Lack of Customer Service

I am always amazed when I compare the high level of customer service we provide at the hotel with what I receive when I am on the opposite side of the counter.

I am not exaggerating when I say that at the hotel where I work, we go overboard trying to please customers. It’s really ridiculous the lengths we go. It’s very rare that I see that level of service given by businesses I deal with.

Remember the Husqvarna Sapphire sewing machine I bought last January? I bought this machine because of its quilting possibilities. In order to make use of these possibilities one must, in addition to the pricey machine, purchase the “Quilter’s Kit”, which has the sewing feet needed to machine quilt. I ordered it before I walked out of the shop on January 23, 2008. It’s a pretty expensive little kit – somewhere in the $300 range.

I don’t know the actual price because I have never received it. It is now August 6, 2008. I have called three times and talked to the store owner. I asked him specifically if he would call me when it came in. He said he would call. Yesterday I went to the shop in person to see if they had one in stock. Of course, they didn’t. The owner was not in, but the lady who sold me the machine was. She apologized and said she would leave the owner a note. I called again today. The owner won’t be back until tomorrow.

I think I have been very patient. It has been nearly seven months and I am still Quilter kitless!

I have witnessed adults throw hissy fits at our hotel counter for way less.

Just recently a lady screamed at the guest service rep until she was redfaced because she booked "last available room type" over the internet and she got a smoking room. As the name implies, there is no guarantee as to the type of room you get and a screen pops up which specifically states that smoking preference cannot be guaranteed.

The hotel had not one ounce of blame on this one and yet, this woman-- dressed in business attire--threw a tantrum like a two-year old child until we gave her a nonsmoking room. Of course, a nonsmoking room does not just magically appear. It was a room that someone else had reserved and expected to get when they arrived. I just hope someone in a nonsmoking room canceled that night so the conniving woman didn't ruin another person's day by taking their room. Ms. Businesswoman waited too long to reserve and the only rooms left were smoking, so she made the reservation knowing full well that she was not guaranteed a nonsmoking room. The sad thing is her conniving worked because we try to please them all--even those we know are flat out lying. I hope she broke one of those 2.5-inch heels on her walk down to that nonsmoking room.

It's been nearly 29 weeks and I can't even get Local Sewing Store to order a quilter's kit. Many business owners in my small town complain about losing money to internet orders. I wonder why they can't figure out what motivates us to do so...I am giving this guy two more weeks and then I, too, will be surfing for an internet source.

So Much to Do in the Garden This Week

This little garden area goes through at least four different periods of bloom. First tulips, then Asiatic lilies, now this purple phlox, and soon Sedum Autumn Joy.
I consider this tiny area a good planting scheme because of its successful blooming phases. There is something of interest from spring to fall. It's about the only area that looks nice right now.

The rest of the gardens are in need of a very thorough deadheading. Just two feet from the area above, I have these Shastas ready to deadhead.
Shastas are a big mess when they die and I have a ton of them that all die at the same time.

Here is another area with Shastas beyond their prime.
It's in the woodland garden so I am tempted to leave those pretty Queen Anne's Lace that popped out in the front. Queen Anne's Lace is another of those incredibly invasive wildflowers that I have spent years trying to get rid of from the main gardens. Although it's pretty it will take over quickly. I have dug hundred from the other gardens. I should probably reconsider letting these live.

Here is another villain dressed in a pretty gown.

She is tall, graceful, lovely and the second most invasive plant I have ever had the displeasure to tackle (next to sedum 'coral carpet'). After three years, I have been pretty successful eradicating these. I still get a dozen or so popping up in different areas, but that is nothing compared to the hundreds I had. I will be digging this one out this weekend.

The Big Kahuna is on vacation this week, so I have to go into work on both Sat. and Sunday for a couple of hours. I am on vacation next week, but I also have to work all day on Monday since the Big K is gone then, too. It kind of ruins your vacation when you have to work the first three days of it! Oh, well, such is life.

36 feet of binding is now ready for the final step

Late this afternoon I decided to tackle the binding for the monster quilt. Trying to wrestle this nearly 9-ft. square quilt around the sewing machine is not fun. I will be happy to get back to the hand sewing. I set up an ironing board to the left of the machine to help distribute the weight.

Once all the binding was machine sewn on, I trimmed all the excess batting and backing and pinned one edge of the binding to the back.


Now it's ready to begin hand sewing all 36 feet on the back side.
I will save that for another time. At first I wasn't sure about the binding pattern, but now that it's on, I think it will work just fine.

The big orange dahlia bud has fully opened. Each day it gets a bit more yellow in it's center.

Have you discovered V8 Fusion? It's a combination of vegetable and fruit juice. This bananna strawberry flavor even has beets in it.

It' delicious!

A Quick Dahlia Bouquet

What am I doing out on the deck before the sun even rises?

