Birthday!

Today was my birthday! Yesterday we had a great pool party for Memorial Day, but today was just me and my husband and a day on the town. I posted my day on Instagram. Here are my photos:

We decided to park and take the free R line circulator bus downtown. Along the way we also discovered the awesome real time updates on their web site. Check it out!

First stop: coffee and a waffle at Benelux. There is Nutella hiding under that whipped cream.

While we walked around downtown we saw a poster for this bizarre upcoming symphony show. Radiohead + Brahms = what?

Then we stopped in at the old Raleigh City Museum, now the City of Raleigh Museum. I worked there way back in the early aughts while I was in grad school.

Then it was time for the main event — the new Star Trek movie. The 3D was fabulous!

After the movie we grabbed a sidewalk hotdog and wandered around downtown.

It was a beautiful day!


We had a good wander but we were getting a little bit warm, so we ducked into the state capitol building for a peek around. This is the most patriotic photo I have ever taken.

Then we had sushi for dinner! One of those rolls has beef on it. Yum.

Now it is time to follow this advice on my husband’s birthday card. Thanks for spending my birthday with me!

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Spring Garden Tour

Most of my yard is taken over with noxious weeds and horribly invasive vines, but there are a few gems here and there.

In the backyard, this unruly camellia bush keeps producing lovely white flowers. We need to free it from the tree overgrowth around it and prune some of the longer branches after it stops flowering:

In the wild area by the road we have some pretty wildflowers like this Lyreleaf Sage (Salvia lyrata):

This unknown red flower (it’s called sweet william!):

And this stand of daisies:

Along the treeline in the front yard there is a lush carpet of wild strawberries:

Around the side of the house I cleared out a bunch of weeds (including small saplings) to find a rosebush with its first small bloom:

And a peony with its first bud:

I’m clearing out some weedy beds to prepare gardens for herbs and vegetables but it is slow going. Hopefully I’ll have something to show you in the summer.

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