all that's past is prologue...

My friend Siobhan's gardens totally inspire me. We were over there for drinks the other night and she gave me a lovely tour of all the different areas and hidden gardens. She's especially good at potted gardens. I rarely buy annuals because I am cheap, so I'm often not so good at potted gardens (besides the window boxes and the hosta I mentioned yesterday). This year in particular, due to money crunches, I have restrained my garden budget. But over the weekend I was given some leftover annuals, and some canna bulbs, so pots it was! Here are some before and after pictures of the front pots at Summit, on the steps to the sidewalk and to the porch. At Ashland, I also did the front pots: And the back ones (which made the back area lovely for my friend Stephanie to come over and have a rhubarbarita later last night): They're not perfect. Until the cannas sprout, there's no major focus (and those pansies probably won't last all that long). But for now, for some free a

We're on a roll of getting several projects done around here. Before I cover the BIG ones we're going, let's look at some smaller ones (even though they were, somehow, not substantially less work). So in the last 24 hours at Ashland I have: Planted the garage window boxes. I always plant them with impatiens; once I tried something different but was sad all summer, so we're back to them. (yes, I know the garage badly needs painting). I also planted the vegetable garden, which was more work than you would think because it badly needed to be cleaned out. This is a raised bed I got 13 years or so ago as the incentive for taking a food sustainability class. I wasn't going to do a vegetable garden this year but then I got given the plants (one each broccoli, cauliflower, tomato and two bean plants), so I decided to give it a try. It could probably use more veggie plants. I also always put a hosta in a pot to brighten up a dim section of the yard. I like the subtle variati

For another "this was our weekend" look, over the past 2 days we: - attended the opening of Marc Heu - went to Beatrix's double trapeze class (she and Aidan are looking great together in this act!) - picked up native plants we had ordered at a native plant sale in Burnsville - attended two clothing exchanges (oops, no pics) - Patrick worked on Hague (also no pics) while I did some MORE gardening at Ashland - traded some other plants (always being mindful of jumping worms) and started in on the incredible amount of yard work at Summit - attended three shows of Urinetown at SPA (and picked up Beatrix from the cast party, being nice enough parents to go get her, allow her to negotiate to stay another hour, and then go back and get her again) - went to yoga - brought the dog to the taproom All while also catching up on some client work and trying to watch to bonding bill progress at the legislature (nail-biting!) No wonder I'm tired.

This morning, we (and a couple hundred of our closest friends) stood in line for the grand opening of   Marc Heu  Patisserie's new location, just up the street from us. We've loved Marc Heu since I first bit into one of his passionfruit pastries at a Little Mekong night market years ago; let's face it, though we periodically stopped at the location on University, this one is (almost too) temptingly close. (no wonder they sold out by 1:00) The building it's in, a former automobile garage from the turn-of-the-century, was slated to be torn down as part of the new development that looms behind it. The public meetings were online during the height of covid, an I think the developer thought it would be easy to tear the building down since it was "nothing special." Spoiler: it wasn't. Buildings like this represent the whole of our built history and sense of place. Barbara Bezat, a brilliant historian, conducted some research and found it was the only building of

 With my professional blog: It was a good day to finally sit down and catch up on my professional blog: http://www.gladhillrhone.com/a-good-day/

On Thursday nights, Beatrix has circus from 4-9 (except tonight, when she had dress rehearsal for Urinetown and then went to her last 2 hours of circus class). So that means that we get a regular date night! We started at Bar + Cart. I've gone there a lot for happy hour, and really enjoy it (though I seem to have yet to achieve "honored regular" status), but Patrick had not been since we went there on New Year's Eve. They also seem to have rolled out a new cocktail menu for summer! We enjoyed some lovely cocktails and split a shrimp o'boy and the feta dip (which I could literally just eat with a spoon). The place has its downsides, including being very noisy, but I really do like it there! Plus the company was fantastic, nothing like a date night with your husband where you can discuss everything from home restoration to the Parents Association meeting to home tasks that you have to do. Ahh, romance... We had a little time afterwards, so we decided to check out t

"Not ded. Just busy" quips my friend Kelly when he is juggling his multifaceted life. And that applies to me right now during "Maycember" when school is ending and clients are crazy and I clearly don't take the time to update the blog.  There were circus shows, with 8 performances and 4 dress/techs over 2 weeks that kept Beatrix and Patrick very busy.  Beatrix and I both sung in the SPA spring concert (I'm part of the Community Chorale and she is in 2 choirs). Yes, she's the one in the circus makeup because she had a show that afternoon, then choir, and then at intermission I ran her back over to circus because she was in the second half of that night's show, and then I ran back to sing Beethoven's 9th. And she's in Urinetown at SPA this weekend (shows Friday and Sat at 7 and Sun at 4, free, just show up a the Huss Center on Randolph and Wheeler, no tickets needed.) It's spring, so we're gardening a lot, including at the neighborhood

There haven't been a lot of posts lately because I have not had a lot of great things to say. And, as I remind Beatrix, social media is a very curated experience... But I shook off the funk briefly tonight to get some gardening done. I've long wanted a forsythia, and got this one off a neighborhood board. Patrick was patient with me when it was bigger than I expected and so didn't fit in the initial space I envisioned. But I think it looks pretty great in the place we found for it, which had been a very drab part of the yard. Thanks to Patrick also for digging the hole for it. Meet Frank the Forsythia I was also give some dirt from people who were doing some landscaping in their yard. Out front lawn has been a sunken mess since we had the water mains replaced a million years ago, and the side bed was looking pretty deflated as well. So we built the side hill back up, and I'm not sure what exactly I'll plant there yet. Patrick flattened out the yard, and we picked up