Show off your Garden Decor

Thanks, Pirl and Polly. Polly, I doubt that there's any connection to Home Depot. It's an old company. I've been ordering from their print catalogue for decades. I've bought nice rugs and Asian furniture from them.

The wedding was great, but it made me feel like a fish out of water. There were tons of people at the reception and only three of us smoked. Furthermore, I was the only one who had brought cigarettes with me. The other two can't carry them because they can't let any of their friends or relatives know they smoke. These weren't teeny boppers. They were both in their mid-40's. We all had to go hide in a corner to smoke. I felt like I was 12 years old again. Northern California is just the wrong place for me in some respects.

Aw, that's no fun! I wonder... how many regular posters on this forum smoke? My mom and dad both smoked when I was young, but then dad quit after his first heart attack. My mom kept smoking, but hid it from my dad. It was a stressful situation for everybody. Mom finally quit for real after I had kids.

I have to admit that I'm afraid for friends who smoke, but I try not to pester them about it. I was caregiver for my father-in-law when he had lung cancer, so that's colored my thoughts for sure. However, I do recognize the stress relief some people experience from smoking, and the positive effects of that relief. In many ways, that tradeoff is better than the tons of pills some people pop to get the same result. I guess it's really just a matter of picking your poison.

Zuzu, If you click on any item on the website it gives you the option of Home Depot financing.

Checked and found this from 2006

Home Decorators Collection (HDC), which offers catalog and online sales of home decor merchandise, will become part of Home Depot Direct, the direct-to-consumer division of The Home Depot. Home Depot Direct provides home improvement and decor merchandise through in-store catalogs, mail-order catalogs and Web sites with delivery directly to customers' homes.

Of course nothing wrong with Home Depot. Just ask my checkbook.

Oh, for the past three years? That's how observant I am. I wish they carried all of this stuff at my local Home Depot.

Me too! It would be great to save the shipping charge... they have a $10 surcharge for each piece of glass. Zuzu, some of these say "Art Glass" in the description and some say "Stained Glass". The pieces that you got from them... are the individual sections of glass stained or painted to be the various colors?

I've been smoking for 55 years, Evey. At this point, giving it up would kill me a lot faster than continuing to smoke could. Besides, my mother died of lung cancer about 40 years after she gave up smoking.

The pieces I bought from them are real stained glass: pieces of glass of different colors stuck together with copper or lead or whatever. They weigh a ton, so the $10 surcharge makes sense.

I would love to be able to walk into Home Depot and get some of these items. But that would be bad for my pocketbook. On the days I work I usually go to Home Depot or Lowes, sometimes TJ Maxx, to see what I can make my husband do in the house.

My husband smokes, and we just had this conversation last night. He is 67 and has smoked since he was 8. His last checkup the Dr. said his lungs were clear as a bell. Uh huh, cough, cough. But I told him I'm finally done harrassing him about smoking. He would just have too hard a time quitting, and me harrassing him does no good, and just makes him feel bad, and makes me feel bad for criticizing him, and he's a wonderful man. He doesn't smoke in the house, which is 10 years old.In our previous home he did, and it did bother my breathing. He only smokes out in the garage, where he has an office. (TV, and computer, so he would hang out there anyway, he's not being punished). And he doesn't smoke around the grandchildren.

You're probably right about it being worse to quit now than to continue. I honestly wonder if it was the right choice for my mom to quit. She's gained so much weight since then.

Yay about the stained glass. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas presents to arrive just thinking about them. =P I wanted to work on the accent fence today, but it stormed most of the afternoon. I didn't want to set fence posts just to have them all loosen with the rain.

You will let me know when you find that special place for the altar, won't you?

Surely I will not give up my glow in the dark Blessed Virgin Mary!

LOL! Ohhhh, that would fit right in around here. We've had an influx of Jesus and Virgin Mary statues in the last five years or so. I don't mean small ones tucked in under a tree... I mean HUGE ones that have neon halos and spotlights on them (I'm not kidding). It's like a battle to see who can have the largest one in their yard! It's been really interesting to see the changes people have made to their homes around here recently. Some I like; some I don't. But, I think it adds flavor to a community when the owners start showing their individuality.... even if some of the changes do give you a Gomer Pyle moment when you first see them! "Well, Gawwwwwwwwwleeeeee!"

Polly, I applaud your attitude. A body that got used to nicotine at 8 is not going to react nicely to its absence. In contrast to most people, I only smoke inside the house. I've started too many fires in my mulch to smoke outside anymore. I need ashtrays. Besides, if I didn't have to come in to smoke, I'd stay outside until I got heat stroke or exhaustion or something worse. This way I'm forced to take a break every once in a while.

I think if I had grandchildren and they came to my house, I'd smoke around them. Everyone of my generation had at least one parent who smoked in the house and we're fine. In fact, most people of my generation and even of younger generations had mothers who smoked while they were pregnant. My son was born 33 years ago and I remember asking the doctor if I should quit smoking. His answer was: "Don't do it! Studies have shown that babies prefer sane mothers." In the hospital, I shared a room with another woman and our two babies for three days. I was the only smoker and no one -- not my roommate, not the nurses, and not the doctors -- ever asked me not to smoke. How times have changed.

I thought it was so ironic when they outlawed smoking in bars. I think people who hang out in bars long enough to be bothered by the smoke aren't particularly concerned about their health.

