L's unexpected plant

Last year, like always, I took L with me to the plant nursery and let her choose some of the plants for around the yard.  She chooses by texture and general prettiness, which is just fine.  She found this unlabeled plant that reminded me of lamb's ear -that same fuzzy, pale green type of plant, about 3 inches tall, maybe 5 inches around.  So we got two of them to plant beside the driveway.  By the fall, they were still fuzzy, soft plants, maybe 10 inches across and about 5 inches tall. 
This year, they unexpectedly had an explosive growth spurt - the larger one has a  4 foot tall spike, which is still fuzzy and is also covered with small yellow blooms.  We did a little internet research and I think they are mullein plants.  The good news is that they are attractive to butterflies and goldfinches.  The bad news is that they get larger each year, up to 8 feet tall.  It has been growing about an inch a day!

May 30, 2010

Somehow it is already summer vacation.  I guess that, technically, the kids have had one week of vacation already.  However, in the stinks-to-be-a-teacher's-kid category, I had meetings all of last week, so L had to spend the week at school with me.  No escaping that place...
It hasn't really hit me that it is vacation time yet.  I am super-compulsively-Type A and typically have a list by now of things I want to accomplish each week of the break and what "extra-curricular" type things I want to do with L each week, etc, etc.  That just hasn't happened yet. I've re-read the entire Twilight series and I've weeded my garden and caught up on laundry and done a little baking - all of this in the evenings, mind you.  And that's IT.  I feel a compelling need to deep-clean my house.  And I think I'm going to dangle a little carrot in front of myself for motivation - that when I get the house really, really clean, then I get to paint the laundry room.  Which is really not sounding like motivation as I type this, but I truly want to change my laundry room and just don't have time during the school year.  I want to paint it teal and brown.  I do NOT, however, want to strip the wallpaper, so we'll just see how that goes.
Anyhow, I'm feeling a little more like myself already after this week.  By the end of the school year, I was feeling the stress of state assessments (3, count 'em, 3), end-of-year-big-projects, my partner teacher having a baby (so I was planning for her sub as well as myself) and helping the teachers near me move into new classrooms (I'm getting a new teaching partner), as well as becoming the president of our library board, running the social committee at work, AND planning some technology presentations for our district staff and two state-wide conferences - it was like I couldn't even really remember who I really was.  My poor family.  I'm lucky my husband stuck around through that.
Fortunately, baking and working in the garden are like really cheap therapy for me, so I'm feeling much better.  I am covered in chigger bites, however, so I'm going to have to find something fabulous to ward those suckers off.  Those are one of the mysteries of life for me.  I buy into the theory that everything has a purpose within God's creation, even if I can't figure out what that purpose might be, and let me tell you that chiggers have me stumped.  I'm sure God uses them for something - right now they are making me crazy, though.  However, not crazy enough to stop weeding the dahlias.