Sunday, December 09, 2007

Happy thoughts, Anita, happy thoughts!

Remember this purple wall?



It's in the garden I went ga-ga over on the Shoals tour in 2006. Lavish slobbering was carried on here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

That gardener, Phillip, started his own blog, called Dirt Therapy. You should check out his Christmas decorations. This one in particular just makes my mouth hang open. Isn't it amazing that real people do this, and not just when they're expecting a visit from magazine photographers?

Anyway, now he's tagged me for a meme about "eight things that make you happy". So here are some recent happies:

Girls Dominate the Siemens Competition. Woohoo!1

The library left a message that my copy of An Ice Cold Grave is waiting. Yay!

Latin Via Proverbs.

A little birdie told me that we might be getting a few really nice knives for Christmas.

My daily email from The Writer's Almanac (which is really more of a Reader's Almanac if you ask me). Each entry includes a short poem, and "Literary and Historical Notes," which often contains biographical tidbits about writers or artists (on their birthdays). Example from December 4th: "It's the birthday of poet Rainer Maria Rilke … who made a career as a poet by seducing a series of rich noblewomen who would support him while he wrote his books."

Stephen Duffy & the Lilac Time have a new album, Runout Groove. Had to get it from amazon.co.uk, but that's ok because it was dispatched in a hurry.2

Brittlestar's new one is out soon too. Well technically it's already "out" but due to my computer-with-not-one-ounce-of-spare-memory problems, I'm forced to wait for the hardware version.

The last one, I think I'll expand into a separate post.

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1 Must... resist... saying... "You go girls"!

2 You can listen to some of it on their myspace page.

6 comments:

Anne-Marie said...

I LOVE that purple wall! Oh my goodness, it makes me squeal with delight too. I can't wait to go over and read the Dirt Therapy blog. Thanks for the heads up.

Anonymous said...

The NY Times had an article last week about a new winter sport: Extreme Decorating. I think that one qualifies.

Pablo
http://www.roundrockjournal.com

Rurality said...

Anne-Marie, it's something, isn't it? Out of all the wonderful features of that garden, I think people loved that purple wall the best.

Pablo, yep! It was actually Phillip's partner Michael that did the decorating I think.

Annie in Austin said...

You made a great list, Rurality - but I nearly forgot to come back and comment after clicking all the links - loved the Latin sayings!

Pam at Digging posted a photo of that purple bench last summer, with a border of purple iris blooming in the foreground, that just knocked me over.

http://www.penick.net/digging/?p=309

I enjoyed your list - mine may get written one day.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Turtleheart said...

WOW! That holiday decorating is a color feast for the eyes! Just beautiful. Looking around at my decorations, I'm feeling a bit inferior right now.

Rurality said...

Annie, that garden is even more beautiful in person than in the pictures. I didn't get to talk to them long, but Phillip and Michael were both really nice. Everyone thought theirs was the best garden on the tour, by far.

Turtleheart, me too, me too!

I still have one more item to go on my list but I'm having to look for something in particular to take a picture of. I'm hoping I'll find it soon.