Oh, happy day!

I took off to California this weekend to celebrate my sweet niece Tabitha's ninth birthday. It was bird themed.

My mom made a cake and cake pops. 

My brother created a jig for his power saw so all the kids at the party could (with help) cut the wood to put together a bird house, which they later painted. He and my dad helped the kids use the nail gun and everything. Don't worry, everything was totally safe.

Photo by Graham Bruce

The only kids who got scared by the nail gun were two little boys. The girls didn't even blink. Just saying.

Photo by Ami Bruce

They also made bird feeders and ate cake pops and at one point every kid in the joint started crying at the same time, they were so amped up on sugar and play. It was hilarious.

As I touched down in Portland I powered on my phone to find a voicemail from Scott saying that he was at Joy Creek Nursery and he had three Chionochloa rubra starts for me.

!!!!

ALL THE SWEAR WORDS! The good ones!

Scott then got a VERY excited and rambling call from me. I take Xanax to fly and I had a glass of wine on the plane, so my excitement was amplified by the fact that I was fairly hammered. And then Greg got a long and winding soliloquy in the car about the goodness of people. I feel like I need to issue a blanket apology to everyone I interacted with on Sunday.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who searched their favorite nurseries online and in person for me, or who was willing to do it the next time they were there. You made this obsessed little gardener very happy. The garden-blogging community is the best. And brace yourself, Scott. I'm gonna hug you so hard!

A wonderful surprise

If I'm watching TV I'm either knitting, doing the crossword puzzle, or scanning craigslist.  I can't just sit and watch TV anymore, which is actually really annoying.  I found an amazing fireplace screen on craigslist one night and joking sent a link over Twitter and said, "Someone buy me this.  I'm serious, I love it."

I came home one night the following week after work to find this:

I think it's amazing.

And I think it looks great in the room, which has gone through a lot of rearranging.

 

 

I will not apologize for my Battlestar Galactica prints.

The fireplace screen was left, of course, by Bill.  He happened to be going to Sellwood, where the seller was, and picked it up.  He had been carrying it around in his car, waiting for a good time to sneak it into the house.  And yet I still made him help me with the installation of the garbage disposal.  Seriously, I'm a rotten friend.  I don't deserve him.