Fiona and Ina

 

Fiona, the sentry guard dragon

Last year, I spent my gardening budget on installing the native garden, the plants and all the fixin's, such as mulch and paving stones. This year's budget went mostly towards acquiring Fiona, our newly installed sentry guard dragon. It took three men at the garden store to wrestle her into our SUV, but my engineer husband and I were able to get her out of the car and into the garden on our own. We devised a ramp using a step ladder and plywood and utilized a dolly and voila, she is now on guard duty.

One of my Australian cousins informed me that dragons in gardens bring luck, so I did a bit of searching and found some interesting tidbits (from the Magic Bricks blog) that are relevant to our dragon and that make me happy:

Dragons hold a special significance in Chinese tradition. It is a mythical creature known to bring good luck and fortune. Feng Shui dragon statues are placed in houses, shops and offices to attract success, abundance and prosperity.

A dragon statue holding a crystal is quite popular. The crystal is referred to as the wish fulfilment jewel. This type of dragon helps build hope. 

You can place a dragon statue in the east direction of your house to invite success and abundance. The east direction of your house also governs health. Placing a Feng Shui dragon in this direction promotes good health. 

I'm not sure whether this means the dragon should be facing east or should be on the eastern side of the house. Our dragon is to the south of the house, but we're also in good shape as the blog says this direction maintains peace and harmony at home.

Enough About Dragons...On to Books

Be Ready When the Luck Happens, by Ina Garten - I seem to be on a celebrity memoir kick lately, but I just finished listening to another one and really enjoyed it. Our repertoire of dinners includes several of Ina's, and hers is one of the cooking shows I fondly remember because I learned something about cooking by watching it. I really enjoyed hearing about her life with Jeffrey, how she jumped from working in the White House to owning The Barefoot Contessa, and how she built her business (from the shop to cookbooks to TV). I loved hearing about her time in France, both as a newlywed and later when she bought an apartment there. It was tough to read about her childhood and her cold, demanding, and (at times) abusive parents, but this was obviously a huge part of making her who she became.

I especially like the title of the memoir, which Ina explains at the end of the book. For most of her life, she attributed her success to being lucky when in actuality she worked hard, was true to herself and her values, had fun, and was ready to take advantage of opportunities when they came her way. 

I just started watching her latest TV show, Be My Guest, and guess what, I learned something. I think this weekend I might make the Halibut with Herbed Butter from episode 1.

Hope you're having a wonderful summer (or winter for those down under). 

Happy belated solstice, and happy reading!