Well, I got up at my usual early hour, had a cup of coffee, read a couple of blogs and then decided I was in the mood to make a flower bouquet to enjoy inside for the weekend. So I went out to cut some flowers.

I cut just a few because the vase I had already selected had a narrow opening. See that time? That's a.m.
Yes, even on Saturday I am an early riser. I thank my Mother for that. She has always been an early riser and she passed the love of early mornings on to me. It is my favorite time of the day.

Can you see the time on this one? It's 10 minutes later and the bouquet is finished. That's how quick it was to do. Here is the finished product sitting on the living room desk. I had only two 'Park Princess' dahlias in bloom and I used them as the focal point with two other dahlias and a handful of seed heads. Do you recognize those seed heads? Last weekend when I was out cutting down the spent daylilies, I thought the seed heads were just too cute to toss out, so I saved a big container of them to use in floral bouquets. I think they add an element of interest and it's a way to use something a second time before throwing on the compost pile.

My Gardens Used to be all Pastels

Until about five or six years ago, when I got tired of pinks/purples and started gradually adding oranges and reds. (The big bare spot of soil is another area where I have had to remove everything to get rid of the sedum 'coral carpet'.)

I still have a few pink Asiatic lilies and some purple phlox. Around August all the orange color is gone and the garden begins to look softer with more pinks and purples. These lilies are 'Vivaldi'.

On the deck one of my favorite dahlias of all time is blooming. It's the pink 'Park Princess' and it's the first dahlia I bought. Some years it does not bloom at all and I thought it was gone, so I was happy to see it back this year.

Here's another dahlia bursting forth. As you can see the pink is out of place on my deck.


It does not go so well with the oranges and reds on the deck, but I like it, so I just let it clash for the short time they bloom together. I often pick the pink to use in the living room, which I may do this weekend if I am in the mood to create a bouquet.

I Almost Fell Over When I Read This

When I got home from work today my latest issue of Backyard Living was sitting on my computer chair. DH puts all my mail there because he knows that is the first place I go to when I come home.
I had to look twice when I saw this article on sedums:

Those tiny white flowers looked hauntingly familiar.

I quickly scanned the print to see if it really could be what I thought it was....
I nearly screamed out loud....it was indeed 'coral carpet'!
Backyard Living needs to send a reporter over to my garden to photograph me all red-faced and nearly falling over from exhaustion as I dig this stuff out in my now two-year attempt to eradicate it from my garden.

Sensational ground cover- I guess that is true --as long as you want ALL THE GROUND YOU HAVE to be covered.

At least this article makes me feel a bit better about being seduced by this plant. I pity the author of this article when the lynch mobs come looking for her once they find out what this plant is really like!

Well, I must get back to my pedicure. Yesterday I had my nails done and now I need to get matching toes. I do it myself to save money, but the fatter I get, the harder it is to reach those toes! :)

I use the magazines to shield the carpet from the red polish. Then I just bend over right from my computer chair and polish them. That way I can blog while I do it. I told you before that I am a master of multi-taking! :)

A Few Different Canna Leaves

Tropicanna 'Black' is almost ready to present its first bold, bodacious, beautiful red flower.

'Black' is the tallest of the three Tropicannas.

I love how sculptural this bud looks with the huge black leaves.

Here's another Tropicanna - Tropicanna 'Gold' - which looks totally different. So far this one does not have a bud. That's just another leaf coming out in the center.

Here is the original 'Tropicanna' with its pretty striped leaf. No bloom on this one yet either.

This beauty is 'Picasso'. I love the bold stripes in this leaf. That's a bud almost ready to burst forth with its orange/yellow splotched flower. With 'Picasso' you never know just what the flower will look like as the splotches are always a bit different. I am discovering that any flower named for an artist is a flower I will love. They seem to be different and more artistic, like their namesakes.

This leaf is Canna 'Wyoming'. I just bought it this year. The leaf is not all that impressive. I hope the flower is more interesting.

Here is a much tinier bud. It's special because I believe it will be my first bloom from the zinnia seeds that Dianne, from Dianne Rambling On, sent to me. Does it look like one of your purple ones, Dianne?

Something is dining on this hosta in a container on the deck.

I can't find any bugs, so they must be nocturnal.

On my stroll through the Woodland area last night, I admired the tenaciousness of these little hens and chicks.

Through snow, thunderstorms, even hail, they sit quietly clinging to this old piece of driftwood, never giving me any trouble at all. Every once in a while I pick a pine needle off them. Gardening doesn't get much easier than this little display.

Butterfly Bush, or should I say Lack of Butterfly Bush

My butterfly bush did not endure the harsh winter very well. It's not dead, but as of yesterday, it looks like this:

A couple of scrawny one & a half foot stalks. If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you may remember that this bush gets very large - over 7 feet tall and usually overhangs the deck. I used to love coming home and going out to take butterfly pictures while sitting on the deck.

