Acworth, GA to Benton, IL

We didn't have as many miles to drive today, so we slept in a little this morning and ate breakfast at the motel. After packing the car and checking out (the room cost $96.64), we were on the road at 9:20 and heading north on I-75. 

About 30 minutes after leaving Acworth, we saw that the southbound traffic on I-75 was backed up for miles

I remember thinking how lucky we were that it was on the other side since we had been stuck yesterday with traffic backed up for miles.

Traffic was flowing along nicely on I-75 today until we were about 7 south of Dalton, GA. We had just passed the southern exit to Dalton when traffic came

Heading up to Illinois

We got up this morning at 6:00 and after loading the last minute items in the car, we left the house at 7:45 and headed north on I-95. We took I-95 up to Jacksonville and then I-10 west and got onto I-75 north. We stopped at Camping World at Lake Park, GA and bought a Next Exit book to give to my cousin Frances and a small utility leaf blower for us. We stopped at a Flash Foods in Byron, GA to get gas and paid $1.879 a gallon. 

About 45 minutes after leaving the gas station, the northbound traffic on I-75 came to a halt. We decided to exit I-75 south of McDonough, GA and try to go around the traffic. We took exit 216 and headed north on US-23 into McDonough. We did have traffic backed up in

Preparations for Trip to Illinois

I had made Tinker an appointment with the groomer for this morning and he was clipped and bathed and is ready for the trip.

We spent today running last minute errands in preparation for our trip to Illinois. We stopped at Hale Groves here to buy a couple of bags of oranges to take with us to give to my cousins Jimmy and his sister Frances and we filled the tank in the Outback at Speedway and paid $1.879 a gallon. 

By the time we finished with our errands, we were hungry and decided to stop at Ay Jalisco in Sebastian for dinner before going home and packing the car for our trip. 

We've been watching the weather forecast for Benton, IL and it looks like a cold front will be moving in there about the time we arrive, so we are packing some long sleeve shirts and a jacket for each of us and we should be OK. If it gets too cold for the clothes we packed, there is always Walmart.

A Little More Gardening and Sue's Fall

We didn't do as much gardening this month. We did plant 4 Tibouchina Bushes and more Ti Plants in front of the house. 

Our Spanish Bayonet in the back yard is starting to bloom - not really crazy about the plants and we have to watch Tinker so he doesn't walk into the sharp ends of the leaves.

Last month our raspberry bougainvillea was looking really bad (I'm told its because of too much rain or water, OR not enough rain or water - go figure!)

and now take a look at it!

A couple of weeks ago on a Saturday, we had a really nice rain. On my way back into the garage after checking the mail, I slipped and fell and really hurt my ankle. At first I thought I had broken it, it hurt so BAD. I had planned on taking my cell phone with me, but I didn't since I was only going out to the mailbox. I crawled from the garage door to the door that

Still Gardening and More Stuff

We've continued working on our flower beds this month. I took a photo of the Tibouchina Tree after we planted it.

We bought a Starburst Bush (Clerodendrum Quadriloculare) and planted it on the south side of the garage near the bougainvillea on the fence. The bougainvillea hasn't been doing well lately, so I gave it a severe pruning and hopefully it will do better.

We also bought some Drift Roses and Ornamental Cabbage plants and added them to a flower bed by the garage.

We're still taking our neighbor Barbara to her doctor's appointments and she introduced us

Gardening and other Stuff in January

We've been kept busy this month between working on our flower beds and helping our neighbor Barbara after her fall last month.

We've dug out the front flower bed in front of the dining room and lowered it about 3". When the house was built, the flower bed was sloped towards the house and whenever it rained real heavy water would puddle up against the house. When we would have some really heavy rain, we would end up having a small pond there. 

I did all of the digging (my back is better than Mike's - go figure!) and Mike emptied the wheelbarrow and we had about 20 loads of dirt that I dug out of there. Now all we have to do is to decide what we want to plant in the space.

The first thing we planted was a Tibouchina Tree, or Princess Flower. We tried centering the tree between the front entrance and the side wall. Then we tried centering the tree on the dining room window (which is centered on the inside wall, not on the outside wall of the house). 

We eventually settled on centering the tree in front of the window - which looks good when looking at it either from inside the house or from outside.

We had a really heavy rain (2") earlier this month and a large flock of cattle birds were

Gardening and Helping our Neighbor

December has been a busy month for us.

We did some work on one of our flower beds and dug out all of the old plants except for a few Dracaena marginata plants that were already in there and we had a few growing in different places in the yard and we moved them to the flower bed with the others.

We bought 3 Drift Roses at Lowe's and planted them in the flower bed and added red mulch. We had to dig out some of the dirt to allow for the mulch and I did the digging and Mike emptied the wheelbarrow.

I have a "Janet Craig" Dracaena on the back patio and it is blooming!

 

Barbara (she's 82), our neighbor across the street, called us on Dec. 7 and told us she had fallen in her garage and that she had managed to get back in the house. Mike and I rushed