The Husband

Dream A Little Dream

/ Ally Bean / 25 Comments

Zen-Den knows me well.

He was sitting in our study, shopping on the Williams-Sonoma website with the purpose of buying the Breville Electric Pie Maker, which I had decided we needed.  [More on the Pie Maker after it gets here & we use it a few times.]  I was in another room but he called for me to come into the study to see what he described as: “this is what you’d buy if you won the lottery.”

And what he showed me was, indeed, EXACTLY what I’d buy if I won the lottery.  I’d buy a Kitchen-Aid Mixer in a different color for every month of the year.  Heck, if the payout was large enough, I’d buy a different one for every week of the year!

Just because I could.

So, here’s my question to you:

if you won the lottery, what would you buy for yourself that your pre-lottery-winning-self would call an extravagance?

The Tale Of The Potted Pothos In The Pretty Pot On The Porch

/ Ally Bean / 17 Comments

ONCE UPON A TIME ON A FINE SPRING DAY… the lady of the house went to the store and bought a small pothos.  She brought it home and planted the pothos in a beautiful terra-cotta pot that featured smiles & dots on its rim.

The lady of the house was very happy with how her new pothos looked in her favorite pot, so she put the potted pothos in the screened-in porch of her home.  There, the lady of the house was certain, the potted pothos would thrive.

 And it did.

WHEN SUMMER CAME UPON THE LAND… the lady of the house decided to take her early morning mug of coffee onto the screened-in porch, sit in her favorite wicker chair, sip her java and gaze upon her potted pothos in the pretty pot on the porch.

And all was well in the land.

UNTIL ONE MORNING… the lady of the house realized that there was something new & different about her pothos.  That during the previous hot, humid night the potted pothos had changed in a very weird way.

At first the lady of the house did not like this transformation.  In fact, the man of the house suggested that she get a paper towel and immediately remove the strangeness from her favorite potted pothos.  [Please note that the man of the house was not put out enough by the strangeness of the potted pothos transformation to do anything about it.  He merely suggested to the lady of the house that she should do this.]

But the lady of the house ignored the man of the house’s advice and decided to look very carefully at the mushrooms that had formed on her favorite potted pothos.  As she did this she realized that the mushrooms were a pretty shade of yellow that just happened to match the tiny yellow stripe on the pillows in the screened-in porch.  Such attention to detail delighted the lady of the house.  Yes, the mushrooms were an interesting development to be sure.

And suddenly the lady of the house had an idea.

FEELING THAT THERE MUST BE AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS TURN OF EVENTS… the lady of the house found a link to a webpage that explained exactly what was going on with her potted pothos in the pretty pot on the porch.  She discovered that her beloved potted pothos had a fungus called Leucocoprinus birnbaumii, aka Lepiota lutea, the yellow houseplant mushroom.  Further she learned that this fungus, which had created these yellow mushrooms, was harmless as long as it was not ingested.

And there was learning in the land.

AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE… the lady of the house had absolutely no intention of eating these mushrooms.  Or of letting her precious morning mug of coffee come in contact with them.  The lady of the house had common sense– and then some.

So she let the yellow mushrooms be & allowed them to go through their 48 hour [more or less] life cycle.  During which time she enjoyed the unexpected, color-coordinated bit of beauty that they added to her potted pothos in the pretty pot on the porch.

And once again there was peace in the land.

THE END


My Weekend Summarized Into Two Sentences

/ Ally Bean / 18 Comments

√  When asked what color they stained their deck, she replied:

“It’s a color called– NOT THE ONE I PICKED OUT.”

√  While in the process of staining the deck when asked by her husband where she was going, she replied:

“I’ll be back.  I just need to change my clothes– BECAUSE I HAVE TOO MANY SPLINTERS IN MY BUTT.” 

… So how was everyone else’s weekend.  Did we have fun?

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{Photos added 05.22.12 for Margaret… because she asked.}

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{Please Note: the deck color that you see here is a warm pearl gray instead of a light golden oak as originally planned.  Fortunately our bricks have a gray undertone in them + our siding is SW Agreeable Gray so this “NOT THE ONE I PICKED OUT” color coordinates just fine.  No harm done, really.  In fact, Z-D really likes it so maybe it was meant to be.}

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Hope Springeth Eternal In A Garden

/ Ally Bean / 15 Comments

The dianthus & salvia are in full bloom now.  After last autumn’s heavy rains that turned this planting bed into a mud pit, I didn’t know what to expect this spring.  But obviously the combo of rain + mild winter temperatures made for healthy plants with particularly intense colors.

Funny how things can work out for the best in a garden.

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We planted this false blue indigo last summer but it didn’t thrive.  In the fall I was ready to pull it out because I thought that it was dead.  That’s how pathetic it looked.  But Zen-Den, who has much more patience with gardening than I do, said “let it be.”  He was right because look how vibrant this plant is now, and it’s not even in full bloom yet.

I just love being wrong about things like this.

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I adore zinnias but have never had much success growing them from seed.  In fact a few years ago in a fit of frustration I said that I’d never try to grow them again.  But then I saw these starts at a garden center for a whooping $1.29 each, and I figured at that bargain price I had little to lose by trying once again to grow zinnias.

Wish me luck.  It could happen, right?