Hey all you muppet fans out there (and I know there are lots of you). Are you ready to get your Kermit on? How about channeling your inner Miss Pig-gy?
Believe it or not, this is the first time muppet costumes have been made available for Halloween. I couldn’t believe it, either. I could have sworn I saw a few Fozzie Bears and Miss Piggy’s roaming my neighborhood in the past.
This year, you can officially get crazy like Animal, grab a buddy and be the sarcastic-grumpy Statler and Waldorf, cut up like as Fozzie Bear or Gonzo or be one of the most famous couples in the world, Kermit the Frog & Miss Piggy! You can even dress your little one up as Fozzie Bear or mini Kermit (too cute)
Statler and Waldorf, are offered exclusively through BuySeasons.com. You can buy the other costumes at BuyCostumes.com or wherever Halloween Buying Group costumes as sold. The costumes range in price from $49.00 to $54.00, Overhead latex masks are $49.00 to $60.00, and children’s rompers are $21.99.
Check out the looks below….
![](http://tboextra.com/exposure/ar/405/0/2009/10/28/19632_gonzo.jpg")
My cat Willy loves hanging out in the garden while I work. Wherever I am, he’s just a few feet away, sniffing the flowers or placidly curled up in the mulch.
Sometimes he’s a big help, like when he chases down runaway flower petals and wrestles them into submission.
Or when he stalks the dreaded Eastern lubber (that’s one to the left of Willy below.)
This can all be pretty grueling work, and Willy has gotten resourceful about keeping his strength up. Especially on warm days.
I always thought he was quite the helpful garden cat, and I had no reason to suspect otherwise. The seedlings that disappeared I blamed on bugs. The holes in the veggie bed? Armadillos. And the crushed patch in the otherwise lush bank of blue daze had to be the lawn service guys.
And then one day, I stepped outside when I was (apparently) not expected, and saw this. (That is a surprised cat face if ever I saw one.) He’s in the blue daze, doing more than just sitting, I might add!
But nothing screams “Guilty!” like this, just a second later:
I started watching Willy a little more carefully and discovered, when he thinks I’m not looking, he is not my big helper cat. He’s my garden pest.
He’s hard to catch with a camera—clearly seeking to avoid photographic evidence of misdeeds. But I’ve spied him eating flowers (and, to his credit, torpedo grass); scooping out latrines in seedbeds; and inviting nefarious kitties over for wild backyard squirrel hunts when he thinks no one’s home.
I even caught him trying to pull the blue sky vine off the shed!
Is there a moral to this story? I can’t think of one. Hey, we all enjoy the garden in our own ways. And that goes for cats, too.
http://www.standupfitnessinc.com
It’s official: Six weeks after registering for the 114th Boston Marathon, my entry was accepted!
You can even search for me on the Boston Athletic Association Web site’s database!
Guess this means it’s time to start training. I’m terrified!
The big race is Monday, April 19. Who’s coming with?
The more, the merrier!
Woah.
I can’t blame this dude for trying to take down Timmy. But look at where he’s grabbing!
Hmmm.
It wasn’t pretty tonight in Starkville, but the Gators held on against the Bulldogs to extend the nation’s longest winning streak to 17 games.
GO GATORS!
And congrats to Tim Tebow on his 49th career rushing score to tie Herschel Walker.
Now let’s get ready to take down some Bulldogs next week!
I realized while I was out clipping and weeding and watering today – and admiring my October bloomers – it was a year ago this month that I was moaning right here about having nothing blooming in the fall.
A year ago, I figured most plants just don’t bloom in the fall. My garden was a one-season wonder. I do most of my planting in the summer (I need the rain because my plumber husband STILL has not provided an irrigation system despite us living in this house for 19 years! But yeah, that’s a personal problem.)
One tends to buy what’s blooming so I had summer bloomers. Summer. When no one works outside, plays outside or even sits outside. When we do everything we can to avoid being outside.
So I was moaning about fall being a colorless season in Florida and Susan Gillespie of Riverview responded.
“I have fall bloomers. LOTS of them!”
Bragger!
This is Susan.
Her bragging led to a column about her fall bloomers in The Tribune, and lots of seeds and cuttings in Penny’s backyard. Thank you, Susan! (And yes, it also led to a new friend. Ain’t gardening grand?)
It’s fun to learn, and being an advanced beginner in gardening, I do a lot of that. Working in my garden today, I realized I’ve learned a lot in just the past year. And thanks to Susan, I have fall bloomers, too!
I adored her black-eyed Susan vines, and she actually bought me a packet of seeds and mailed them to me! I planted many of them, MANY, indoors and out, and couldn’t get the first one to even germinate. So she somehow dug up part of her plant, potted it and gave it to me. That worked.
It’s an energetic twining vine that needs only a little hand-holding guidance to move down along a fence instead of strangling its dreamy, live-and-let-live neighbors. It’s usually covered with flowers. Mine is looking a little bare because I’m a bad person. (But I still have blooms! As you see)
If you like this, I found a version called black-eyed Susan ‘Spanish Eyes’ sold by Renee’s Garden, a seed company. You have to buy the seeds on-line – I haven’t found them locally. Spanish Eyes has sunset-colored blooms—pinks, yellows and oranges with dark “Spanish” eyes. I planted two of the seeds a couple weeks ago in a pot outside and they’re already up and growing.
They’re $2.99 a packet and you only get about a dozen seeds, but hey, if they all sprout, it’s money well spent.
These guys, by the way, need a sunny spot.
