Check this out!!

My cousin Billy runs a website called Avdenture Journey, it is very cool, you can find a link to it further down on my page. But his little brother Joey is doing an awesome expedition and blogging it on his site. He is traversing 20,000 of Asia in an attempt to raise money for a wonderful charity. Check it out http://www.adventurejourney.net/expeditions/20000/

Just Doesn't Make Sense

I have always known that I was just strange, but once again I have proof.

Most of you experienced the dreaded springing forward of daylight savings time this past weekend. It always makes for a rough weekend and it is everything I can do to remember to change the clocks and make sure I get to church on time on the following Sunday. (Thank goodness for cell phones that change automatically)

Anyway, this year, it wasn't bad at all. I was up on Sunday morning, a little later than usual, but that is to be expected when a whole hour of my night just disappears. Still, I had a Sunday morning meeting and had no problem making it to that on time. I was up late Sunday night, but still had no problems getting up on Monday morning, got to work a few minutes early and had a pretty decent Monday.

But this daylight savings thing finally caught up to me this morning. I totally slept in past my alarm. I was almost an hour late to work, and I have been dragging and trying to catch up all day.

With any luck my postponed "daylight savings drag day" will end soon and things will be back to normal tomorrow.

I liked it!!

This past Friday night I went to the special preview night for the Chicago Flower and Garden Show. Work sent me, it was the charity night so you pay a lot more for your ticket and don't have to deal with the crowds. Which is nice cause usually the place is totally crowded.

Anyway, Diane and I were walking the show where there were elaborate displays, tons of color, and some truly creative work. Oddly enough we agreed on what we thought was the most striking bed of the show. As usual for me it was also one of the simplest.



I just thought that this bed was a great example of contrasting textures working together to add interest. There are only three plants here and they are all very common, Algerian Ivy, Huchera (some lime green variety), and Asparagus Fern. So simple, but still so stunning!

Or maybe I just loved it cause it is all GREEN!!

I'm excited for this one . . .

With the arrival of March I am anxious for Spring. I planted a ridiculous amount of bulbs last fall but there is one that I am particularly excited to see in the next month or two when it comes up.

It is called Allium schubertii . . . I love alliums, but this one is a little different, and as normal for me I had to go with the funky one. These are planted in my front flower bed right by the front door. I am counting down the days till I get to see them.

But, alas it is still winter for 3 more weeks and then the Spring weather will probably be slow to come, but still . . . these give me something to be really excited for and something to look forward to. I planted a lot of tulips, hyacinths, muscari, and daffodils too, but I will share those with all of you when they come up in the Spring.

Is it pink or purple?

Quick background here . . . I have one of my full time seasonal color employees that works with me at my office and we collaborate with the two designers on staff a lot. We help eachother a lot by just talking things through and getting eachother's opinions. We work a lot with color and combining colors and just a lot of collaboration.

Anyway, today one of our designers was working on a project and had shown me a plant that I didn't really have any experience with. Well the lady that works for me is a perennial flower guru and knows them all. So they two of them were talking and we were pulling up pictures online and trying to figure out some others plants that would accent this one well in a garden.

The conversation got funny and I realized that anyone listening in would probably think that we were a bunch of loons. We were discussing how pink/purple this flower is. After a long discussion the consensus was it is more pink than a purple but more purple than a pink. Not fuschia, still purple, but a purple with pink tones and not blue tones. I am thinking that I might need to send a request to the people at crayola to ask them to come up with a nifty one to two word name for this color.

If anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them.

By the way, the name of the plant is Stachys officinalis 'Hummelo'.

Non-Existant

Wow . . . I used to be really good about this whole blogging thing. I have been really involved in some private blog forums the past couple months so I have ignored my own. I'm sorry folks. I promise to write something soon and update ya'll as to what is actually going on in my life.