it more, but the long sleeves have been too hot. Anyway, I asked Greg to take this picture so I could send it in to Sawyer Brooke for their web site showing creations with their fabric.

I am currently looking for the perfect wool fabric to make a simple wrap coat with princess lines. I looked last winter and never found anything that I liked. It cannot be plain or any of the "safe" colors like navy or black or camel. This coat is going to take some time, so it has to be "shazzam" fabric that is a little unusual. In the meantime, I will amuse myself with pulling weeds out of the flower beds and finishing up the pants suit I started last spring and didn't finish in time to wear before it was too hot for the jacket. Sew, sew, sew . . . .