Oh the Perfume! There is no better time of the year than Peony Time!
I’ve got 28 peony plants up my front walk. They grow in part shade, so they are late compared to other peonies I see around town.

Late-Bloomers! but well worth the wait!

Buttons for Princess Lasertron don’t just magically appear on her doorstep.
Well, actually, they DO! I usually get them FOR her. But there’s alot of work between purchase and flower!

I went shopping Memorial Day weekend at some of the Flea Markets at Okoboji. They are held three times  during the summer months, outside, rain or shine.

Vic's Corner Flea Market, Okoboji

These were a few items that I REALLY wanted to buy…..but I was there for buttons! And after some digging and searching on a perfect afternoon of flea marketing, I came home with a load of them.

Then comes the washing and rinsing and drying and sorting. Lots and LOTS of sorting. We sort into color families and bling families and size families. And the buttons have to be examined for strings and threads. Each one. One at a Time.

All sorted and ready for Princess Lasertron!

Courthouse in Spirit Lake, Iowa

I don’t know how many flags were on display at the brand new Dickinson County Courthouse lawn, but it was a real show-stopper. Traffic came to a crawl in front of the building. I even went around the block and parked so I could take a few pictures of these magnificant Memorial Day flags.

Each Flag had a name plate on it. The lawn was a quiet place, except for the sound of the flags in the Iowa Lakes breeze.

Our good friend Kevin is training right now with his Nebraska Army Guard unit to go to Afghanistan.

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More photos of the first official lake weekend to come, but my drive back to Blair today was breathtaking. Instead of fighting my road-rage on Interstate 29….where they have only orange cones and no visible work being done…I took the road less traveled and rolled down my windows.

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And today, there were few speeding semi trucks and no orange cones. Instead, there was farm machines that look like moon machines and the smell of manure mixed with dirt and lilacs. The best smell ever.

OH, and look who may have actually had FUN at the lake this weekend!

Scout....caught SMILING!

started out early early this morning when I got a telephone call from HunTel Security telling me that one of our buildings downtown had a fire alarm going off.
Oh My Gosh!
Oh, and Dan was out of town.
I got dressed and went downtown to see if I could help. TWO of Blair’s finest firetrucks and about TWENTY of Blair’s finest Volunteer FireFighters were already there, looking for the source of the alarm.
I had Dan on my cell phone and he helped me tell them how to navigate a hallway upstairs to get to an apartment located in a building next door.
Turns out the fire was actually in that apartment, NOT in our building, but smoke caused our building to react.
Just
Like
It
Was
Supposed
To.
Turns out, someone was cooking who maybe shouldn’t have been cooking and food was burned and smoke ensued.
That’s all I’m saying about THAT.

Thank You again and again to our VOLUNTEER FireFighters in Blair. So many of you got up in the middle of the night and were there even before I was.

Blair is in Good Hands.

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My cute hubs and I dined Tuesday night at the1020, Omaha’s newest restaurant.
It’s where Trovato’s was. But Trovato’s is LONG GONE!

Omaha's Newest Restaurant

The inside now has a cleaner, modern feel. CLEAN is the operative word.

Love me a restaurant with a Chalkboard!

Appetizer. Bread with two dips. I'm going back JUST FOR THE GARLIC SPREAD there on the right. Delicious.

MY dinner was White Pizza. Crust is good, crisp and not too flimsy. Cheese was not greasey. Chicken was "real". I liked the pizza. !

Dan had a Pasta Dish. They offered him a selection of pastas to choose from. He liked this Naked Pasta entree.

I wanted to like this restaurant and I SURE DID!

It “felt” very comfortable. It is a NEW restaurant in an OLD place. It already has history in the building and I felt some love tonight from many great meals from Trovato’s Past.

Kari and Sally, the owners, are 3rd generation restaurant people. They know what they are doing.
They already own Johnny’s Cafe and THAT place has been serving Omaha’s Greatest Steaks for more than 85 years.

Follow this new restaurant on Twitter @the1020Omaha for some great updates and maybe a special or two.