Pluggging Along

I'm pretty whipped this afternoon after planting five trays of plugs this morning in the ongoing effort to restore a green surround. For the uninitiated in plug planting, each tray holds 18 small squares of sod, which once planted, spread to meet each other. As I told you recently, much of the yard is looking fab, some not so much, with completely bare patches mostly near the street. The helpful man at Home Depot steered me to a little tool called a bulb planter which worked like a charm, not to mention it was very reasonably priced. Adding today's total to my previous planting, I've now "sown" 144 plugs. Mostly this is done on my knees which suits me just fine. Because that re-run of Spring seems to be a thing of the past, I began this chore just at daylight to beat the heat. As I type it's in the low 90's outdoors. Whew! As well, after Bruce did some much needed trimming in the jungle, I planted 15 multi-colored caladium plants. Those will be shown sometime next week after they've had a chance to settle a bit. After all these years of green everywhere we looked, I'm adding as much color to the landscape as I can.

I wasn't working alone today. The best yardman anyone can find was out there with me, spreading top soil, trimming, watering and cleaning. My, how I love to have company! This is the second time I've seen this, a swallow tail butterfly hanging around dirt.

Normally, they are the hardest butterfly to photograph when amongst flowers, however, as I mentioned, they seem to like to light on dirt which baffles me. After Bruce spread the top soil, this butterfly kept hanging around. I wish I'd been able to get it a little better, however, I hope you can still appreciate the lovely blue on the wings.

I spent yesterday cleaning and cleaning. Our house needed it! To illustrate what kind of a housekeeper I am, when I moved a couple of things in the sunroom to vaccum, I found to my horror, that a mud dauber apparently made a nest in one of the fake trees! While it was out of it's normal position in the corner, I gave it a shake, my version of dusting. I turned around to find the glob of dried dirt with some little wasp inside on the floor! Yikes! Apparently I spoke way too soon about leaving those doors open!

Our friend, Anna Schmidt recently completed the interior of a new restaurant off Park Avenue in Winter Park, Cocina 214,  which we decided to visit last night. Because there was a wait, we had a glass of wine beforehand just around the corner at the Winter Park version of Eola Wine :

One of the reasons I took this is because one of Bruce's superintendents is named John Craig. Fun. Arriving I had to head into the restroom while Bruce did the ordering. Upon my return I asked him what he ordered, only to be told to guess. Looking at the menu, naturally under the Reds, I guessed correctly. How did I do it you ask? In what seems like forever ago, Bruce and I took a glorious trip to Napa Valley, specifically Yountville. We tried to visit all kinds of wineries, from well known to teeny tiny ones. Dutch Henry was one of the tiny ones, however, from the looks of their web site it may have grown since our visit. I was so surprised to see it on the menu, knowing immediately that that's the one he would order, despite the $17 a glass price. He's a romantic you know....

Instead of little gadgets that light up when your table is ready, they said they would call, and they did. Seating us on the patio was fine by us because although the interior is stylish as all get out, it is very, very noisy, making conversation difficult. We're old you know. We're totally over that when given the choice. The food is "gourmet" Mexican if you can imagine. A few glitches, like not hot enough food, but on the whole it was a good time.

Inserting this now to add a little spark to things. Sunflowers are so cheery aren't they? Good, you're cheery just when I have some serious news to report.

I didn't hear my cell phone ring in the noisy restaurant last night. Turns out, this morning around 11 when I came in from my plugging for a moment, I saw I had a voice mail from Trish on my mobile. Her message was that Roger is in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism! Calling her immediately, she answered only to say she'd call me back. Once I talked to her, I learned that the breathing problems Roger was attributing to allergies were instead blood clots in his lungs. A very scary business here my dear readers. A blood clot remains in his leg,  undoubtedly the origination of the clots in his lungs. He's on a regimen of blood thinners as I type, which hopefully will dissolve the remaining clots. I talked to him this afternoon and he seems to be feeling much better, but will have to remain hospitalized until the medication levels are right. Goodness! Keep him in your prayers, will you? I left out the part where he had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital after falling flat, and I mean that literally on his face in his home in the middle of the night. Lots of blood involved.

Crazy me, although I made Bruce a gourmet birthday dinner on Thursday night when he arrived home from his business trip, tonight I'm making him a second one of comfort food. Meat loaf, mashed potatoes and corn. Those potatoes need attention right now!

p.s. no editing--too tired.