Yet Another Hiatus

Wow, again, over a year since I posted!  I'm bad that way.

We moved!  Not far, only about 15 miles, but back to the country!  1.3 acres, near Gold Hill, Oregon.  It's like a park - a little creek out front, and a big green space with fruit trees all around.  Then the house, 3BR, we each have an office now!  And 2 baths, one for Sam, one for me, which is really nice after our tiny old house.  Nice living room and dining room, and a great room where the woodstove is.  Walk-in closet in the master bath, and almost double the square footage of our old house!  Then there's a nice backyard area, off the back porch, and down a little slope to the vegetable garden area.  Then a path over a footbridge and another little creek, and a huge back field, with a few trees and iris mounds.  O BOY, am I going to have fun here!!

We moved last July, and got it for a great price.  Our house in town is about to close, so that's great too!  And we are SO very happy to be back in the country, both of us were raised in the country, locally.

I will get some pictures together and get them posted soon, but we are really busy with Spring!!  HOORAY!!

I'm still alive!

So, we have a new internet shop, La Casa di Lupini.  The garden and patio shop died a natural death, it was not profitable at all, in fact, we wasted a lot of money on it.  We opened the new shop last February, and have done well so far.  

We have a house and garage, and 2 storage units full of artwork, books, china, jewelry, orientalia, native american baskets and other lovely things - all left to us by our families.  Some pieces going back to the 1800's - so I've been doing lots of research!

My husband's mother passed 2 years ago, and my mother passed last year, so we've been very busy dealing with estates, lawyers, moving furniture, etc...had one huge house to empty, and one small apartment.  Goodwill made out like a bandit!  And all the keepers from my mom's house had to be moved about 300 miles to here.  Two trips with U-Haul trucks, and I still gave tons of furniture away to her friends there in Lincoln City, Oregon.

Here's some pictures of her beautiful house and garden:

That was in January!  Lucky coast dwellers!   The house sold quickly, thank goodness.  I would have loved to live there, but it's in a VERY restrictive Home Owner's Association.  As in a 3-page list of rules, including you cannot play music at ANY hour of the day, which can be heard by your neighbor.  And they have a nice little color chart showing the colors you can paint your house (pick your favorite shade of brown).  My Dad fought them tooth and nail to be able to build that lovely deck!  Needless to say, I could not live there!

That's about it for now, but I'll sure try to get on here more often...Happy Spring!

(old photo from Mama's garden in summer.)

WOW, since March I've not posted!!

Yep, that's when the hot flashes started...I'm about to be 52 years old.  The night sweats were the worst - I could not sleep, and seriously thought I was going to lose my mind.  The day-time ones sometimes made me have to lay down, as I would get dizzy.

I tried several herbal products (I hate pharmaceuticals) and no WAY would I consider hormone therapy, but I finally lucked out!

Complete Balance, manufactured by Natrol.  Available online - I found it on sale at my local Rite Aid.  It's not expensive, and after ONE FULL MONTH of taking it, I am SO much better, it did not kick in until a month on it though...just ordered 2 more months worth at Swanson, online.  I've been on it 2 months now.

In other news, I'm busy dividing iris, and doing general fall cleanup - and cat wrangling.

Snow Day! (sort of)

Snowball Bush (Viburnum)

We got our annual Late February Last Snow last night - I awoke to a light dusting - so beautiful before the traffic starts moving and the streets get ugly.  I sure wish it snowed here like it used to when I was a kid.

They keep saying Global Warming is a crock, but I know for sure it's warmer on average here in the Rogue Valley now, than it was 40 years ago.  We used to get at least a foot of snow

Work and Fun and Games

Clematis 'Nellie Moser'

Yes, it's been awhile since I posted here - I've gotten lots of work done, and had some fun, too!


I spent 3 days going thru my shop inventory, deleting some things, and adding a bunch of new things, while at the same time creating a database for my inventory.  The software for my website does not allow me to sort and print my inventory as I would like, so now I have it all on a thumb drive in a spreadsheet.  This will allow me to sort by distributor (I have 4 different ones), making it easier to check inventory.  Time well spent!

We have a real muddy area at the back of my side yard, and I cannot get any sort of ground cover to take root there, despite repeated attempts.

Spring Really Is Coming!

The first Snowdrop

I was out enjoying a rare, sunny afternoon yesterday,     

raking up the last of the leaves and doing some other 

general clean-up when I spotted them!  Snowdrops 

(Galanthus), blooming in my front border!

That is always the first sign of spring, here in Oregon, and a welcome sight they are.  They inspired me to check out the rest of the yard more closely, and I found many more signs that this strange winter is finally coming to an end.

Tax Time...

UGH - I've spent the last two days getting all the papers in order for our new CPA, we meet with him Thursday.

I've always done my own taxes, and last year I did 3 years worth of refund returns for my wonderful lazy husband, in addition to my own!  We got married in Sept. of 2009, so filed separately for that year.

A Side Effect of Quitting?

So my husband Sam quit chewing tobacco.  Hooray!   And his dentist is happy too.

It's been about a month since he chewed, however he still has the occasional cigar, maybe 2 big ones a week, and one of those little cigarillos daily.

But the last few days, he's been experiencing a strange thing - several foods have "tasted like tacos"!  Foods that really should not taste like tacos -