Then the little children would heat copper coins on the stove and press them against the glass until the roundest of holes would melt in the ice; through each of these peeped the lovelies little eye: one belonged to a little boy and the other to a little girl. His name was Kai and hers was Gerda.

I love snow!

Since the semester is over, and more than half the population of the town is gone, I have a feeling there will be no rush to clear the roads.

Going up the hill…

Going down the hill…

Why yes, I did marry a mutant. Michael reads the instruction manuals on EVERYTHING.

I’m the one that refuses to read instructions or ask directions.

But who cares about instructions? I’ve got cinnamon bread rising right now!

Well, exciting and expensive.

Saturday we got a new range. 30″ Kenmore Elite Range (white). Michael researched everything in our price range, and this was the top rated stove we could afford. It’s got five burners, five racks, and convection.

Even better, we got it 12 months same as cash. (Here’s not never paying interest!)

It’s to be delivered next Sunday.

I’m wondering how many things I’ll ruin till I get used to the convection?

Today, I got a new laptop.

HP Pavillion dv6, and 18 months same as cash for payment. (Woot!)

Getting a laptop was almost more complicated than buying a new stove. You see, I’m a lousy typist. So all those laptop keyboards with the page up/page down etc buttons to the right of the enter key are a nightmare for me, since I’m constantly hitting them. That significantly reduced the number of options available; primarily to Sony, Asus, Lenovo, and HP, and not all all models of those brands.

After spending an evening looking at specs and reading reviews, I had a couple models I thought would be good.

Since Amazon didn’t have any of those models with 6 or 12 months same as cash financing, we wandered off to Best Buy, where they had the Sony, Asus and HPs I was considering, but no Lenovos. Which is too bad, because for the most part I have liked my Think Pads (though my favorite, the T41, was actually made by IBM before they gave the Think Pad line to Lenovo.)

After about 20 minutes of back and forth, I finally settled on the HP Pavillion. 15.6″ screen, and extended keyboard.

I’m in love!

Of course, I’m tying this on my old old desktop in the basement, since I’m supposed to be down here doing bills.

Including all the ridiculous purchase we made this weekend.

Perhaps I’d better get back to this bills…

We’ve lived here for 8 years, and today we got our first (and so far only) trick-or-treater.

We’ll ignore the fact that her parents had to drive half an hour to bring her, and just enjoy how adorable she is.

We’ve apparently had the right amount of rain and perfect temperatures here for fall color in my yard.

Burning bush and sugar maple.

Sugar maple–my favorite tree in our yard.

(more…)

Last year I moved the black eyed susans; they seem to have taken off after their relocation.

I’ve been planting sunflowers at the back of my herb garden. Hopefully the desperately needed weeding and thinning out I did today will help them.

It’s been raining quite a bit here in Morgantown (I know, shocking) so despite the recent heat, the flowers are doing quite well.

We have two Rose of Sharon plants on the hill in front of the house. They are not growing as quickly as I would have expected.
(more…)

I have Black Eyed Susans along the driveway where the bulbs come up in the spring. It works out quite well, since they black eyed susan foliage comes up just as the leaves of the bulbs are starting to die.

It is somewhat amazing this bee could even fly.

I still have some day lilies blooming.

Firecracker flower with aster in the background.

I’m still adoring my new camera.

On the garden end of things, we haven’t had rain in awhile, so I’m actually having to make sure to water my flowers or I’m going to lose some of the my hydrophillic ones. But it’s not too painful a task, since I have a soaker hose set up.

Balloon plant. I love the color of these flowers.
(more…)

My day lilies are almost all blooming now. Last year I moved one cultivar to the front of the house, and when I picked up three new varieties at the WVU Greenhouse this year, I took the opportunity to move some other flowers out so most of the day lilies could be in the front bed.

There are also several species of Asiatic lilies blooming, but as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like them, and really don’t like their smell, so I’m not too excited about trying to get close to photograph them. I may move them next year, because their scent is overwhelming.

Jasmine. This is a potted plant I put on the deck every summer, and every winter I wonder if it’s going to survive the basement and the cats.
(more…)

All the rain we’ve had has been great for the flowers.

Coreopsis

Astilbie

Day Lilies

Coreopsis (with hawt bee on flower action!)