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You have found the homepage of the Garden Lady! News pages will fill you in on what's wrong in the world, my aim is to share what is right with the world through my camera. It's a BEAUTIFUL world out there. Life...a blessing, gift and a 'Magical Mystery Tour'.... Come on out and play! MAY 13, 2012 Beautiful sights and another reunion!  Like the view? That's looking out the atrium doors into the garden where the azelia is in full bloom. I got that plant as a gift from my sister not long after we moved in so it is about 28 years old. The weather has been beautiful the past few days and the rain we had before made the weeds a lot easier to pull. Still a lot of work to be done and pretty soon I can move the plants that wintered in the sun room to the great outdoors. In other news...aside from the reunion with my best friend from high school, I got an email from my cousin saying he was coming up for a contract interview in Albany. If you remember, he contacted me last summer after finding me through a post online in a group at a social networking site. I had not seen him since I was about 16, and he 13. He lost track of the family and researched for many years and then one day that post - in which I had talked about my grandmother - caught his attention. He joined the site and sent me a private message in which he said a couple of things that made me realize it was not a joke, and signed it with his first name. Since then, we have emailed back and forth and finally met for lunch last week. Sometimes, the internet can be VERY useful. For now, I think I will head back out to the garden and pull a few more weeds. Have a great day! April 30, 2012 Reunion!  Had to post this one! About 2 weeks ago, on a whim, I searched Facebook for one of my best friends from High School. Not knowing her married name or where she was it was a long shot. But, since we both liked a local business (though she lives quite a distance from here) her name came right up. I checked her profile, sent a message and we reconnected after about 43 years! She comes up regularly to check on her folks and just happened to be coming up last week. To make a long story semi-short, we got together while she was here, and caught up on the basics. It is so good to find someone you had thought about over the many years! And now, we will be in touch. Otherwise, I went to Jackson's Garden on the Union College campus today for some pictures and I have other pictures that need to be made into pages for here. All in good time... April 26, 2012 Mark Rust returns!  I have a few pages I need to get up online here at Gardenlady, but one I wanted to post first was the page for the Mark Rust Coffeehouse on April 22 at the Retreat House. Mark, a talented performer from Woodstock NY and a friend of the Retreat House plays a benefit once a year and many of us, familiar with his great music, love to stop by and enjoy an evening listening and singing along. If you couldn't get there, pictures are linked below! Click here for Mark Rust Coffeehouse pictures. April 18, 2012 Catching up  How's that for a beautiful sunrise? It was my birthday present from God...taken from the top floor of the windmill around 6:20AM. The retreat went well and I came back on my birthday, unpacked, did laundry and we went out for dinner. AND - we broke a record high at 91 degrees in Albany. Quite the day, actually. Yesterday went back to normal temperatures and wind, and my friend Pat and I went to Howe Caverns since Popp Conservatory is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Good thing we checked before we went to Oneonta! We had a good time...Pat had never been to the caverns and it's been a few years since I was there. We had lunch at a neat place called Grapevine Farms and got back around 6. Got a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my friends Eileen and Dave and dinner out on my birthday with hubby. What more could anyone ask? Today, I think I will get my flower pots prepared for caladium bulbs...they can go out in about a month. The plants in the sunroom are blooming beautifully. All we really need is rain as it is so tinder-dry. Odd, considering we were 13 inches OVER normal last year. April 7, 2012 Happy Easter  It is 6:30 PM this Holy Saturday. In about 45 minutes we will head over to church for the Easter Vigil Mass - the most beautiful celebration of the Liturgical year. Holy Thursday and good Friday services were moving as always and this morning I and about 15 other people went up and decorated the church for Easter - arranged the flowers, set up candles, put the programs on the seats. This afternoon I went to visit my 96 year old friend Hilda and brought her a plant, and visited for about 90 minutes. Tomorrow we will have dinner with our friends. Once that is done, I REALLY have to knuckle down and get my presentation finished. We are supposed to have some rainy weather so that will certainly help me keep my focus indoors. Spring is here, Easters' message is in every flower that opens, every tree that leafs out. Be blessed! April 5, 2012 The signs of spring  I took a picture of my grape hyacinth the other day and while looking at it on my monitor, I thought..."If I tip the plant back just a little, the openings look like little mouths." And, one thing leads to another, you know... The weather has been warmer than normal, but with some cold nights. Magnolias opened early and got nipped by frost. But many of the flowering trees are now opening up and even the maple trees are starting to leaf out...fully 2-3 weeks ahead of time. Meanwhile, it is Holy Thursday and the beginning of the Easter Triduum. Next weekend I'll be giving a day of retreat and I still have a lot of work to do on it. One thing I found, it always gets done. If I have any trouble with "blocks" they usually lift and all of my notes will come together into a real presentation. Lots to keep me busy, and in a couple of weeks the trip to Popp Butterfly Conservatory. So much to look forward to! March 25, 2012 Looking ahead  Our summerlike weather has left and it is seasonal now...actually, tomorrow night we will go down to 20. I am hoping people didn't get fooled by the warm weather and plant anything... Today, my friend Pat and I went to the Flower and Garden Show at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy. It's a yearly event, and this year was really nice in that there were a lot of new displays. We wandered around, stopped for a bite to eat before heading home. And now, it's time to roll into a busy time. With Easter just 2 weeks away, there will be a lot of work ahead with decorating at Church. I have a Nature Photography class that starts in a little over a week. And I have a retreat day the weekend after Easter. So the plate is filled to overflowing. But a day away like today is a lot of fun, and after I come back from giving the retreat my friend and I will head to Popp Conservatory in Oneonta for my annual Birthday Trip. Hooray. Welcome, Spring! March 21, 2012 It's SPRING!  March may have come in like a lion, but the past week we have been setting record highs, as a matter of fact we tied the record for most record highs in one month yesterday and may break that today and tomorrow. I've been getting the garden cleared out a little at a time. There is a lot of work to be done but it is shaping up! March 14, 2012 19 Years Ago...  This is the 19th anniversary of the Blizzard of '93. Looking at this photo - taken out the back door after the snow finally finished, it is hard to fathom as I sit here with windows open and we have set 2 record high temperatures and tied one in the past week. And just two weeks ago, we had a snowstorm. But the sun is out, some green is just beginning to show and it looks like we may miss our usual snow storm around St. Patrick's Day. It has been wonderful to be able to open windows wide and let the fresh air in. The whole winter, as I mentioned before, has been unusual. And now, Spring seems to be moving in early although things can always change. For now though I will enjoy the beautiful weather we are having and I figure the rain that is coming in will "green" things even more. March 1, 2012 In like a lion  After a relatively snow-less winter, we had our first BIG snowstorm of the season. From about noon on February 29 through today. I was thankful I didn't have to go anywhere, and was just able to be a spectator for a change. It's hard to say how much we had because it turned wet and really packed down but I would guess we easily had 8 inches of the white stuff. People had a bit of a time clearing it because it was so heavy but the streets are clear now, just wet and somewhat slushy in spots. Normally I would have been out taking pictures but I've been attending to a bad cold so my M.O. for the day was to take pictures out the window and watch the storm pass. By late afternoon it had really started to pack down and the snow that was falling melted when it landed. Someone said it is supposed to get warmer so it shouldn't be around too long. Past Entries - The Archives. |