I usually reserve pics of the plants for my garden blog, but I couldn't help boring you to tears with some of the photos I took today.

Right now is definitely my time of the year. It's all about renewal, fresh starts, and anticipation. I watch my gardens with ridiculous and obsessive intent in March and April. Every new bud...every new pale leaf that unfolds...every strange looking first little tip of a perennial plant that pokes through the ground....I get a wierd high out of the sight of all these.

Late afternoon was cool and overcast today, so I got some good shots.

The Sedum 'Autumn Fire's. Always the last to die down in December and the first to poke back up through the ground in February. They are in the front of the butterfly garden and attract them like magnets in the summer.



The new frosty grey-green baby leaves just now coming out on the Oakleaf Hydrangea 'Alice'. I didn't strip off the old red leaves from last fall yet because I wanted to see them together this spring. Very cool. In two months, 'Alice' will be covered with foot long green blooms which stay on the plant all season...turning from green to white to pale pink to red to bronze from then to November. Awesome.



When the Daylillies 'Frankly Scarlet' poke up, they don't waste any time. These freaks have grown 5 inches in the past week. They will get to 3 feet in no time and start throwing out incredible deep red blooms for months.



This is the variegated Hydrangea that we rescued from the dumpster behind Home Depot 5 years ago...just coming into leaf this week. It looked aweful and sickly for 3 years...but then put on a little show two years ago...and kinda showed off last year. It looks like its really going to put on a show this year. I love that.



Last but not least, the Japanese Dogwood in front. The buds just started to burst open this week. By this time in two weeks it will be covered in blooms. That's when I can say Spring has really begun.

Gospel is some of the most under-estimated, under-appreciated, and overlooked music. That’s a real shame too. In my opinion, it’s simply some of the finest and most organic and powerful music in our legacy.

“Church” is relative and personal for everyone, so I’ll not preach here. I just want to share with you guys some of what I think is ultimately the most important, inspired, and soulful human sound in the history of American music.

This is what I usually play on the outside speakers when I'm out working in the gardens. Mahalia, Aretha, Dorothy Love Coates, Kirk Franklin, The Anointed Pace Sisters, Dottie Peoples, The Blind Boys of Alabama, etc.

Anyways… Something beautiful happens to the voice of someone that denies their ego for that moment and lets themselves be lifted up in praise. Great gospel artists draw from something bigger and deeper than themselves. You can hear it resonating through them.

1) I selected the tune from Alison Krause just because it is so haunting, deeply spiritual, organic, and beautiful. Regardless of your faith, it is just a gorgeous piece of music.

2) I selected the tune from Mahalia because I couldn’t find Precious Memories, my grandmother’s favorite. I can’t remember anyone but Mahalia ever playing on my grandmother’s stereo. Move On Up A Little Higher is a phenomenal song…even if you consider it merely a blues tune.

3) I selected the tune from The Anointed Pace Sisters…because…uh…ok…I picked them because they are my home girls from the ATL, ok?! These ladies can raise a roof, raise a steeple, and BLOW OUT THE JAM. They are large and in charge and AMAZING.

4) I selected the tune from Dottie because she can always get you on your feet. She KICKS ASS.

(I had to go to Song2Play to find one of my ultimate favorites. I always stop what I am doing and listen to Aretha singing “Mary Don’t You Weep”. I think it is one of the most moving and powerful songs ever recorded. I put it in the comment section.)



Peace Out…T

We got mentioned in the April edition of Lucky Magazine in the Atlanta section. They are also doing a "Lucky Break" feature on the store and heliotropehome.com in July. Schweeet.




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The nice folks from mydecatur.com came by around Valentine's Day and filmed the store for the blog on their site. Toward the end you can see Marc waiting on a customer and then me jumping around and laughing at something at the check out.

When we have a bad week at the store, I buy two $1.00 TV dinners and live off of them for the day. When we have a good week, I buy a little somethin' somethin' for myself.

Owning your own business is bizarre. Five months into it, I'm just beginning to understand the difference between living off of a paycheck and living off of your own wiles. In the early stages, you never know if and when your next cash flow is going to happen.

