Copied and pasted from mariethsmith.blogspot.com

WOW, been gone a long while! LOL I thought it'd be way easier to post from my cell phone... but honestly, it's just easier to type it on the laptop... and that's one thing I'm not on as often as I'd like to be.

What to write? what to write... Hmmmm, well, we have become a family that twitters. All three of us... and all have quite the different things to say... Christopher mostly blogs about his interests and at 12, they are few, but obsessive! LOL The Beatles and XBox take the honors... mostly. He is very new and I think he'll get the hang as he gets older and/or gets more people to follow and feels the power of twitter. LOL Ivan blogs about his interests, as well... Food (well, it seems to be a big part of his twitterverse! LOL), SciFi books he reads, PS3 games he plays and all the chores I give him to do! LOL Well. Yep, enough said on that topic... Myself aka Cinnamarie (old nickname that I've had for going on 15 years now) I tweet about all of my interests and just daily life. I happen to be TV obsessed, so that's quite evident... also, I love taking day trips and often post the pics of all the great places I get to see... Ivan and I post alot of pics, so that is a great way to see what we are up to, just visit our twitter sites.

What else? Well, I've been to a few places since I've last posted... quite a few, actually! Most of them have been private gardens. Mostly through the Garden Conservancy which is a great way to see stunning gardens, not normally open to the public... I have blogged about several of them on my xanga website... with pics! The pics are amazing (if I do say so myself). Anyway, there are a few places I've not yet blogged about and I'll try to do that here. I'm still debating if I want to phase out of xanga... I love it there, am used to posting, love posting all my pics, but I have been noticing these blogs are the latest thing and I'm always about being "current" with technology. So, we'll see.

All of us have been keeping quite busy... Ivan and I with work, obviously... have to keep those paychecks coming in. Christopher finished his 6th grade year and is now enjoying the summer. He goes back and forth between here and his father's. He's there now. His father took him to Vegas in June to see the Beatles' Love show (Cirque) and he absolutely went nuts for it. He's a bit (a bit?) Beatles obsessed... lol So, it was a no-brainer to take him there. Glad he got that experience. I've been dragging him to the gardens and different places with me and I have two girlfriends from work that often go with us... They have basically adopted Christopher as the fourth in our trio and he gets along famously with them. We've been to Sunnyside (Washington Irving's home), Hyde Park (Vanderbilt Mansion and the FDR and Eleonor Roosevelt's Estates), Grey Towers (home to Gifford Pinchot, 2 time Governor of Pennsylvania and first Chief of the US Forestry Service), several private gardens, Longwood Gardens, etc. We've been busy most weekends and it's been fantastic.

I even started up again with Weight Watchers... from home. I've lost 15 lbs so far (since June) and I'm trying! I don't exercise regularly, but I have made a promise to be way more active this year and thus far, I've been doing that by going to all these places, getting out of the house and walking... Ivan is slow on the start, but we are eating healthier, keeping the good stuff in the house, minimizing the bad stuff, we go out for and just overall, easing into it. Wish us luck! We need the support... we have both gained quite a lot of weight and aren't comfortable with where we are at or where we were headed... so we need to focus and get to a healthier way that will keep us together and around alot longer. Why wouldn't we want to extend our time together when we are still as in love today as when we became a wedded couple... which as of last Monday was 7 years now! Time literally has flown for us, as we are as happy as two pigs (pun NOT intended, but pretty appropos) in mud.

What else? The garden... well, what can I say? I've not been as good at it as I wanted to be. Probably because after planting my first plant this year (a forsythia, which I think took very well to it's location in my yard), I pulled a back muscle that took me out of commission for about a week. I know that as I lose weight and get more mobile, I'll be able to do more out there, but in the meantime, I've planted alot and haven't been able to really tend to any of it. I planted two pear trees... one has leaves and the other has none... (what's up with that?) I haven't a clue... some silvermound, some chives, some beefsteak and cherry tomatoes, which are coming along... although not ready yet. Some Lilacs, I think only 2 are taking... the others, I'm just leaving and hoping for the best. Some grasses, I think they are doing well... and a pussy willow, which I think is doing fantastic... a red azalea, which is lost among the weeds growing around it... Like I said, I've been neglectful. The hydrangea planted last fall isn't doing well. It's not completely dead but I'm sure that the bed that I tended to last fall is way too moist as I've found way too many fungi in it this year... so I'm not sure what to do about that... I'm thinking of just taking bricks, laying them on top of it and then just putting potted plants there instead! Who knows... Plus, all my planting annoyed the neighbor who's been mowing our lawn since we moved in (we never asked him to, and we offered him payment a few times)... anyway, now it's totally overgrown (as we don't own a mower) and full of weeds. The best part of that scenario... is that the neighbors used to use our yard for their own enjoyment and now it's not appealing to them, so they stay out of it... NICE! I may never cut the lawn again! LOL

Also, we still love living in NEPA. In fact, with our twittering skills lately, we are starting to discover new things about where we live and just this week found an Indie bookstore downtown that we never knew existed and have been to twice since Thursday. I'm going back on Tuesday with a friend and then again the following week with another friend... it's just that welcoming... it's called Anthology and it's above a jewelry store called Outrageous and also there is a coffee shop there as well... it's very SoHo and we love it... we can NOT wait to take Christopher there when he gets home. Both Outrageous and Anthology are on Facebook, too! Very cool. Become a fan!

