This Perfectly Imperfect Life

Me.  On May 21st I began the last year of my 30s! Turned out to be a great day! Lunch with Mom in the afternoon, dinner and a movie (Godzilla, of course!) in the evening with Hubbs.

Earlier this month, I welcomed my second newest rose, ' Twilight Zone ' from Weeks Roses , into my garden. This rose is a stunner! Of course I've taken oodles and oodles of photos in between enjoying its delightful scent, this is my first 'purple' rose, but unfortunately, my camera's show it more or less as being a dark pink color. So, without further a due, introducing TZ: The purple color and 'ruffled' bloom caught my attention. The scent sealed the deal. Traditional yet lighter with a hint of lemon. (But not a barely scented rose by any means). It made my heart sing! Very unique. (To me anyhow). The blooms remind me of 'old fashioned' garden roses. Some are less purple and more pink, but that's perfectly fine with me - y'all know how I love pink. Regardless of color, so far each bloom has been the size of my hand! Also a good cut rose for the mantle vase. Twilight Zone is a grandiflora* rose which ...

I love when I'm able to 'play tourist' right here at home! There's nothing better than getting better acquainted with an area you know and love so well. Funny thing is, at the end of our journey this morning, we realized we had been to this specific area of the Hook before, but several years ago and well before the hurricanes of 2011 & 2012, so we didn't recognize it until we were about finished with our walk. But, Hubbs and I didn't mind - we both love this place and from this section of the beach we could see an area we're pretty certain we definitely haven't explored before, so there are more adventures to be had!

This morning we headed out as the rain ended and before t-storms arrived to help with the annual tradition of placing Flags on Veterans graves at one of the local cemeteries in our area.  This is usually done two weeks before Memorial Day weekend. In the event we are rained out, we still have an extra weekend to place the Flags in time for the holiday. This is Hubbs showing the Scouts what markings to look for, how to place the Flag and stop for a moment after each one: There are nearly 3,000 Veterans graves in this particular cemetery that we do, although not every grave is marked noting a Veteran is buried there and some headstones are so old, dating back to the French & Indian war (pre-Revolutionary), that you can no longer read the engraving on them. We try to do our best to see that no Veteran is forgotten. Unfortunately, it can happen by accident, even when we have a great turnout of volunteers like this year, so we leave extra Flags at the cemet...

I realize I posted earlier today, but I had a great foggy day here at home and I couldn't wait to share these bloom photos :-) Hope y'all have had a fabulous Friday!

Gardening heals my soul, but roses bring me heart-bursting joy!  What are some of your favorite things?

Yesterday I welcomed " The Sunny Knockout® Rose " (Rosa 'RADsunny'), a Star® Roses and Plants rose, into my garden. As I do with all new additions, I spent much of the day entranced with & fawning over this beautiful yellow rose! And believe it or not, this is my first ever solid yellow rose! So, without further a due, introducing Sunny: Yellow always was, and still is, a very favorite color of mine. Since I was a little girl. It's an extremely comforting color to me (although I don't have a clue why). As y'all know, I've been heartbroken over losing more than half of my roses these last few years (including four after this most recent Winter) and I have been on the look-out for this particular rose for some time now. But I wasn't expecting to see roses or find this one at the time I did. This was the only yellow Knockout amid a sea of (very pretty) pink & red yesterday morning and it stood out to me like ...