in the heartland...

I woke up at 6:00 am in the morning!

It is early for me since I go to bed around 2:00 am.

I want to weed my vegetable garden,

 

but…

 

When I went outside just a minute ago,

millions of mosquitoes were flying towards me and trying to taste my blooooooood!

 

 EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEwwwwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeee!

 

My skin overreacts to mosquito bites.

The skin gotten mosquito bites will be swollen twice as much as normal size.

 

I want to kill them all…

Desired to come in.

I really really want to go inside the house!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanna, relax…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

・・・・・・

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay...

 

 

Having wrestled with each other in wet grass,

jumped in mud water, and swam in a creek,

 

 

you are soaked!!!

 

 

You need to be dry to come inside the house

so stop giving me the looks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahhhh.

I feel guilty now.

Show us the wallpaper on your cell phone.
Submitted by jacolily.

Cool, ain't it?

Yesterday was the summer solstice for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. How did you celebrate the arrival of summer and the longest day of the year?

 

 

 

 

The Saturday was a gorgeous day in Chicago, right?

 

My husband and I hung around Navy Pier, having a couple of beer and listening to oldies being played by some local band. (They were pretty good.  I love oldies.)

Then, we went back to Randolph St to find a nice bar for having more beer.

We found a nice Irish pub and had German beer (!) and some local beer.  (I don’t remember their names.  I don’t even try to remember names of German beers.  They are too difficult to pronounce any way.)       

 

After having beer and some appetizers at the bar, we took CTA from the nearest station.

We got off at Halsted and went to Greek Town and had a nice dinner!

 

That was the most fun day in for a long time.

I was stunned when tornado sirens went off around 1:00 am this morning.

I woke my husband up. He was sound to sleep at that time.

We turned on a radio and checked weather radar on a website called Intellicast.

 

We went outside.

It was so dark, and the wind was blowing violently.

I started to feel fear growing inside of me.

I didn’t see anybody looking outside or any lights in neighbors’ houses; it seemed like nobody else but us noticed the sirens.

 

Fortunately, nothing has happened.  Actually, the tornado warning was canceled 10 minutes after it was announced,

 

still it was a freaky morning.

After countless storms coming through, we finally got the sun…

 

More storms are expected in two days

 

so we should enjoy sunning, right?

Yesterday was a nice sunny day... Today it's gloomy and rainy again.

I took those pictures yesterday.

My hanging plants became overwhelming,

and they are choking each other in the small pots...

I may have to transplant marigold somewhere else.

 

Oh, yeah.  I woke up around six in this morning and happened to see a hamming bird.

It was so pretty. 

 

 

 

 

Chamomile is budding.  I can't wait to see cute little flowers!.

 

The little plants in the other pots are Thai pepper.

These are my husband's plants.  Every year he saves some seeds from pepper so that he can sows  them next year.  They germinated more than one month ago, but they are still small like this...It might be too cold.

By the way, Thai pepper is not as hot as habanero, but PRETTY DAMN HOT!!! 

 

 

Like I said earlier, it is raining today...sight...Another gloomy day in the Midwest. I hate this weather.

I felt like I should treat myself for something. Something that can lighten me up so I bought hydrangea.

During June and early July  is rainy season in Japan, and hydrangea is blooming almost every where around this season. I hate this season, but I've always loved hydrangea since I was a little kid. 

I like blue bloom, but it is very hard to maintain the color so I decide to plant it in the clay pot. ( I haven't planted it, yet. It is sitll in a plastic container and just sitting in the clay pot.  I just wanted to take a picture:) Keeping the plant in the pot may help me control the ph of the soil.

The following phrases are stuck in my head recently.

This is so true...

 

Moving on is a simple thing

What it leaves behind is hard

 

 

And this is my life...

 

I realized life was a game

The more seriously I took things

The harder the rules became

I had no idea what it'd cost

My life passed before my eyes

I found out how little I accomplished

All my plans denied

But life still goes on, and no time for whining.  Just let me whine for a while on my blog so I won't do that in a real life.

 

The tempature went up to 80 ℉ yesterday.  I guess it was the first time we had 80 ℉ in this season.

This morning it dropped down to around 40 ℉!  It feels like having winter again.

I started to worry about the plants, especially vegetables. They need more heat to grow.

 

Red Japanese maple.  I planted in the most shady place in the yard two years ago because I was afraid that the sun light would kill the tree...but I was wrong.  I used to live in California and had a Japanese maple tree there as well.  The tree was planted in the shady area, but straggled to suvive in the strong California sun and heat.  Well, now I live in the midwest...  The tree can live well in the sunny area. Uhh.... this is a beautiful tree, but I cannot show it off to my neighbors.