Accidental long breaks are my specialty.

 Just when I think life is about to settle down... it doesn't. Hence the surprise blogging break right after starting the blog. Ha! I'm still doing all the same stuff, but also now looking forward to the brood XIX cicadas dying and getting out of my life for another 13 years... so tired of getting pelted by big, dumb bugs while trying to work in the garden.

Speaking of the garden, I'm finally getting into outdoor plants instead of just the indoor kind. (It's actually an obsession.) I started a whole bunch of dwarf shasta daisies, salvia, giant zinnias, marigolds, morning glories, sunflowers, and delphinium from seeds. Everything is doing great, except for the delphinium, which isn't surprising. They are known for being difficult to grow from seed.  

Only 3 delphinium seeds actually germinated.

Morning glories

Sunflowers :-)

I also planted about 60 gladiolus and about 90 liatris corms in the huge, empty flowerbed out back. My hands and arms hurt so bad after digging all those little holes! Hopefully, it will be worth the trouble and I'll get piles of beautiful flowers this summer. In the same bed, I have a lot of my daisies, along with some lamb's ear that I hope will spread out to make a nice border. 

Glads starting to peek out of the ground!

Just a quick update for now, hopefully I'll have time to share more soon.