Susan also blessed me with Philippine violet, a shrub. Hers (and mine) has white blooms. Some varieties have lavender. The first spot I planted it, in the ground, it lived but didn’t enjoy life. I moved it a couple months ago, and it got happy.
This one likes sun but seems to need a little break from the hottest parts of the day. It has a kind of narrow, upward growth habit.
I’ve mentioned them here before but I can’t say enough about datura – or devil’s trumpet. It’s SO easy to grow from seed, and it produces lots of seeds in thorny golf balls that some (Kim) might find unattractive. I love the flowers and only wish my three datura would get as big as the one I started for Janna Begole (another Friend of the Dirt.)
These guys tend to lean and bend and generally behave in an uncivilized manner. They’re not for the well-manicured garden, and probably not for the garden with the house full of teen-agers. (Parts of the plant—I don’t know which—are used as halluconigenic drugs. My college-age daughter knows people who were “strung out on datura” for months.”)
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Ever wished your man could look as dashing as Don Draper (John Hamm) does on the AMC show “Mad Men”? Well, now he can.
Brooks Brothers clothing store chain has collaborated with “Mad Men’s” costume designer Janie Bryant to introduce a limited-edition suit from the popular series that’s been reinterpreted for today, according to the company.
The suit has “razor sharp 1960s tailoring, a trimmer silhouette and period details, including a two-button jacket in grey sharkskin fabric with narrow lapels, diagonal pockets and side vents. Plus, it was American made at Brooks Brother’s Southwick plant in Haverhill, Mass.
There are only 250 of the suits available. Each has a commemorative “Mad Men Edition” label and will cost $998. You can buy it online at brooksbrothers.com and at select stores through the end of the season finale Nov. 8.
So if you want to get some Mad Men style, you’d better hurry!!!
I admit, the more yellowing leaves I clip off my struggling yellow pear tomato plant, the more I’m tempted to try one of those Topsy Turvy planters.
Even after reading the mixed reviews in the October/November issue of Florida Gardening magazine (one of my favorites.)
The advantages are many, No. 1 being no earth-borne pests. There’s also no staking, no sloppy sprawl, no weeding, and no big space issues for those with big space issues.
But as Florida Gardening readers pointed out, in response to editor Kathy Nelson’s request for feedback, they have some problems, too.
“They don’t work in Florida. I bought two and both promptly disintegrated,” wrote Jack Hoskins of Melbourne.
“The same fungus that attacks tomatoes in the ground made it up the pole” on which her planter was hanging, wrote Sue Connelly of Ocala. “The worst part was my battle with the wind; the thing became very top heavy.”
Two readers gave positive reviews, though one warned they do, indeed, get very heavy, and the other said they require daily watering, even when it rains.
With that knowledge, friend, colleague and adventure-gardener Jeff Scullin took on the Topsy Turvy challenge.
His neighbor had bought one, but his tomato plant quickly burned out. Seeing Jeff’s patio garden of peppers, herbs and other healthy plantage, the guy offered up the planter last month in exchange for a cut of whatever it produced.
(I love the retro leaf design! And check out the robust basil hanging out in the background.)
Jeff picked up a Sweet 100 hybrid cherry tomato plant (one of the Florida Gardening readers recommended smaller-fruited varieties) and some Miracle Gro.
“There’s an opening on the bottom, and you feed the plant in there, upside down, so that the shoot grows out the bottom,” Jeff says. “You dump in your dirt up top, which has a removeable plastic cover. The cover has a small round hole, which is where you pour your water.”
Jeff hung his planter on the patio. This is what it looked like, freshly planted, at the end of September.
He’s been watering, generously, daily. No flowers yet, but it’s growing. Though it gets plenty of sun, he can see the vine is curling back on itself, like it’s reaching for rays.
And here’s what it looks liked now.
Will it flower? Will it fruit?
Jeff promises to keep us posted.
I admit, the more yellowing leaves I clip off my struggling yellow pear tomato plant, the more I’m tempted to try one of those Topsy Turvy planters.
Even after reading the mixed reviews in the October/November issue of Florida Gardening magazine (one of my favorites.)
The advantages are many, No. 1 being no earth-borne pests. There’s also no staking, no sloppy sprawl, no weeding, and no big space issues for those with big space issues.
But as Florida Gardening readers pointed out, in response to editor Kathy Nelson’s request for feedback, they have some problems, too.
“They don’t work in Florida. I bought two and both promptly disintegrated,” wrote Jack Hoskins of Melbourne.
“The same fungus that attacks tomatoes in the ground made it up the pole” on which her planter was hanging, wrote Sue Connelly of Ocala. “The worst part was my battle with the wind; the thing became very top heavy.”
Two readers gave positive reviews, though they warned that the planters require
Faces of South Tampa
4807 Bayshore Blvd
Tampa, FL 33611-2843
(813) 443-5134
The below is from http://www.realself.com:
7th Anniversary Botox rebate for consumers
With the recession it seems only fair (and wise) to pass some of these savings on to hard-pressed consumers. Allergan is now rolling out an offer for a $50 rebate direct to Botox patients. The so-called 7th Anniversary offer is good until September 30, 2009. You must have spent at least $200 on Botox and received the injection between June 30th and September 30, 2009.
The Botox rebate requires an original itemized receipt from your doctor as well as a completed rebate form (available at your doctor office) that requests:
Redemption code
Botox Cosmetic vial lot number
Doctor’s name and signature
Date of treatment
To encourage a Botox 90 day routine, Allergan is offering a Botox Cosmetic double rebate. Patients receive another $50 rebate if they return for Botox within 90 days of their prior injection. If you end up getting the Botox rebate, please share back more details.
