JANUARY AT ITS MOST... UHM...

Hello snow!   We hardly saw you last year, so you decided to visit early and often this winter.

This is my world in black and white, and instead of seeing it from the kitchen or the bedroom window, this time I'm in the midst of it, after an almost two-hour drive from Philadelphia.

No matter how scary the drive, getting home is its own recompense.  

And hot cocoa is the added bonus.

There's been more snow since this photo was taken, and I never posted any of the amazing Fall colors we enjoyed this past year, so here's to you, fluffy, lovely, marshmallow, as long as I'm inside, you can bury us in your beauty.  

JUST ANOTHER BUNCH OF FLOWERS

And I will never cease to be amazed by the glories that come from my little patch of paradise.  

Finally one day without storms!  Time to do some pruning in the jungle that has grown unchecked during this most definitely tropical summer.  Clippers in hand, the fearless gardener braves the heat, the humidity and the hordes of mosquitoes while trying to bring some semblance of order into nature gone wild.  A little snip here, a little snip there and voilá!  Before the blood suckers get the upper hand, she's heading to the compost pile.  But wait, let's think this through...  Uhm, this already looks like a hand-tied arrangement!  So into the house they go, where they grace the kitchen table for a long week.  I do love my life! 

OLD FASHIONED

Back in my little island, a sweet little bunch of flowers like this would be called a "pucha".   The word has the special connotation of something hand made, in the old style, carried by a sweaty, gritty little hand as a special gift for a beloved grandmother.   The flowers are exactly the same that those little hands would have cut; crepe myrtles and vitex are staples of old-fashioned gardens in the tropics.  The vase belonged to a grandmother years ago.  And there was a grandmother long ago who taught this gardener that even dead flowers are enchanting.  

NOT YET BLUE

Here is a little sprig of that little thug, porcelain berry.  This one is a variegated variety acquired through a plant exchange and guaranteed not to be a rampant weed.  The jury is still out when it comes to its invasiveness but when those berries turn from green to porcelain blue...  

BLUE CHAIRS

A work in progress to camouflage an ugly spot.  Eventually this wall will be opened and French doors and a deck will look onto the garden.  While patiently waiting, something needed to be done and this little vignette was  the solution that occurred to me.  The blue chairs and blue shepherd's hooks came from the Christmas Tree Shop and the trellises were waiting for me at a supermarket I never visit.  Serendipity.  As it has rained cats and dogs for weeks, the baskets should be fuller in a week or so.  More later.  

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

After several days of terrific storms, Mr. Internet decided to take a vacation.  One week without cybernetics can be harrowing, and because of a recent operation I was under absolute orders to be lazy.  No hours of closet organizing, no going through books to donate, no HOUSEWORK of any kind.  Is life good or what?

This 50 cent cutie took the edge off idle hands and became the banner girl for my philosophy of life.  It was a pleasure to make something colorful and creative, and she gracefully presided over a gathering of friends who were invited for cake and Pimm's.