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karen heenan pages blog my books about me articles interviews podcasts newsletter signup wednesday may 6 2026 garden season it s been hard to decide when to start because our weather has been all the seasons all the time when we got home from vacation in early april it was in the 80s for 2 3 days it hasn t approached that since but instead has dipped down well into the 40s quite a few nights which frustrates my desire to get plants into the ground i did plant a tomato about 2 weeks ago and i ve been babying it like a well like a baby if you put a bucket over a baby at night to keep it warm but on saturday we drove out to a new plant popup shop a few miles away and i went a little overboard except not all their veggies and herbs were priced at 2 99 buy 4 get 1 free so i spent 44 and filled every raised bed in the yard but one that i m saving for a specific tomato that no one has yet i ve also expanded operations into the yard next door they re letting me plant the strip beds along the garage and the fenceline in exchange for my husband cutting the grass they don t live there full time so he usually does it this way i m getting dirt out of the deal i just don t think i ll be planting along the fenceline when i went to the back of the yard saturday i noticed the fence was tilting into my rear neighbor s yard the fence between us and the absentee neighbor was already in bad shape the problem in the back apparently was the neighbor s sons have extremely good aim for their age and had sent multiple rubber balls onto our garage roof where they washed down the spout and clogged the rain barrel opening thatt caused it to overflow and turn that corner into a marsh which in turn destabilized the base of the barrel and caused it to lean agianst the fence which being 40ish years old didn t appreciate said leaning the work will be divided appropriately but i m on the hook for contractor wrangling being on site and not having kids to deal with currently browsing facebook groups and pestering neighbors about fencing contractors affordable and respectful of garden spaces posted by karen at 11 30 am no comments wednesday april 29 2026 bruges bits and pieces some of the best parts of traveling are the odd unexpected things that you stumble upon while walking we did a lot of that because bruges used to be a walled city it is still surrounded by a ring road with a surrounding canal the area around it is filled with either green space medieval city gates or windmills there are occasional modern roads although the city itself doesn t have a lot of traffic and on the other side of the ring you can see the unfortunate architecture that bruges building code does not allow the vehicles pictured here tickled me the beer delivery bike the other delivery vehicle with the very real dog inspecting it from inside the former bike now serving area and the trees the bizarre pollarded trees i know that once the leaves come in they ll look fine if a bit geometric and that it s a pruning style that controls growtht but all i want to say whenever i see one of them is who hurt you nothing you d see back home which is what i want to see when i m away posted by karen at 11 50 am no comments labels bruges wednesday april 22 2026 on the streets of bruges because the forecast was cold and rainy i had to pack more sweaters than i normally would have last year in paris at thsi same time i was wandering around withoutt a jacket this year sweaters and my winter coat so i couldn t bring as many goodies home as i would normally have done but that s oaky photos are my favorite souvenirs anyway not that i let it stop me from window shopping bruges has lovely shops and because they have a lot of gray and rainy weather before the spring breaks through they have a whimsical way of decorating the exteriors of businesses with fake flowers it s totally ridiculous and charming and made me smile also quite a few of the shop windows did the same being in a chocolate town right before easter meant that the chocolatier s windows were top tier i tried to get as many of them as i could posted by karen at 11 42 am 1 comment labels bruges wednesday april 15 2026 bruges the city considering how nearby towns such as ypres were completely flattened during wwi the flanders battlefields are also close by though we decided not to repeat the 1914 experience of visiting trenches in mud season bruges is one of the few medieval cities left in europe that remains almost entirely intact this feat is attributed to a combination of economic bad luck in the 16th century which kept the town from being razed and rebuilt in more modern forms the harbor silted up and without a direct route from the sea the commerce that kept bruges afloat for centuries disappeared along with the money no one was going to demolish medieval houses with fairytale stairstep rooflines and build grand boulevards in a town with no commercial value yay for that then the wars bruges was occupied by germany in 1914 not long after the beginning of wwi they obviously weren t going to demolish their own base the allies did a lot of damage to nearby ports where german submarines were kept but by then the value of the undamaged medieval architecture had begun to be acknowledged and the allies declined to be the ones to damage the town during 1944 bruges was almost caught in the german retreat as they fell back thtey desttroyed roads and bridges to slow the approaching allied armies when they left bruges however the canadian army was so hot on their heels that they just let it go so bruges exists as it does as it did because of a confluence of events no one could have predicted in the 1970s the town really buckled down to what it was and instituted a rigid building code that any new construction had to fit in with the existing aestthetic they were successful bruges is now a unesco world heritage site and well worth the visit posted by karen at 11 21 am 2 comments wednesday april 8 2026 there and back again silly question so i got the all clear from the eye doctor and we left for bruges because of everything that s been going on if you re in the us you know we got to the airport even earlier than usual once upon a time i ran through airports to catch flights like oj simpson in those old commercials but now we got there at 3 15 for a 7 35 p m flight the only problem was british airways didn t open their checkin until 4 00 so we waited in line for 45 minutes checked in and then waited in the security line for another 30ish honestly we were expecting so much worse the tsa workers who were there were moving and the other agents who were there for whatever reason were just standing around watching people or eating not actutally providing any assistance our room right off the market square we got through in plenty of time to go to a bar near our gate when i ordered wine the bartender asked small or large silly question flight was uneventful we made our connection in london landed in brussels a town i will never ever like and took the train straight to bruges basically from arrival to the airport to arrival in bruges was 16 straight hours of travel nad it was more than enough once we checked into our hotel we went face down on the bed for about 90 minutes thankfully it was prettty early then got up cleaned up and went out in search of food and scenery all of which you can find there in abundance view from the room it was a great week despite the weather which hovered between 37 and 50 degrees with rain every single day not constant but often enough that i couldn t leave without an umbrella or a sweater i m going to spread my vacation posts out ta bit both because things are a little busy at the moment and i feel bad about not posting for a bit and because i don t want to do one huge photo dump with attached description the trip deserves more than that market square with tower our hotel would have been to the right and down a small street posted by karen at 3 21 pm 2 comments labels bruges wednesday march 18 2026 mending tessa says her eyes are prettier and they work my eye is feeling better i m still on more drops than i can keep track of without setting my phone alarm multiple times per day but they appear to be doing what they should i saw the retina specialist last thursday and he said everything was looking as it should i ll go back again this friday for a final check before we go on our vacation next week hoping for good weather on vacation at least more consistent than we ve had here last wednesday it was 80 on thursday it snowed on the following monday we had a tornado touch down a few miles away mother nature is a cranky menopausal female and while i understand i could live with a little less drama in my weather eye motwithstanding i ve been writing and sewing just in sunglasses posted by karen at 11 30 am 1 comment wednesday march 11 2026 an update of the thoroughly unexpected variety when we last spoke i was heading for the retina specialist on friday morning by friday afternoon i was in the local hospital waiting for him to scrub up and fix my eye by friday evening i was wolfing cold pizza in the car on the way home becaues i hadn t eaten since 7 a m and i was just a tiny bit feral from the day that i d had all that said and done my eye is fixed now i m on a crap ton of eyedrops steroids an ointment and a schedule for all of the above that means my phone goes off every few hours just when i ve forgotten it s coming but i m better and we re going on vacation soon and i won t have to worry about any bodily misbehavior on the flight or when i m away from home more soon posted by karen at 5 56 pm 3 comments older posts home subscribe to posts atom sign up now to receive a free novella stay for book news progress reports and more special offers you can unsubscribe anytime for more details review our privacy policy sign me up loading thank you you have successfully joined our subscriber list visit my bookshop on etsy 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