it was a naughty - and nice - year

Not my usual post, but I thought I'd share some Christmas cuteness before the year is over.  I was at the mall a few weeks ago when I came across a lady selling homemade dog scarves.  Since my dogs love being festive 😆, and I like supporting small business, my dogs got an early gift of style.

I couldn't resist the naughty or nice scarves, especially since I have one dog of each kind; and everyone in my family knew exactly which scarf was for which dog, no questions asked.

Here they are, in all their Christmas cuteness:

(Yes, they are looking at a cookie being held over their heads.)

In case you are wondering what qualifies a dog as naughty to Santa, I have an illustration:

This is the scene we arrived home to a few weeks ago, after attending a Christmas concert.

Just like everyone knew who the naughty scarf was for - with no questions asked - we all knew which dog did this, whether we saw it or not.

That's Wizard with the broom.

You can see the innocent dog watching from the corner.  That's Shiloh.

We all knew she was simply an observer.

And naughty or nice, they both got a treat from Santa for Christmas dinner; 

some "crap from a can" mixed in with their kibbles.

They love the unhealthy questionable stuff as much as we do sometimes.

And finally, one last pic, just for cuteness overload:

The new kitten got some bells.

They lasted about a minute before we took compassion on her and removed them.

(They are loud!)

This is Nala.

Fingers are crossed that they all make it to the nice list this year: no running away, no destruction of objects and no pointless barking.  I imagine they'll make it about two hours.

And I imagine I'll love them anyway. 💕

the weirdest Christmas present ever?

It was a lovely Christmas season.  And I received one gift - that I absolutely loved! - that may be the weirdest (grossest?) gift I've ever been given...

So here is a little backstory: every year on Black Friday I take myself antiquing.  It's always a nice, quiet day in some other little town where I just wander around, eat leftover Chex Mix from a plastic container, enjoy Christmas decorations and imagine the histories of all the objects I'm perusing. 

This time I was at a favorite antique store in Shelbyville, Tennessee.  While I was at the store, I found something I really, really loved.

It was a vase full of fake flowers, but it was no ordinary vase.  This vase was HUGE.  It was about 18" tall, made from thick glass and very heavy.  (Read: it was very solid and also due to it's slightly wider circumference at the base, would be difficult to tip over.)  It was a wonderful vintage green color with a basket weave design.  I saw it and not only loved how it looked, but thought it would be perfect for all my tall cut flowers, in particular my lily trees that grow about 6' tall.

A vase tall enough for these flowers, and also heavy enough to not be tippy is something I really haven't seen before.  I just loved it.

Not seeing a price tag, I asked the shop owner how much it was.  She actually had a pair of them, she told me, but they were not for sale.  They were for display only.

This was disappointing, as I was prepared to pay for these.  I was even ready to leave the cheap zone, because I really, really liked (and kind of needed) this vase.

So a couple of days after I got home I decided to try and find the vase on ebay.  After a couple of failed search attempts, I finally had enough of the right key words to find one.  It was listed at $60 plus shipping, and I was pretty sure it was identical to the one at the store.  (The vase was unmarked, and I still don't know who the original manufacturer is.)

So I sent the listing to my husband and asked him to order it for me as a Christmas gift.  He did.

Christmas morning I opened the huge box, which was packed very thoroughly to safely ship a tall, heavy glass object.  As I pulled the paper away, there was my vase.  I noticed it was really filthy.  Obviously the seller had not bothered to clean it before packaging it.  Then I noticed something down in the bottom.  In the midst of the dirt, it looked like maybe plant debris.

My son looked inside.  "You don't want to know what that is," he informed me.  So I got out my camera for a clearer look.  And it was....two dead mice.

Yes, two dead mice were in the bottom of the vase that was so carefully packaged and shipped.

Yes, the seller - who had photo'd, listed and wrapped this item - had NOT BOTHERED TO REMOVE TWO DEAD MICE from inside of it.  And I thought sending something dirty was lazy.