But we are doing well. The store is doing well. There are a couple of things in my background that will not quite allow me to accept even the smallest successes yet though, and I know that these are two tick points I have to overcome before I will feel comfortable enough to do so...

1) For generations, my family has been comprised of farmers, preachers, or engineers... and dutiful wives of farmers, preachers, and engineers...and has mistrusted merchants. I need to hold onto the sweet principles I was taught, but shake away certain things. There was always an underlying notion among my family that if you got too "high and mighty", the floor would eventually cave in underneath you. I can only suppose that am too cautious about showing excitement about milestones in the business around Jessica and Marc because of lingering and engrained notions of this. I need to accept that this part of the hillbilly yin yang is not true. I do want to see Marc, Jessica, and myself disprove this for 4 years. THEN I'll get excited.

2) The last two companies I worked for lost their merchandising vision and lost sight of their mission statements, as a direct result of growing too fast and not investing enough time, energy, and sweat equity into the business. I want to see us successful, while staying true to the Heliotrope beliefs and ethics that sparked the idea for the company in the first place, and not compromising. I want to see Marc, Jessica, and myself accomplish this for 4 years. THEN I'll get excited.




So....anyways I'm ramblng. All I actually came here tonight to do was to jump up and down in that "jump-up-and-down-OH-MY-GOD-GIRLFRIEND-LOOK-WHAT-I-JUST-BOUGHT!!!" kinda way. This past couple of weeks has been really good, so I bought myself some t shirts today for summer.

***(Kudos out to PalmerCash.com and CottonFactory.com for providing cool random t shirts to The Dog House for the past few years! These guys RAWK!)***

These are the ones I ordered today....











That's all I could afford right now. If we have another good couple of weeks, I'm going to get these......







Peace, T

Ok..so I'm going to paint the porch next Saturday...or least that is my grand scheme. Sounds easy, right? But oooohhh nooo...not with me.

I spent 3 months searching for the most exact, perfect, correct, most precisely "mood conveying" grey the last time I painted it 4 years ago. That grey that would say "hey, I'm here, but casual and soothing and innocuous". That grey that would say "hey, I'm peaceful and understated, but damn I'm smart and stylish and at peace with the other colors of the front of the house". That grey that would say..."hey I'd be cool if the dogs dragged up big paw-fulls of Georgia red clay mud on me while you spilled a Bud Lite on me". It was THAT grey I was looking for 4 years ago. It had to be "dovey, creamy grey"...not "steely grey-y" grey.

It took me 3 months to decide on just the right grey for the porch. I can't find an old can in the shed from last time to match it up, so now I'm in panic mode and now the whole process is starting over. The porch...the grey paints...me...this is Steven King territory. I've decided to buckle down and look for something "dovey" and "creamy" and go with it within the next 4 days. I will NOT obsess this time.

Obsessing over color was nearly the cause of the only time Marc and I ever came close to divorce.

When we bought the house, we painted and re-painted one wall of the dining room seven times, over a two week period.

Feng shui.

The north facing wall of the dining room had to be "red" for money and fortune.

I wasn't gonna paint just any "red" on my dining room wall, so I went all OCD on his ass. So...every night after we got off work, I made him examine "the wall", critique it, drive to Home Depot, look at swatches, buy paint...and go back over to the house and repaint that one wall...ad nauseum.

We were sitting in the parking lot of Home Depot on the eve of the seventh and final time in two weeks that we were about to venture inside to look at red paint again. I had never seen that look on his face before. He had learned by now that it was best to concede to my crazy whims, but right then at that moment he was confused, enraged, fed up, pissed off, and exasperated all at the same time. Divorce was imenent if I didn't just go inside and stop this insanity and just "get some goddam red paint". Under that intense pressure, I picked out the perfect red paint....firecrackery and with just a hint of burnt orange...but not too "Tennessee-orangey", warm, but not "80's warm"...not tomato...not chili...some brown undertones...but not too much brown undertone...very millenium "red/orange/chocolate/red/pepper/orangish/scarlet/red".

P.S. The wall in the dining room looks awesome.

P.S.S. But I'm thinking about changing it.

P.S.S.(2)...or (b)... or whatever....please just don't tell Marc, ok?.