A Thing of Beauty

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder....

On a cloudy, almost raining day, I gazed out my family room window and realized that on days like today - overcast, rain threatening (again!), unseasonably cool, those little things in life seem even more glorious than ever.  I realized that on beautiful summer days, the sky blue, the sun shining, I tend to overlook some of the more dramatically beautiful things in my own back yard...

Like future pesto.....

And THRIVING cilantro, the photo of which came out blurry as I was shedding tears of joy at my triumph...

"You like me! You really, REALLY like me!!!"

The first baby summer squash.....

Mmmm...grow fast, little one! So I may sliced you up, drizzle you with olive oil and saute' you for dinner.....

Piles of marigold flowers...standing one by one, sure, they're pretty, but after being plucked (without permission) by a four year old and piled on the patio table, the colors are truly astounding...

Cool Coleus!

My mother-in-law, while she adored flowers, was always appreciative of foliage - this was one of her favorites.

And THIS is one of my favorites...

My favorite color is the one that you're not sure if it's blue...or purple.  I love this color!

And in that oh-so neglected corner of the yard, where weeds run rampant and some grow to eight feet tall, a surprise sprouted sometime over the past few weeks....

Which is why I rarely weed....you never know what you might be destroying.

Close up, it's even more beautiful...

I do remember planting this, but it was several yards away...ah, the mystery of backyard life!

And further on down the yard is a rose bush.  I remember planting it, then forgot about it.  This year we dug up and handed to a neighbor an overgrown wisteria that never did take well in our shady yard.  Without that, and without our giant maple, I came upon this....

And what would an essay on beauty be without mentioning Bubbles...

(which, by the way, was Daddy's nickname for her as an infant, when she was constantly blowing cute little spit bubbles...)

...And of course, Best Friends!

And perhaps the most astonishingly beautiful thing I have seen...

The Quilt Square (?)

Complete with oil-slick trimming along the coast...and state borders.  (Huh?  If it's so plentiful, then why am I paying $2.65 a gallon???)  I ditched the birds.  They scared me.  The square came out fine.  Not what I had in mind - I tend to have big ideas that don't fit on a 9" x 9" square of cloth...but I feel I redeemed myself by putting a recipe for Boston Cream Pie on my "Memory Book" page....a recipe that I think shall make an appearance on this blog....some day....SOON!

And because I like people to walk away from my blog with a smile, I leave you with this.....

(No, it's actually straight...I cock my head and say "Aw!" every time I see this photo, so THAT's why it's crooked!)

Thanks for stopping by!