pyewacket's Profile

Those decks look right to me - I hate high decks for the reason mentioned above. I want to be IN my yard, not looking down on it from above.

the blue thing is called a zipline, and they're a ton of fun!

Somewhere there's a picture of me at about age 4 in the "treehouse" in my grandparents big old apple tree. I know my father reaching up could just about grab me if I slid into his arms, so maybe 8 feet off the ground? It was four or five planks just nailed into the tree across two branches. I had climbed up on that particular occasion in shiny black Maryjanes and a frilly blue dress. Never fell, and I was the clumsiest kid imaginable.

Really, skip the railing.

New York? Huh?

But I will say, Poughkeepsie is depressing. I used to live near there. An IBM facility had laid off something like 11,000 workers. There was this huge parking lot with four or five cars in it. Then the residential areas were just full of boarded-up houses. Lovely old buildings were falling to rot. Very sad.

Another advantage to planting natives is that they actually work with the local ecosystem. You can provide local bugs, birds, butterflies, etc. with the plants they need. Two good books to check out - Michael Pollan's early book about gardening Second Nature and a book called Noah's Garden, both of which talk about the constant tension between gardening and letting go, using natives and making vegetable gardens, etc. I like very much the approach Pollan ultimately took, planting vegetables, herbs and some beloved ornamentals (non-invasive) closest to his house, then transitioning into all native plants until the garden disappeared into the woods.

That certainly sounds very sweet. Very, very sweet.

I had this for my wedding cake, which was of course pie. I served a pie buffet with many kinds of pie at my wedding, and for bride/groom "cake" cutting, we used this, which was served at every Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner when I was growing up. Yes, it's still delicious.

The whales are dancing. Or levitating with joy.

I never sent photos of myself before having kids. Now I send photos of the kids. It's not my body post-baby that bothers me; I've never liked having my picture taken.

I hope it feels better than it photographs, because that is really depressing to me. And I like white, black and grey. But, god, just the photos are enough to make me itchy.

Awful. Not because it's sad, because it's ugly. Really, really ugly. Tasteless. Terrible. Like Thomas Kinkaide forgot his Zoloft. The only thing that could make this wore would be printing it on an acrylic throw. Seriously, terrible.