It does not look like I will be having any blooms this year.

Yesterday I was walking up from the basement through the garage and saw a Monarch through the window. I put my laundry away and then went to see if it was still there. It was still happily sipping the drumstick allium nectar.

I didn't get a great picture, but, hey, we beggars can't be choosy!

I have been in the bad habit of doing no garden chores when I get home from work. My gardens are too big to be tended to only one day each weekend. So today I came home and immediately went out with my trusty shovel and wheelbarrow and spent 1.25 hours digging out more sedum coral carpet.

Years ago I planted it with ajuga because I thought it was a nice combo. The ajuga bloomed in the spring and the sedum in July. At the time I didn't know just how aggressive the sedum was.

Last year I thought I had removed it from this area. Ha! It was back this year with a vengeance. All the little white flowers are sedum. I decided the only way to remove it was to remove the ajuga right along with it. So today I dug it all out of this little area.

I also removed this silver snow-in-summer which is intertwined with the phlox.
After 1.25 hours I had two wheelbarrow loads removed and one load of top soil added back in.

It needs more top soil, but I was too pooped to haul more. I threw some of the nicer ajuga into a bucket of water and left it under the shade of a cherry tree until I get time to replant it.

The wheelbarrow and shovel were left there also because I have many more loads to haul out. I feel pretty good that I at least accomplished something after work today.

Just look at that green grass at the end of July! Unheard of in my yard. I hope it rains tonight.

I have no idea what the temperature is, but it was hot out there! I came in red-faced and ready for a long shower. It's been over 45 minutes and I am still red in the face. If I should ever disappear for a few weeks with no post, you can be sure that the sedum coral carpet finally did me in!

Remember my new garden shoes in early June?
Here they are today with my garden gloves right after I finished the above.

Rembrandt Dahlias & Flame Flower

I ordered Rembrandt dahlias from Breck's. I had never seen them before, but they sounded interesting. They are beginning to bloom. I planted one inside the same container as my Persian Shield that I save each year. It's way down in the left corner.

Here is a close up:
The tubers were "assorted", so I had no idea what color I stuck in this container until it bloomed.


How lucky could I get? The one I picked is perfect for the Persian Shield container. It's a very light purple.
I also have a darker purple blooming:

Both are nice --perhaps a little ho-hum--, but my favorite so far is this one:


Now that is what I call "artistic", worthy of the Rembrandt name. The big splotches of color remind me of my 'Picasso' canna that will be blooming soon. I think they will be great together.

This one has no splotches or stripes at all. It's just plain red, so I think it is not a Rembrandt.

That's OK, though, because I like it a lot.
All six of the Rembrandts are not yet blooming, but I already consider them a success.

Unlike the 'Flame' flower bulb I planted.


At something like $12.99 for one tiny bulb, I expected greatness from this one.

What did I get?

Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Not a thing came up.

Today I dumped the container where I planted the bulb to see if it had rotted.


The bulb was nowhere to be found. It disappeared! I could find no trace of it. Strange. This container was up on the deck and no animal got into it. It just dissolved.

I will write to Breck's and they will refund the price. They are very good about doing that.

Friday night we took off for an overnight trip. On the way back we saw a "Farmer's Market" sign in a little town and stopped in hopes of picking up some fresh veggies. Unfortunately there were no veggies, but I did find some tiny herb plants for .50 each. I bought four of them.

sweet basil, lemon basil, peppermint, & parsley, If you bought some herbs, the lady had an assortment of free plants and you got to pick one. I picked an annual -- Alternanthera 'Burgundy Thread Leaf'.
Common Name: Joseph's Coat
I know nothing about it. Does it flower? Even if it does not, I like the redish foliage.

The Plant is Towering Over Me, Boy, Do I Need a New Lampshade, and Let's do Lunch

This plant sure has taken off. The dahlia is over 5 feet tall now.

I still have one pupae on the stick.

Early last month one of them emerged while I was at work. Its split pupal shell was all that remained. This one must be dead. I will let him hang out here through the summer, but it doesn't seem likely that anything is going to happen at this late date.

This lampshade used to have a black sheer fabric covering. I stuck in on this lamp when I rearranged the living room two months ago. I intended to buy a new one, but I keep forgetting to measure it and go out looking for a new one.

It's so disgusting. Look at the bits of black still adhered to it.

I think I may attempt to recover it in some type of fabric. I have never recovered a shade before. It would be a fun new project. It would certainly be more interesting than a plain old cheap shade.

I am excited to have a new project waiting for me this weekend.

If it flops, so what? I was planning to buy a new one anyway.

Anybody want to join me for lunch? I have heard of novel restaurant ideas, but this one is just too much.