sea holly

Sea holly. It’s native to Central and Eastern Europe, not the midwestern USA, but it’s growing in my garden. Sea holly is a tough-as-nails plant that survives in extreme cold and poor soil. It blooms from early summer to early fall, flowering profusely in mid-summer. With a long tap root (it’s a member of the carrot family), it’s drought-tolerant and prefers dry soil. What’s not to love about sea holly? It’s thick, spiky leaves bristle with fierceness and the steel blue flowers resemble thistles. To really accent the flowers, sea hollies have these gorgeous ruffled bracts around the cones that looks like the ruffled collar of an Elizabethan costume. Best of all, bees and other pollinators love sea holly and that’s why it’s in my garden. 

 

monday's mulling: a happy heart

My Chicago family arrived last Thursday and headed home Sunday afternoon. It was a busy, fun-filled visit that seemed to last only a blink of an eye. Time really does fly when you're having fun.

My little grandson, AJ, is fascinated by farm animals right now, and we're fortunate to have a couple of local farms where young children can get up close and personal with the livestock. Our first stop was Young's Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs. AJ fed the goats, sat on a tractor, rode a blue horse on the carousel, played on a kid-sized playground, and enjoyed some blue cotton-candy-flavored ice cream. By the time the day was over, he was completely worn out and fell asleep almost as soon as his mom buckled him into his car seat for the ride home.

The next day, while his mom attended a baby shower, Daddy, Grandpa, and Didi took AJ to Hidden Valley, another local farm filled with animals. He saw baby lambs, piglets, cows and calves, ducks, roosters, and chickens. He raced up and down the fence line from the lambs to the pigs, then to the ducks, the cows, and back again, repeating the route at least four times. Farm animals are definitely his "thing" right now, and seeing so many of them in one place was pure two-year-old heaven.

During his down time at our house, AJ's parents let him watch a couple Disney movies. Right now "golillas and efants" (gorillas and elephants), is one of his favorites. For the adults around AJ, this translates to "Tarzan." This animated movie came out in 1999. and wow, once again, how time does fly. Phil Collins wrote and performed the vocal songs. It's a wonderful sound track.

One of the songs in Tarzan is "You'll Be in My Heart." It's such a touching song about a mother's love for her baby. When AJ was born, the doctors quickly discovered he had a hole in his heart and when he was 2 1/2 months old he had open heart surgery to repair it. Todd and I were there to support the new parents during this scary time. When I held my little grandson after his surgery, in a private moment through tears I sang some of "You'll Be in My Heart" to him. To this day, that song still makes me cry.

Come stop your crying

It will be alright

Just take my hand

Hold it tight

I will protect you

From all around you

I will be here

Don't you cry

For one so small

You seem so strong

My arms will hold you

Keep you safe and warm

This bond between us

Can't be broken

I will be here, don't you cry

'Cause you'll be in my heart

Yes, you'll be in my heart

From this day on

Now and forever more

You'll be in my heart

No matter what they say

You'll be here in my heart

Always

national smile day

"A warm smile is the universal language of kindness." ~ William Arthur Ward

It's May 31 and National Smile Day. Share your beautiful smile and brighten someone's day! 

"A smile is a curve that sets everything straight." ~ Phyllis Diller

say cheeeese

This street art is located on the exterior of a laundromat in the Lower East Side. Tom Bob, a New York City artist, is famous for reimagining urban objects into whimsical scenes. A gray cartoon mouse emerges from behind a large, bright yellow ramp painted to resemble a giant piece of Swiss cheese. I so admire people who have the vision to transform a structural element such as this ramp, into something eye-catching.

There once was a wedge on the street
With moon-craters painted so neat..
A mouse, eyes so bright,
Took one cosmic bite,
And launched into June on swiss feet.

the friday feed: new york nibbles

On our walk back to the hotel from Gracie Mansion, we were hungry, actually famished. We made our way to Pastrami Queen, Anthony Bourdain’s favorite spot for a pastrami sandwich. As the celebrated chef once said, “The first thing I get when I am back in New York is a pastrami sandwich. Pastrami Queen is a really good pastrami sandwich, if not the best among the very best. Just a good, nice mix of fat and lean. It's the real deal, served warm on a fresh, soft rye with the right kind of mustard.”

