My first blog post 5 years ago today was about Bluebonnets, which have once again just popped up seemingly overnight (I realize the above image is not a bluebonnet). We had a big thunderstorm and I spied about 1.5 inches in my easy reader big print rain guage… so more will be up this weekend. May be a great weekend for driving around with no plan but to stop and take pictures of anything that catches my fancy.

I named this blog after my two cats Bean and Noodle. Bean passed away that summer, but Noodle is still hanging out on the front porch on his favorite wicker chair today while I'm at work. I can't believe he is 13 this month.

I was thinking about how much has happened in just 5 years. My sister and I found our mother, lost our mother, DH and I bought our first home, managed to end up with 3 dogs, learned to knit (and discovered that I love it), ran for city council in my new hometown, was elected to city council, am presently running for re-election (unopposed), started quilting, gardening again, printing. The list goes on. I guess what I'm seeing here is that I have really grown into myself in the past five years,  though it did take me until the first half of my forties. But hey, any gardener knows, the late bloomers keep the garden interesting.

Oh, I thought it was time to finally create a new header for my blog. The cute plastic flowers and fancy edge are from Kitschy Digitals