Well, having grown up in seasonal cottages, and spending years cleaning filthy rental properties (and one foreclosed house - it was bad), I am pretty hard to gross out.  I've seen a lot.  And I've scraped up and removed mice in every possible state of decomposition.  So I guess the seller chose the right person to put his minimal effort in with.  There was no screaming here.

But still...really?

Maybe now I really have seen it all.

Actually, after my (wonderful) husband hosed it out for me outside, I spent a little time wiping it down inside and out with some vinegar.  I couldn't believe the change.  What I had thought might be a lot of scratches on the glass turned out to just be ground in dirt.  My vase was sparkling after a little vinegar wipe down.

Here is the vase after I got it all cleaned up.

I just love it's vintage design.

I was really surprised I was able to track it down online.

Here's what I first saw when I unwrapped the packaging.

What I thought were a lot of scratches in the top of the vase were just dirt.

But what is that in the bottom?

These poor fellows jumped in and never made it out.

I guess I should be glad they were just bones.

If you have ever smelled a decomposing mouse that still has any skin left, it's not very pleasant.

And here was the original vase I saw in the antique mall, in all of it's fake-flowered glory.

The owner did not want to sell this "display."

(It was even worse when she told me she actually had two.)

Well, it was the first - and hopefully the last - time I've ever had dead mice wrapped up and given to me.  It is a gift I will always remember.

I'll finish this post with a few pics of the reason I'm so excited for my "new" vase:

Here are a couple of my lily trees in past years, when they were still not as tall as the 6' fence.  (Now they are taller).  They also multiply over the years, so I'll have more stems to cut.

These lilies need a tall container!

And since a few of my lily trees have downward-angled flowers, a taller vase helps you see and appreciate them more.

Lily season is one of my favorite seasons!

I'm looking forward to a new year filled with more flowers! 🎕

We haven't frozen yet!

It's less than a week until Thanksgiving, and for the first time ever in my memory, we have not hit a freezing temperature yet this fall.  I can't remember a time where we even made it to the month of November without at least one overnight freeze.

For someone who likes growing plants outside, this has been a lovely anomaly.  I still have flowers blooming!  Not a lot of them, but there are a few (not chrysanthemums).  I actually just moved all my outdoor pots in for the winter yesterday, as the overnight temps are getting close enough to freezing to warrant it.

What was still blooming in my yard in October?

I got two new Dahlias this year, "Mystery Day" (above) and "Cornel Bronze" (below).

The flowers were huge, and the Cornel was formed as a perfectly round ball.

They were so pretty!

A friend of mine who loves Dahlias got me interested in growing more; I also love having something beautiful that blooms so late in the year, when most everything else is slowing down or finished.

Another new plant I got this year was this "Peacock Orchid."

It was a cool surprise; it bloomed in the middle of summer, and then again in the fall. 

The foliage looks just like the foliage of gladioli, but the plants make multiple flowers.

One blooms, and then another, and then another...

My order contained ten bulbs, but since they're supposed to naturalize and multiply, I gave a few away to gardening friends, and planted the rest in different spots.  

I'm hoping I'll get bigger clumps in the future!

The plant below is a variety of Goldenrod called "Seaside Goldenrod."

It bloomed into the beginning of November!

I saw it on the side of the road when I was running in Florida last February.  It was very short, and I was wondering what it was, so I pulled it up and ID'd it.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that not only was it a Goldenrod flower, but it is a really pretty and non-invasive form of the flower.  I have always loved Goldenrods, but they spread aggressively.

Not only is this not supposed to spread so quickly, but it's supposed to be zoned for where I live, so hopefully it will survive when I plant it in my yard.

I actually found one in North Carolina a few years ago, but it didn't survive when I brought it home.

This one is doing well in a pot!

I'm hoping I can grow a nice patch for my cut flower garden in the future.

This one was a surprise - I still have Tuberoses blooming today!

I planted them in pots years ago, and after the first year, I got foliage but no blooms.  This continued for several years, till I finally googled how to get them to rebloom.

