Have you ever played Skip-Bo™ before? It’s an old card game that my grandparents used to love. We’d have a cold glass of caffeine-free Diet Pepsi® and a bowl of Bugles™, and we’d play Skip-Bo all afternoon. I can taste the snacks now like it was just yesterday! We’ve continued the tradition in our family with weekly Skip-Bo nights at our house, and the girls play with my mom as well. If you’ve played it before, you know it’s a game of both skill and luck. You have to make some decisions about when to build a pile, when to wait, and when to try to block your opponent from using their pile. But there is a fair amount of luck involved as well, from what cards are in your pile to how many Skip-Bo cards (a Skip-Bo card is a wildcard in the game) you draw.

Luck or skill, Maddy always wins. Doesn’t matter who she is playing, who shuffles the cards, whose deck we are playing with, or who goes first. She always wins. And not by a few cards. Her stockpile is gone before I’ve started to touch mine it seems. OK, so she doesn’t always win. Every now and then one of us savors a victory over her, but those moments are few and far between. We can’t figure it out, and I promise we don’t try to let her win. In fact, in some games I’ve tried really hard to win and she still flies through her cards. Her official title in our house is Skip-Bo Queen. We’re going to have to branch out in our games so that we find something we can all win a little more equally. In the meantime, we’ll let Maddy remain the ultimate victor.

When I need to nurse my damaged ego from being constantly defeated at cards, you know I head out into the garden. With spring in full swing, it is one of the best times for butterfly viewing. The warm weather and prolific flowers mean that butterflies in all sizes and shapes are back in our area. I think butterfly gardening is one of the most rewarding gardening endeavors. No matter your age, there is magic in the metamorphosis. To make sure your butterfly garden is in top shape or to get a new one started, join me this Saturday at 10am for the Butterfly Gardening seminar. I’ll teach you how to create a garden that allows for each stage of the life cycle to happen. And of course we’ve got lots of beautiful butterfly plants to make sure you have the best butterfly garden on the block. Come see us and experience the magical miracle of butterflies.