And once again, I’m back from my travels.  In case you weren’t paying attention to my last post, I went off to visit my mom in Henderson, NV for a week.

My mom will be turning 84 later this year, so I like to take every opportunity to spend some time with her these days.  In fact, I’m going back again in April with my sister.

For this trip I was flying solo though.  It is incredibly easy for me to get to my mom’s, despite it being 1,680 miles away.  There are plenty of flights to choose from between Minneapolis and Las Vegas, and the flight takes about 3 hours.  I live fairly close to the airport on my end, and my mom lives even closer to the airport on her end.  In addition, I find that both the Minneapolis airport and the Las Vegas airport tend to operate quite smoothly.  The same can not be said for Puerto Vallarta …

That place was a zoo!

And of course, now that I am retired I can go visit my mom anytime.

Aside from dining out a couple of times, and doing a little shopping and errand running, we mostly just spent some quality time hanging out.

I thought I’d share a few updates on projects out at mom’s that I’ve shared with you guys in the past, starting with her front door.  If you’ve been following me for long, you may remember that I painted her front door back in February 2022.

I used Dixie Belle’s Midnight Green Silk paint from their Desert Collection, which seemed appropriate since she lives in the Mojave Desert.

Two years later, the door still looks as good as the day I painted it.

It was a little dirty, but wiping it down with a damp rag quickly took care of that.  Considering that this door is subjected to the blinding Nevada sunshine on a daily basis, I am pretty impressed with how well this paint has held up.

Speaking of holding up, check out that pot of cyclamen.  I planted that back in October of last year, and my mom basically does nothing more than water it now and then.

It has been outside all winter, and despite the occasional night below freezing it still looks fantastic and is blooming away.  Here in Minnesota we basically treat cyclamen as a blooming houseplant.  I rarely get a 2nd flush of blooms out of them.  My mom says this one has been blooming steadily all winter.

I can’t say the same for the gardenia that I planted for Mom back in April of last year.  Here’s how it looked when I planted it.

It has grown quite a bit, but unfortunately it has never bloomed again.

I suspect that it might just be too hot on my mom’s patio for this plant to thrive.  If any of you have any tips on getting a gardenia to bloom, be sure to leave a comment.

In March of 2021, my sister and I gave my mom’s patio a makeover.

We purchased that cute little bistro set at Lowe’s for $248, and it too has held up beautifully for three years.  Unfortunately this set is no longer available at Lowe’s or I would certainly recommend it.

This little enclosed courtyard is perfect for enjoying a cool late February morning with some library books and a cup of coffee.

One of the things I did out at mom’s was to clean out some closets, as well as her laundry area in the garage.  I had to laugh when I came across her Jubilee kitchen wax.

I’m fairly sure that my mom has not waxed a floor since I was in grade school.  But for some reason the Jubilee wax has made every move from Illinois to Minnesota to Florida to North Carolina to Kentucky to Nevada (yes, my parents moved a bit).  And she even packed it when she moved out of her big four bedroom, three bath house to her current townhouse.

There’s no way my mom’s going to be down on her hands and knees waxing a floor these days, but for some reason she just keeps hanging onto that wax.  And now, somehow I just can’t bring myself to toss the Jubilee either.  How silly is that?

I did take some time to stop into the Goodwill that is just around the corner from my mom’s place.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a single item that could be considered ‘fabulous’.  It was quite disappointing (garage sale season can not arrive soon enough!).

How about you?  Are you ready for garage sale season?  Leave a comment and let me know!