— my little corner of randomness —
Ok…that was a terrible pun. And I am sure you were expecting to see Maddie after that title. But really, I wanted to share how well my plants are growing!
Pretty nice, huh?! They are quickly outgrowing their pots and I need to replant them soon. We’ve sent in the forms for approval of a garden and a patio, so they’ll be living outside soon!
I’m having so much fun! I can’t wait until later this year when I have grown things I can actually eat! Then I’ll really be proud of myself!
I went to check on my plants yesterday and found a tiny little tomato plant had sprouted. Today I checked on them to find all these!
These are all tomatoes. I also saw that an onion had sprouted.
There are a couple more that I can see starting to peek up through the dirt! How very exciting!
I’ve decided to try my hand at gardening. Well, other than lilies and other plants that don’t need much care! 🙂 Ow that I am home, I wanted to try growing some fruits and vegetables. I went this weekend and picked out some seeds to start planting and I couldn’t be more excited about it.
I got potatoes, a raspberry plant, onions, bell peppers (I forgot to get jalapeño peppers) tomatoes, spinach, cilantro, carrots….things that I actually eat. This way I thought I would be more excited about growing things that I like and would use. I hope it will be much more rewarding this way.
I can always try more things if these go well. We’ll see! But this seemed like a good start.
I planted them in this little tray and then added a cover to keep them toasty. I guess you just need to spray them with a squirt bottle. It actually works quite well.
My next task is to submit a plan for where the garden will be. We need to do that in the neighborhood. We are also planning to build a patio, so maybe we’ll send them in at the same time. The seeds aren’t quite ready to be outside anyway.
I’ll post some updates of my plants as they grow. Wish me luck! And send green thumb thoughts my way!
A few weeks ago, I gave my dining room furniture (which belonged to my grandma) to my brother. It just didn’t fit in our house very well. So over the weekend, Chuck and I went looking for replacement furniture.
We found some we liked and I went to buy them yesterday. Here’s what they look like.
This is the table. We also got two of these chairs that are shown with the table.
Then we got two of these chairs. It might seem weird that we got two different chairs, but they were on display this way at the store and I really liked the look. And we have 30 days to exchange them if we don’t like how it looks.
And this bench. I have always wanted a bench!
And finally, we got this buffet.
I can’t wait until it’s all set up in the dining room. I still have one big wall I want to do something with. We didn’t get a hutch so now I have a bunch of crystal that used to live in a hutch that needs a home. So I have to come up with something creative to display them.
After everything comes in and it’s set up in the dining room, I’ll post a picture. I was just too excited not to write about it!
When my grandma died a number of years ago, I took her dining room set. In our last house, the furniture fit great! Everything had a nice spot. But in this house, I could never get it to look right. So my brother took the set! I’m glad it’s still in the family. He sent me a couple pictures from his phone yesterday.
It looks better in his house than it ever did in our current house. I’m excited to see the table in his house!
Now I’m on the hunt for something that fits our space better!
This is our flowering crap apple tree we planted last year. I was so excited to see all the flowers on it this year. When we were at our old house, we planted a flowering crabapple in the front yard and it took it until the week we moved out to flower.
So I was pleasantly surprised when this one flowers. Granted, this one was bigger and more matured than the last one was. I still worried I wouldn't get flowers.
It was this gorgeous for a little over a week. Then they all blew away. Bummer. But that's ok. This tree was the first to flower of our plants. And I love those first flowers that tell you Spring is here.
This was the tree I talked about yesterday that we moved. We decided it was just too close to the house. It's in a much better place now.
Now I am checking on all my other plants everyday looking for blooms. (And some have!) It's about as exciting as it sounds…kind of like watching paint dry. But when I do see a flower, I am giddy the rest of the day! So it's worth it in my mind!
We also put screen doors on the front and back doors this Spring. It's so nice to open the door and see out the front and let some fresh air in.
We did a little more planting over the weekend, so I'll get some pictures taken of those plants (when it isn't raining) and share!