The answer?

Well, apparently it's hard to do, and many people said to throw the bulbs out and treat them like annuals.  One suggestion was separating the bulbs, because they get crowded as they multiply.

So I removed a couple of bulbs and put them in the ground.

They both bloomed in the fall, with multiple flowers growing from each bulb.

Wow!

I'm curious if they'll make it through winter, as I don't think they're zoned for Tennessee.

I've always put the pots in the basement in the winter, and the bulbs have always survived.

So we'll see.

Tuberoses smell amazing. 💗

These last two plants, the Scarlet Sage (above) and Mealy Blue Sage (below) I also collected in Florida last February.  These two are also annuals in my zone.

But they are blooming their little hearts out this fall.

I put a division of each in a pot and set it in my garage for winter; I'm hoping they come back for me in the spring. 

Over the years my enjoyment of gardening has grown, and I never had many flowers after August.  I've been discovering the plants that bloom into fall: Dahlias, salvias, asters, begonias.

I'm always planning my future garden in my mind, so I'll have to make sure to include a lot of the fall bloomers.  I love having something to see in the fall.  My hydrangea is blooming too.

I've never seen hydrangeas blooming in November before!

But freezing temperatures are in the forecast for next week, in fact, the overnight low is supposed to be 23 degrees ten days from now.  I'll enjoy it while I can!

A tree of blessings

I like to be surrounded by things that have meaning.  I think that's why I've never been very interested in buying new stuff.  I've always preferred things from the past, that have some kind of story, or, even more, things that I've made or that someone else gave to me.

This is why I could never have a "decorator" Christmas tree.  Going out and buying a bunch of themed ornaments at Wal-Mart, or color-coordinating a tree I'm sure would be fun to put together, but it wouldn't be the same as our Christmas tree with all of it's personal ornaments that we've collected over the years.

I love to look at our Christmas tree and see ornaments that were made years ago, or that a friend or family member gave us.  We've also collected a lot of ornaments from our travels.  Since we don't need a lot of stuff anymore, we usually try to find an ornament on our annual vacation and make that our souvenir.

On that note, I thought I'd share a few sentimental favorites and a pic from the trip where we found them:

Here is one of our oldest ornaments, a streetcar that we bought in San Francisco.

And here we are in front of the Golden Gate bridge.

We went to California on our honeymoon; 25 years ago!

I bought this one in 1995, before I'd ever even bought a tree.

It's an olive wood angel I bought at a shop in Jerusalem, when I was studying there.

Appropriately, it says, "Peace."

If only!

This picture is from Qumran, in one of the caves where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered.

Here's another one I bought in college.

It's a handpainted paper mache ornament from Taos, New Mexico.

I love the artwork!

New Mexico!

I spent a semester studying in Colorado; my family came out for my spring break and we went to New Mexico for a few days.

This sweet little donkey is made out of bread!

I was part of a mission trip to Ecuador in 2000.  While there we visited a village with interesting little shops, this particular one sold lots of Christmas decorations made from bread.

I have a little bread nativity too!

Look at me!  I'm straddling the equator!

This is at Mitad del Mundo, the "Middle of the World."

My little hula dancer from Hawaii 💗

This two-week cruise with my parents was a trip I will never forget!

And finally:

I love the look of this key ornament from Biltmore.

Here are my son and I at Biltmore last November.

It rained in the morning, but was still just a perfect day.

The house was decorated for Christmas, and so was the green house, which was an unexpected treat for a plant lover to find!

There are so many more...but those are a few of the memories that come to mind when I look at my Christmas tree.

I like to be surrounded by happy memories.  It's a reminder that life is good, even on a day when it seems like maybe it's not.

Our Christmas tree is a reminder of life's blessings.  It's a week past Christmas, and I've got to take it down.  I hate to do it!  It's like packing, putting it together is way more fun when you have something exciting to anticipate.  Taking a tree down, like unpacking, mean's the party's over.

Time to get back to reality.  Onward and upward!