On hedge haircuts and cool ass treasures...

Hello everyone,

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I haven't updated my blog in awhile. It's been a challenging few weeks both personally and professionally, so I've been laying low.

All is generally well, though, and today life is especially fabulous. I'm happy to report I'm on vacation until April 27. Hooray!

I'm spending part of my vacation in Iowa, visiting my dad and my ailing (but getting better) momma. I don't necessarily consider going to Iowa a vacation, but I'm sucking it up. My mother's been through hell this year.

My brother and his wife have had a rough go of it lately as well. Their newborn daughter, beautiful little Charlotte, is struggling with several pretty large health problems. She had a tracheotomy last week, and will be in the hospital for another 2 - 3 weeks. My brother and sister-in-law are the most organized and practical people I know, so they are taking this all in stride. But it can't be easy. They have a lot to learn and deal with.

In anticipation of my trip, I spent most of the day attempting to do yard work, and cleaning up the house. I have a dogsitter (a former student who also ROCKS) coming tomorrow morning who will be taking care of Daisy while I'm kickin' it in the corn. She will be staying here. This means, of course, that I have to clean everything and make sure I don't appear like a slob to my house guest...

Ridiculous? Maybe.

There are days I wish I wasn't a perfectionist.

I'm fairly happy with the inside of the house, but the yard still needs some work.

And then there's the new hedge problem...

A new hedge issue? Yes, that's right folks.

It got a bad haircut.

I can't describe it to you... take a look for yourself.

Before:

and After.
Yeah, I wanted to cry, too.

Of course, I should not complain about the baldness of my hedge. A crew of about 15 of my pals rolled over to my house a few weeks ago and spent several hours hedge slaying and doing other yard work, complete with hauling 1000 pounds of yard waste to some yard waste land in the sky.

This is my friend Annie straddling the hedge and takin' it down! She was a maniac with the hedge clippers. These people rock.

So instead of crying over chopped hedges, I decided to plant some things.

In the backyard, I put in some herbal delights. No, not that kind, but some rosemary and lavender.

In the frontyard, near the fucking buzz cut hedge, I dug a hole for some heather.

Check out what I found in the dirt...

It is a handmade glass bead. It is really old. It is really cool.

I'm wondering how it got there, who it belonged to, what the story was. It was about 3" into the soil and there was no marker on it or anything else around it.

Any ideas? It's a hedgerific mystery...