The restaurant is tiny, with two tables for four and a single two-seater near the front window. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon and sat at the small table, watching people walk past and locals step in to pick up takeout orders. There is nothing fancy about Pastrami Queen and that is part of its charm. It feels like one of those neighborhood eating spots that earned its reputation one sandwich at a time.

Cafe d'Angelo in Little Italy was our other favorite restaurant during this trip. The homemade pasta tossed in Alfredo sauce and then swirled inside a Parmesan cheese wheel was Italian comfort food at its finest... fantastico! To top it all off, a chilled glass of limoncello at the end of the meal was the finishing touch to a delicious dinner and a wonderful time in New York.

gracie mansion

In 1799, a prosperous merchant named Archibald Gracie built a country house overlooking a quiet, scenic bend on the East River, five miles north of what was then New York City. Now his home is one of the oldest surviving wood structures in Manhattan and the official residence of New York City’s Mayor. In 1823 financial hardship caused by the War of 1812 forced Gracie to sell his house and over the years the property changed hands several times. In 1942 city officials designated the house as the official residence of the Mayor. Fiorello LaGuardia was the first mayor to live in Gracie Mansion.

Now Gracie Mansion is home to New York city’s newest mayor, Zohran Mamdani and his wife. Before moving into the mayoral mansion, Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, lived in an 800-square-foot, rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens. They lived in this Astoria residence for roughly seven years prior to his mayoral term. What a change of lifestyle this public office brings.

One day, out of curiosity Todd and I took a walk to Gracie Mansion. We strolled to the Yorkville neighborhood of the Upper East Side where the mansion sits inside Carl Schurz Park and overlooks the East River. A wrought iron fence surrounds the property and inside that fence is another tall fence that blocks the view of the mansion. We were able to walk past the mansion to the East River Esplanade but could not get a good view of the mayoral residence. The views of the river and the city are gorgeous. It’s a shame that the fences block the views for the Mamdanis.  

Roosevelt Island in the forefront; Long Island City, Queens behind Roosevelt Island.

The RFK Bridge (formerly the Triborough Bridge) in the forefront; the Hell Gate Bridge behind. The Hell Gate Bridge served as the primary design inspiration and model for the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia.

wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

This past week was spent exploring New York City and, of course taking so many photos. Choosing what to share from hundreds of photos was driving me nuts. I finally narrowed this post to three art exhibits that stood out to me, each exploring a very different medium.

The first pieces come from the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex & Store at Grand Central in Grand Central Terminal. The exhibit, Inspired by MetroCard, features artwork created from the iconic blue-and-yellow MetroCards once used throughout New York City’s subway and bus system. Introduced in 1994 to replace brass subway tokens, the MetroCard officially retired on December 31, 2025, making way for a tap-and-go payment system.

For years, artists collected the pocket-sized cards because they were bright, flexible, and endlessly available. They transformed them into sculptures, mosaics, and collages, turning an everyday object into something beautiful. The exhibit captures not only creativity, but also the fading of a distinctly New York artifact, another casualty of advancing technology.

All of the creations are quite innovative but this one really caught my eye. It's very symbolic of New York with the street map, the pigeons, and the star of this show, the MetroCard.

Before leaving for the trip, I was scrolling through a few New York social media accounts and came across information about an installation in Madison Square Park by Roberto Lugo. His exhibit, Alfarero del Barrio (Village Potter), features a towering 20-foot urn along with a fire hydrant and other sculptures honoring Puerto Rican culture and community. The urn celebrates influential figures including Roberto Clemente, Bad Bunny, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Sonia Sotomayor. The entire installation feels grounded in neighborhood pride and monumental storytelling.

The final exhibit carried a personal connection back to Dayton. Artist Zachary Armstrong and my son were classmates throughout their school years, and even back then Zachary’s artistic talent was quite noticeable. Now he is exhibiting in a Lower East Side gallery in New York City and what’s more special, his son is making his debut alongside his dad.

The father-and-son exhibit fills the entire gallery space, with Zachary’s work displayed on the main level and his son’s work downstairs, reached by stepping outside and descending a sidewalk staircase. Enter chapter two.

Zachary works exclusively in encaustic, building his paintings through accumulated layers that create so much depth and texture. 

Jackson Maximo Armstrong works with textiles, constructing his pieces through multiple screen-printed layers. He often prints wet-on-wet before the colors have fully set, then runs the freshly painted panels through a hot press, to shift and transform the palette in unexpected ways.

This was such a delightful family affair!