Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Last weekend, my best friend got married. She had a short and sweet wedding at a local hotel and then we went to various places around ES to party. I may post photos, but probably not. If you're my friend on Facebook, they are there.

Before we went down, we decided to take some time to ourselves (aka without Lily) and so we went down there and took some enjoying the sites. We took the trolley around town, did the Ghost Tour at the Crescent Hotel, walked around the whole town (yes, we WALKED in the crazy heat), and had a great time. I LOVE the buildings down there. The majority of the houses I took photos of are from the 1880's to early 1900's (maybe 1905 or so). They are beautiful!!

You'll want to click on the pictures and make them full size, especially of the first oen so you can see just how pretty this door is! I wish my house had this on the front porch.


Yard art was big down there. I have a lot of pictures of various ideas but I think this door frame/shape may be the best. It was either this one or a similar one that they had tried to have ivy grow on but it didn't work. How cool would be if it had worked though? Or a clematis? If I could find a good, fun, pretty door frame for Lily's garden, I have the perfect spot for it!!


I WANT THESE GATES! 'Nough said!


The next two are the same house (obviously) but I love it. However, I would NOT want to paint all those details. It's definitely pretty though.


The porch. Can you imagine sitting here?


Don't you love this pot? I'll take a few, please! I also like the rocks mixed with the hens n chicks.


Isn't this gorgeous? The house, the yard, the plants....


This fence section was about 4-5" tall. I WANTED it so bad. It was hidden on the property side of their fence, underneath a plant. I seriously thought about taking it, as it was so weirdly located that I doubt the owner knew about it. It would have made a great fairy gate for Lily's garden (or just a cute piece somewhere). But I didn't take it. It's one of things that I wish I had done though. Now I'm just going to be in search of the impossible - a teeny tiny little gate.


This, I guess, was their potting shed. They had it full of junk. Wouldn't it be great for a doll/play house for Lily? There were a lot of these little homes around the walk.


And finally, there were a lot of homes that backed up to this cliff/cave/rock wall and a lot of them had doors into it. One house for sale even advertised the size of the room. How cool would that be?!?!

Obsession

Have I mentioned my newest obsession?

It's plants. Yep. Plants. Especially lilies. (Of course!)

13 months ago, I had NO lilies. Then I gave birth to the best Lily of all! And as a gift for that Lily, I was given a lily named "Gordon Biggs". If you know me, you know why that is important. If not, it's just a really pretty lily.



We were given 5 lilies from my boss from his garden as a present for our Lily. It was a great gift. Unfortunately, it appears two of them have died. Maybe three.

This year, for Lily's birthday, we were given another lily. I forgot its name, but will find out soon.



Then we decided, after arranging the foundation stones, that we needed more lilies.



And then I bought 4 more.






But the garden seemed empty. I know a lot of it is because the path isn't in and neither are many plants. But it's still empty. And there was a sale at the local garden center. Half off all lilies. My pocketbook just cringed. So I bought one more.



One. That wasn't enough.



I went back and bought four more. I don't have pics of them as I accidently left them in my car a little too long and today's flowers died.

And that, everyone, is what started my newest obsession.

Rugby

Ahh, Rugby. You're my baby boy! I couldn't find a more recent photo, so this will do.

Rugby will be 7 in October. Seven years old! For some reason, 7 has always been in my head as the age he will be when he passes away. I know that's stupid, but it's true. He's a huge dog and big dogs don't live that long (as compared to little dogs, like my Sugar who passed away in 2006). He's been worrying me a little lately... panting ALL the time and more recently, making a weird noise every once in awhile. I know I'm probably just making nothing into something.. he's panting because he's hot and we don't use our A/C all the time (it's broken, still haven't had it looked at, and we don't run our borrowed window units unless necessary), and he's a huge, BLACK dog. Of course he's going to pant. But we had to our bedroom's air on last night, I was finally chilly enough to use the big blanket (it takes a lot for that to happen) and the boy was still panting.

I guess you can say I'm worried. I love the big guy and although he can be annoying (mainly due to his size and large amounts of hair that is everywhere), I don't want him to suffer, and even worse, die. I know, I know, all things die. But I'm not ready for him to go.

This summer he'll be going to vet for check ups, so we'll see how much he really weighs and what they think. For now, I'll just keep making him happy and maybe a trip to the farm is in order...

Zoey

Making herself comfortable.

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cardinals grooms cake

I made this! what do you think?

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Where I am...

... I haven't done much with this blog in awhile. But I am posting more on the baby blog, so feel free to check it out. I think that'll be where I update everything baby and family related and use this for when I do stuff that's creative, either art work or stuff to the house. But that'll be awhile until I have the time, energy and freedom. Someone has me busy, so my hands are full. But she's precious and I wouldn't have it any other way.

My Mother's Daughter

That's me! She has been decorating her side/back yard with various conifers (dwarf, regular, odd, everything!) and has a few touches of Asian influence. I now want it all in my front yard! I have had a design scheme in my head for awhile, wanting the whole front yard to be done in white flowers with various shades of green plants. It'll happen some day. But as I look at her work as it progresses and changes seasons, I definitely think I want to add some dwarf conifers to my yard. They come in so many shapes, colors and kinds. If only I had a few hundred (or thousand) dollars, my front yard would be done.

Check out these pictures of some inspiration...

Our front yard is kind of small and we want to redo the sidewalks anyway, so this would be a GREAT way to add Asian inspiration. I wouldn't mind if our whole front yard would be free of grass. Some day I'll take a picture of it and show you just how small it is...


Wouldn't this be a fun way to do something with the gutter pipes? We've thought about doing things with them anyway to collect the water to use in our garden. This would just add a special touch, add in the Asian theme, and be fun.


And this is just a dwarf conifer that would be nice to have, as it grows out and not up. I really don't want to have a lot of plants grow up, except maybe a few. I like plants that spread out... this one would be great!


I'll keep adding inspiration photos... it takes a long time to go through Google images to find good ones. I need to photograph my mom's plants and those that I want from the local nursery.