Ten on Tuesday - 10 Favorite Musicals

I am so totally infatuated by my garden this year. Seriously! Not a day goes by that I don't stop for a few minutes to check it out and see what's new. Imagine my surprise the other day when I noticed that my Heart of Darkeness irises ar blooming again. In this picture you can see the dead bloom in the foreground and the new one just opening behind it. So. Freakin'. Cool!



Today's Ten on Tuesday topic from Carole is 10 Favorite Musicals. By coincidence, Bruce got me tickets to the Tony nominated American Idiot. I love Green Day (and we're seeing them in August) so that will certainly make my list. Here are the other nine.

1. Hairspray - I saw this in 2006 during a fantastic girls weekend in NYC. It was wonderful.

2. Annie - I saw it as a kid and many times when DQ was little since she loved it. When she was little she listened to it every night when she went to bed. Every night! How fitting that the first musical she was a part of was Annie.

3. Mamma Mia - We saw this at the National Theatre in DC on Christmas Day many years ago as a family and loved it. So much fun.

4. Les Miserables - I would totally see this again.

5. My Fair Lady - My mom sent us tickets to see this at the Kennedy Center a few years ago. It was such a good time.

6. Spamalot - It's really exactly like the movie but played on the stage. Great fun.

7. Grease - We watched this on TV just last weekend for the zillionth time and you know what? It's still fun to watch no matter how many times I've seen it.

8. Beauty and the Beast - Both the movie and the broadway show. It was the first one we took DQ to way back when she was just 4.

9. Tommy - We were given tickets to this rock opera as a wedding gift and it was terrific.

... So what do my Heart of Darkness irises look like when they're opened. Here you go. They're hard to catch since they're so dark but this is a pretty good try.

Sun Block

If last week was a lost week then this past weekend more than made up for it. After feeling so awful all week I looked forward to 2 days of quiet and relaxation. I thought it was what I needed. As it turns out I was non-stop busy and at the end of it I feel super. My head is still not totally clear but my spirits are lifted so high that it almost doesn't matter.

Saturday started with Stinkerbelle's ball game. Her team played so hard and my girl was right there doing her best. At the end of the game we had the bases loaded with enough runs to tie or win and I heard one of the parents near me say that what we really need now is a "Daria Hit." My girl is apparently getting known as a power hitter. Even the coach of the opposing team noticed and told his players to move out further when she got up to hit. Sadly that last at bat didn't provide the monster hit we needed and we lost by 1 run but it still felt great.



What didn't feel great was my face and legs. I made sure that Stinky was sprayed well because she was going to be in the field but the sun block I refer to in the title isn't a lotion - it's a mental block. Apparently there is a place deep, down in my psyche where I believe that my skin is immune to the sun's rays despite all evidence to the contrary. I can't explain it but I'll be thinking about it all week as I try to camouflage my beet red nose and raccoon eyes.

The rest of the weekend was pretty good too, including the GS troop meeting at my house on Sunday afternoon. The girls had a great time on the deck doing mosaics on flower pots and a few of them sampled strawberries from the planter on the table. Everyone agreed that they were delicious. We were having so much fun looking at my Cake Wrecks book (good call Jess) that we nearly forgot to grout the pots.

I think that the good feelings may just take me through the next few days of rain.

ECF - New Peonie Edition

It's been an unexpectedly quiet week here on the blog. I tried to post on Tuesday but a nasty cold left me feeling so foggy and miserable that it was all I could do to get to work each day so that's where I focused the few brain cells that were still functioning. I'm feeling a little better now but and the prospect of a relatively quiet weekend is lifting my spirits.



This is a new addition to my landscape. It's a different type of peonie than the ones I already had. I love them and foresee many more peonies and irises in my landscaping future.