Bars are exempted from the no-smoking laws here, but restaurants were not. It was really punitive on those bars that also have restaurants connected, as they have to follow the no-smoking policy. It's a double-edged sword, because they had to serve food to be open on Sundays in our parish (the Louisiana name for county), but then they lost business all week long because they had to ban smoking in the entire facility.

That is a double-edged sword.

When the smoking ban in bars was being put on the ballot here, the campaign ads always featured cocktail waitresses. I guess they wanted to catch people's attention, so they'd show a gaggle of cocktail waitresses in skimpy outfits talking about how much they hated breathing all of that smoke on their jobs. I used to sing in piano bars (and go to bars for other reasons, I admit), and I met hundreds of cocktail waitresses over the years. Every one of them smoked. But even if they hadn't, the ads seemed so preposterous. No one was forcing them to work in a bar. If they didn't like the smoke, they could find other jobs. It's not as though they'd worked hard for years on a PhD in cocktail waitressing.

It's not as though they'd worked hard for years on a PhD in cocktail waitressing.

LOL!!!

AGREED !!!

missingrosie! nice find wish I had seen it.
Great glass pieces everyone. My garden decor hasnt changed since spring except fot the plants around them.
This was April

Look what a great summer can do.
I thought the sculpture was going to dissapear,but no
OHHHH DD and I were given a pallet of bluestone so we made paths
This goes into the Daylily garden

This is the new Woods Walk garden where I planted tons of Daylilies from Pirl.
I also have some short lilies to dig and transplant.

This is the sculpture in the DL garden today.
Plants will disapear in a few weeks. We get frost in mid Sept some years.

Wow mid Sept. that is even very early here in zone 5a. When does spring start there?

This is Nigel he guards his little pond,(cat water)
This is in the spring

And later .Nigel has just about disappeared form the watering hole.

Nice cat.
I keep a bowl of water on the deck for the cats to use.

Pretty, pretty cat, Gus. That's my favorite kind of garden decor.

Zuzu, your blue puss' Sis lives here at our back door, the sliding door to the patio I built 5-or-so years ago. Here she is! 32" tall.

Linda and The MopTops

Now then, her tiny companion sits outside with the mouse atop a little patio plant. This little one's been here probably 4 years or more, amazingly. The plants must nearly roast during the summer.

Linda

edited for typos

edited once again to add: Take a look at who's tucked in behind the kittie. Eyeore hides out here.


This message was edited Aug 12, 2009 11:45 PM

This message was edited Aug 12, 2009 11:56 PM

Oh, I could go on forever. Here's my little Springer Spaniel, awaiting someone other than a cat to play ball with. At least she has the sense to stay in the shade.

Linda

And hiding behind the pot behind our Springer is this little guy.

BTW, the pot also provides a resting spot for a little concrete puppy, as well.

Linda (who'll stop here ^_^ )

Oh, OK, OK, I just had to try to get this one for you.

I spent one entire summer about 7-8 years ago building the surround around my 10X10 patio out of one of those Quikrete paver forms. I'd made some stencils to do some stencilled greeting cards some years earlier. The interiors of those stencils were just hanging out, so I grabbed them and pressed them into the pavers as the concrete hardened.

This is a really bad photo of my purposefully subtle memories of my 10-yr-gone Sergio, Champion Standard Poodle, little pussy cat, and a poodle (now-14YO-Standard Poodle) paw imprint in a small grouping. It's just one of those little things you want to keep to yourself so you can sit there on the wood step/decking back into the house on a Saturday morning and sink into those wonderful memories you have of such wonderful pets, if you know what I mean. Not sure anyone can appreciate what might on the surface appear to be "wallowing," if you will. But "wallowing" isn't something you do over wonderful memories. I delight in those times I can take a moment to sit there with them.

See if you can find the impressions herewith. I tried flash, btw, and no weird lighting as is utilized, but the light needs to come from the side in order to "catch" the image.

Linda and The MopTops

BTW, Zuzu, my favorite of your statuary artwork is of the grey and white pussy cat in the center of that wonderful pot at the very beginning of your thread.

Linda

Hey, Linda, that adorable pussy cat in the wonderful pot is not mine. Gardengus started this thread.

I see one cat, two dogs, and one paw print in the pavers. I love all of your decor, but especially "Sis" and Eeyore.

nice going

Oh, oops, sorry 'bout that, GardenGus. Midnight is a bit late to be trying to "communicate." My memory during daylight is questionable, but totally untrustworthy after dark, LOL. So, yes, GardenGus . . . that is my fave!

Yep, Zuzu, you found them! They Eyeore statue is a licensed piece of Disney product, which you'd correctly assume to be expensive. But let me tell you, I found it at Big Lots in full bloom. $25. Amazing for a Disney piece. Heavy, of course. And < chuckling > apparently a "second" in that Eyeore has a bit of a lean to it on one side. Like, who cared? Eyeore has always been my favorite of that family of animal family. What a find it was for me at the time.

Thx for correcting me on GardenGus' statue.

Linda

The cat at the top of the thread is ''Baby"' She is a bottle fed ,abandoned baby, that is cross-eyed ,schizophrenic, and hates everyone but the dog.

My mom just shared an old saying with me that I want to have put on a plaque for my garden. It's soooo true!

Accept that some days you're the pigeon,
And some days you're the statue.

Anybody know a good concrete cast company that will put sayings in concrete? Or have a good craft idea on how I can make a garden plaque with this? Evey =)

My mother used to say
"Some days you eat the bear
Some days the bear eats you"

There's also a country western song that has this line in it:
"Sometimes you're the windshield...sometime's you're the bug."

LOL!!! I like that one too. =P