A trip to my 92 year old mother’s house is like living out the children’s book
If You Give A Moose A Muffin. My story goes something like this.
I’m not sure who to blame for the tomato plant saga – Billy Mays' replacement or my brother-in-law Guy. Somehow this wee woman found out about the upside down tomato plant bag thingies. She purchased not one but TWO of these oddities. (What is wrong with upright-plant-it-in-the-garden tomato growing?) So…we make a trip to the local quasi-farm implement store for tomato plants, but wait she also needs ‘fresh’ dirt (and is sure that 2 cubic feet of dirt won’t be enough to fill these two tomato bags), oh…and she needs a ‘few’ bedding plants and as long as we are here let’s get 40 pounds more of bird seed.
Two hanging flower baskets, one large pedestal flower urn, six tomato plants (in the ground where God intended them), two upside down hanging tomato thingies, and flowers in the
hosta bed later I’m finished with my work release for the afternoon. But wait – she sure would like some
hostas moved from over there to over here. And oh no the bird feeders are empty. (They
aren’t birds - they are miniature flying pigs!) Four feeders later – the livestock are fed (for a day or two).
Tonight I stopped over at her house because she was
having trouble signing into her
Facebook account. (Yes, my 92 year old mother is a
Facebook junkie.) I remedied her social networking issue and she showed me some peonies that she got from relatives yesterday. I
murmured something about the pink and white flowers and she mentions she wishes she had some from her garden. I tell her I will go fetch flowers and am on my way out the back door garden scissors in hand when she calls me back into the house. “Wait, you need scissors to cut the flowers.” I inform her I have the scissors and step back outside. She calls after me not to cut the stems to short.
Really? Do I look like I’m four? Did she think I was going to pop their
rosie puffs off their stems and walk in with a handful of flower tops?
I cut the flowers (not too short), take them into the house. “Those are too long” is the response waiting for me.
Hmmmmm. Wonder what we should do about that? I cut them to the
appropriate length and prepared to
co-mingle them with the white and pink peonies. But WAIT. The new batch needs to go into a DIFFERENT vase. Okay…not a problem… where is the vase? “Well, you’ll need to move the sofa.” Okay – I move the sofa. Open the cupboard and hand her a vase. “No, not that one.” I should probably mention here that it is about 80 degrees in the house and I have been known not to be the most pleasant person on planet earth when I get HOT! Just ask my sisters Gail or Judy - they would be more than happy to vouch for this.
I went to the sink to rinse off the scissors and notice her dishwasher “clean” light is on. I empty the dishwasher for which she is grateful. I ask her where two bowls reside as I am not familiar with them. She tells me but seeing the bowls reminds her that one just like the clean bowls is in the refrigerator which sets into motion a query regarding whether or not the top shelf of the refrigerator could be moved up a notch. Sure…any chance to get to clean a refrigerator!
A glass of water with green onions sticking out of it, six (yes – SIX) half-gallons of milk, (she lives alone and weighs about 90 pounds), one quart of buttermilk dated March (I say, “Mother, will this buttermilk be any good? It is dated March 2010.” Reply, “buttermilk is ALWAYS good.” The buttermilk is returned to the 'fridge), a pint of half and half, and a bowl (the 'muffin' of this story) of baby carrots later, the shelf is moved up a notch.
So are you getting the
Moose with a Muffin feel of this story? As daughter Amy tells me, “ya’ just gotta laugh.”
Oh! By the way...those tomato bag thingies? Well come to find out she can't reach the top of the bag to water them. She thought she needed a watering wand. I went to the neighborhood hardware store because that is where she told me to purchase the wand and according to my mother, "They put out a catalog every fall and if they don't have what you need, then you don't need it." Well...even with the watering wand she can't water these stupid bags o'
tomaters so she called my husband last week and asked him to stop by once a day to water the 'mater bags. Wait til I have my next conversation with brother-in-law Guy! He's to blame for this entire vegetable gravity defying debacle I'm just SURE of it!
Now…on to the cards.
Fadded Glory~Base card
PaperTrey Ink
Kraft cardstock
~Layer of navy blue
cardstock - edges roughed up
~Layer of Miss Elizabeth from the Dollar Tree
~Layer of cranberry
cardstock, then a layer of
corrugated cardboard with the backing torn off - then dredged over a blue ink pad
~Three star buttons with
metallic wire curly-q twist
~Ribbon (was white background) dredged over a couple colors of ink pads
~Buckle from
Stampin' Up Hodge
Podge collection
~Challenge:
Stampin' B: patriotic (60)
Thoughts of You~Base card
PaperTrey Ink
Vintage Cream~Layer of Basic Grey
Archaic~Layer of chocolate brown
cardstock with another, dotted, layer of Basic Grey
Archaic~Layer of chocolate brown
cardstock with another selection from the Basic Grey
Archaic line - with three metal brads - top and bottom (four brown, two black)
~Square of
PTI Ocean Tides (three sides curved), edges smudged with
Versamark~Image stamped on
PTI Vintage Cream cardstock, smudged with Ranger's Distress Ink, colored with
Copics, topped with Ranger's
Crackle Accents, three edges curved using curve punch
~Sentiment from Michael's dollar bin
~Cream colored braid (gift from
Sista Gail)
Challenge:
Taylored Expressions (
TESC115)
That's all for now. I'm working on an ice cream image and a black and white card - hope to get them finished soon.
Thanks for clicking in.
Nancy
