Vacation Is Over

Ended up having to work at least a few hours each week-day of my vacation. Couldn't be helped with some critical deadlines looming. But the best part was that Mary Lynn came to visit. We covered a lot of miles to go shopping and to drive around looking at yards and landscaping. Oh yeah, and we ate out a lot. Lots of great meals!

Thursday, we combined a trip to Houston that I had to make for work with a visit to the gardens at Rienzi, four acres of gardens surrounded by River Oaks neighborhood. We didn't get to see all parts of it, but saw some wonderful and exotic plants.

Did just a little clothes shopping on Friday to take advantage of Tax-Free Weekend. On Saturday, we spent some time enjoying ML's newest hobby of beading necklaces. We made a few new creations but I think the best is that she repaired all my broken necklaces. Yay!

Not an ideal vacation since I had to work so much of it, but so many loose ends to tie up at work in the next 28 days!

Here are some photos from the week:



Ikea, showroom kitchen.




Ikea, showroom kitchen.




A thoughtfully prepared Chef Salad at a local cafe.




Rienze - White Garden.




Rienze - Fountain Garden.




Rienze - exotic plant.




Rienze - terrace.




Rienze - drifts of cast iron plant.




Rienze - Butterfly Vine.




Rienze - Crane Garden.




Rienze - brick path.




Ready for dinner at a marina.




Beautiful sunset just before mosquitoes descended.




The neighbor's turkeys passing through as ML was leaving.

Woo-hoo! I'm a Winner!

I just learned I'm a winner of a Fightin' Mad Mary give-away! I've won a sample pack of ZizZazz vitamin and energy powder mix.

I found Fightin' Mad Mary when I searched for folks on Twitter from my alma mater. I've been following her tweets & blog for a while now and really do enjoy getting to see a slice of Hollywood through her eyes. She's a double Emmy nominee for her work in editing reality shows so be watching for her name to be announced as winner on Sept. 12! Check out her blog.

I'm really looking forward to being able to blog more with all the free time I'll have coming up beginning in October. Hmmmm. Guess maybe I should make a formal announcement about that?