Looking back Sunday

May 31, 2006

This beautiful peony was a gift from our friend Diane H. when I returned home from Seattle after my cancer surgery in May 2006 - three years ago! It seems like another place and another time.

We were so enthralled with this blossom that she graciously gave us a start of the plant. It has lived in a pot in the greenhouse for the past two years - last fall The Shepherd aka The Landscaper planted it by the corner of the house. It will bloom in a few days. I can't wait.

The rest of the peonies should be out soon too. One is an heirloom plant that I brought with me from my house in town when we moved out here. It smells like old fashioned roses and has 5-6 inch fuchsia colored blossoms.

I baked up 7 dozen cookies tonight for our church garage sale next week - they will have coffee & cookies for sale (health dept. OK'd) I'll freeze them until Thursday & take them to a friend who will be going up to Blaine for the sale -

Speaking of the sale, I've always wished I could find a nice keyboard for The Shepherd to putz around on - we don't really have room anyplace for a real piano, but I have occasionally looked at keyboards at Costco, etc., but the price ($400-800 for the ones I have seen) generally makes me decide we REALLY don't need one that bad. WELL, today, one of the fellows from church comes in after coffee hour with a CASIO CTK 591 keyboard, with the stand and the books! that he got last year at a garage sale for $20 - Does it work? I asked... Yeah, it works fine, he said, he just decided that he didn't have time or the inclination that he thought he'd have to learn how to play the piano. Turned it on - we touched a few keys - not too bad, I thought, and called The Shepherd aka The Minister of Music over to look at it. It does some pretty cool things - transposes, you can tune it up or down a little to play in tune with another instrument, it has 50 songs already programmed in - (we could have our own karaoke party, ha, ha, ha)

It wasn't exactly love at first sight, but I could tell by the look on his face, that if we took it home, that he would indeed play with it. So before anyone else had a chance to even know it was there, I pulled the checkbook out of my purse and wrote a check for $50 to the church. The lady in charge of the garage sale was delighted, I just looked on line and they are still for sale from anywhere from $150 (with the stand) to $200. I think we got a fine deal.