We had a great Memorial weekend! Thursday we went to a party for Chuck's mom who is retiring this year after years of teaching! It was nice to meet some of the people she has worked with for so long.
Friday…I have no idea what we did on Friday. 🙂
Saturday I got up and went for a jog. 1.8 miles around the neighborhood. This was the same path I ran on Friday. I was so proud! Then we ran some errands and came home and made ladder golf. It has many other names, but you throw two golf balls attached by a string at three tiers of pvc. It was lots of fun to make!
Then we went to our friends' house for dinner. What a gorgeous night to hang out on the deck and laugh with friends. We played some Rock Band well into the night!
Sunday we went to Gertens and returned a plant that died over the winter and picked up a few other things. We came home and planted and moved some plants around and moved a tree and planted some more. It was exhausting, but it looks so nice now that it's done. Then we went to Noodles for dinner and then went to see Iron Man 2. After the movie we went to the grocery store to get some goodies for our party on Monday. It was a perfect day.
Monday Chuck cut the grass and I cleaned the house and put down the rest of the bags of mulch we had to spread. Then one of my best friends came over and we went to the pool for a little while. We finished getting all the food ready then had a bunch of neighbors over to play games and eat in the back yard. It was a great way to meet some of the people in the neighborhood. They were all so nice and friendly, and I know we have made lots of new friends.
Then I promptly fell asleep on the couch watching tv.
The End. 🙂
Three houses down from us, a house like ours recently sold. This means we get even more new neighbors. Our little neighborhood is filling up!
They are building houses like crazy and I get so excited to come home and see I'd they have been purchased! I am strange like that! 🙂
I am really looking forward to warmer weather so we can get to know all the new people better and congregate on our porches like you see in tv shows! Just preferrably something less dramatic than Wisteria Lane! 🙂
A number of weeks ago…the house next door FINALLY had a “Purchased” sign in front of it. That meant that new neighbors would soon be following.
Then, one day, a couple weeks ago, Chuck emailed me this picture:
Why am I so excited about this? Because when that bow goes up…they are really moving in soon! And sure enough, the following weekend they moved in.
We brought over some treats and a card for them to introduce ourselves. They are a young couple (around our age), with two young boys. I am so excited to hang out with them as time goes on and make some new friends!
So yay! It's always a little nerve wracking wondering who will move in next door. And from what I know of them so far, I couldn't be happier!
Welcome to the neighborhood!
One more thing before I let you stop reading this post about fabric. The curtains in the living room are from Ikea as well. And believe it or not….they were only $14.99 for a pair. I was sold.
This second picture shows the back of them because some people apparently care how the curtains hang on the rod. I do not. But it is also a nice closeup of the pattern.
The thing you can't see in that picture is how adorable the pattern is. So I have supplied this picture to fill that void. It's a simple pattern with these tiny orange dots. I love them.
This is the road they are hanging from. (Only $6.99 from Ikea!)
This is also the rod the new green curtains will hang from.
So I am sure you want to see what they actually look like in the house, huh? Ok. Fine. I suppose you deserve that!
This is the way the curtains are most of the time. Just hanging there. We got three sets to cover all the windows there.
This is what I like to do with them when we have people over during the day. It brightens up the whole area. Which is funny to say when you see this picture because it's so dark. But it's impossible to take a picture with all the light coming through the window. So I will note that I need to take a picture at night so the flash works.
All I did was cut some ribbons the same length and I tie them around the curtains. They just sit on the floor behind the couch when they aren't tied back. It was really simple, but makes them look completely different. And I didn't have to make holes in the wall for tie backs. And I like the look.
The only downfall to these is that they block about 1% of the light that comes through them. So if you are watching tv and it is even a little glimmer of light outside, there's a glare on the tv. So we have Chuck has started to do some research on cellular blackout blinds that will go in the windows for when we want to watch tv. Then there's a chance that the curtains will be tied back like this all the time and we'll just close the blinds when it's light outside.
So there's more information than you ever wanted to know about my curtains in the living room. If you suffered through both curtain posts, I am sorry and thank you! 🙂