Well, I think I've gone on long enough... I'm gonna post a few pics of the things we've done, then head downstairs to grab a Salad On A Stick! YUM! We were going to make some Portobello Burgers tonight (never had them, heard they were good)... but we ate at Moe's in Clarks Summit about 7 1/2 hours ago and are still stuffed! LOL So, we'll save the burgers for tomorrow... I found a recipe at AllRecipes.com for the Portobello Burger. Hope it's good!

Grrrr, adding the pics now, means they'll post at the top... whatever lol Look up now, these are some pics of the places we've been to! LOL Go to My Blogspot for the pics...

Tonight, Ivan and I will find something fantastic to watch on Tivo or TV or we got The Watchmen from a Redbox... Not sure what yet, but I'm sure I'll watch it, then head to bed. Next weekend, I'm out in NY for the weekend, so this weekend, I must take advantage of the rest I can get...

Bye for now!

Spent yesterday in the garden between storms... 

First, in the morning... went to a friend's in the country.  She has several (over 20) Lilac bushes and I wanted to pick up some cuttings.  I picked up a white, lavendar and dark purple and also a pussy willow.  On way home, stopped at WalMart and picked up some tomatoes, a red azalea and a moonglow dwarf pear tree.

After getting everything in the ground (and not in the nicest way, as I don't really know what I'm doing, but winging it)...  I found this birdhouse that I bought last year... Cute and whimsical and put it in the ground in front of my peony... this is right outside my window, so I can see it as I blog...  No birds have visited yet... just need one, then I'm sure it'll fly away to share the news with his winged buddies...

 
Below are my tomato plants...  Two per pot, cherry on right and hearty beefsteak on left.  Looking forward to those growing...  Love tomatoes!  Especially home grown.


Below is the Dwarf Pear (Moonglow).  I'm not sure where the water pipes are located in the ground, so wanted to put this on the side of the house...  I may have to wait 2-3 years for fruit.  Does anyone know if I have to plant another to get good fruit?  Seems that I read that I have do have another tree for cross pollination?  I'm new to this, any advice you have it appreciated.



The three lilacs.  (I have a huge feeling that the one on the left is both a white one and a dark one together... but who knows).  Not that it'll matter.  I hope they take... and that they offer a great barrier to the neighbors' porch and give me lots of blooms.  The stump is my old pear tree... just haven't removed it yet.


Now, was out watering this morning (Memorial Day) and noticed dog poop in my yard.  The neighbors frequently walk their dog in our yard... Nice, huh?  We don't have any fence, except on one side of the yard... hence me getting plants in the ground, trying to notch out our turf... anyway, in the meantime, I've posted a sign...  what do you think???



Ivan (DH) thinks that it's allowing them to walk their dogs in our yard, but I'm hoping they get the point... and I'm trying to be nice about it...  I may change the sign next weekend... let's see what happens this week.

Hi everyone!  Today was a very long day.  I walked over 17,000 steps (or so my UPS pedometer says) with a trip out to NY today. 

My girlfriend, Meredith, took the drive with me, as she hasn't been out there yet and has been enjoying all the photos I've been taking of all the new places I've been seeing.  So, we left around 8 am and drove out to NY.  When we crossed the Hudson River, we saw a flagship heading up towards Albany and wanted a better look at it, however, I turned left on Hwy 9 and kept driving and there wasn't a spot to pull over and see the river... but we stumbled upon Manitoga in Garrison, NY.  I saw this sign and thought, let's check it out.



Once there, we saw that there were tours, but you needed the tickets already, so we were able to walk around the trails a bit.  We were all inspired and were going to attempt the 1.2 mile loop, and started on a very steep, rocky path... Well, we are not in our teens, nor are we in good shape, so we nearly thought that we'd fall and hurt ourselves... lol  So, we did walk a ways, in fact, we walked this path, then a bit longer, before we decided to walk back for fear of the unknown part of the trail we may not be able to tackle.  More pics HERE.



Got back in the car, drove to Bedford to see two gardens in the Open Day program of the Garden Conservancy.

The first garden:  "Bedrock" (all the pics are HERE)

"Bedrock" is composed of a garden on several levels that complement a 200 year old farmhouse and red barn on the curve of a dirt road. Views of the Beaver Dam river are captured below the perennial garden that is enclosed by old stone walls. A winding path leas up to a naturalistic pool which is guarded by a giant pair of boars and framed by a rock garden.

Front of home...



The back wall houses a statue and fountain... so pretty. 



The pathway has a pretty bust, near the steps, and up ahead, the pool with the giant boars (one seen here).

Then, the last garden of the day... A home up the road from "Bedrock" (all pics HERE)

Penelope and John Maynard created a garden among rock ledges and oak woods on the steep shoulder of Mount Aspetong. The site is fragmented; thus, the garden areas are designed to flow from one to another, linked together by a ribbon of stone walls. The greatest challenge has been to create some flat, restful spaces. The wide variety of plants must meet one criterion - to prove themselves in dry woodland conditions.

View of home from walkway on side, up into the woodlands.



Lovely stone stairway into a gorgeous green lawn with gardens all around. 



Last shot of myself near their pool.  Lovely setting.  AND, up for sale!  Can you imagine???  I can't imagine the future owners getting this as a BONUS!  Lovely.