More Rain, Some Heat, Then MORE Rain!

I took pictures last week with every intention of posting my weekly update and time just completely got away from me! WELL! The past 2 weeks have been all across the board weather wise - from crazy rains to 100 degrees to mid 50s... A little bit of everything for everyone I guess! My garden has taken off like gang busters. Well... most of them have...


Above is the north side of the garden. From foreground to back are cabbage, onion, kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, and peas. The cauliflower are still just barely hanging on, but they are making a good effort at least.

Above is a detail of the zucchini buds that are just starting to peep out along the bottom layer of leaves. Looks very promising!!

Tomato's are blooming like crazy too!

And the radishes have gone wild! They have bud stalks starting to flower as well and this flurry of flowers makes me happy! Means a promise of a good harvest! Woohoo!

Ooo... This Much Rain Is NOT So Good!

Last week was quite rainy... but it's turned out to be nothing compared to this week! Rain rain and more rain!! While my zucchini's are shouting "bring it on!! WOO!!" my peppers are whimpering and withering... not to mention my columbines that have all but turned yellow/brown from being so waterlogged. My potted plants are just not feeling so hot. I keep bailing the water out and dumping them over, but yeah, no such luck. Drainage holes? What are those again? Oops...

I had moved my delphinum and snapdragon seedlings outside to harden them off before being transplanted to the front flowerbeds. I've pulled them back inside to let them dry out a little bit. The snapdragons are flurishing in the wet... I think I even heard them giggling! But the delphinium... Oh dear thats another story. The poor things have all but drowned out at this point. They really had such a hard time sprouting, then growing, and now this... Mental note for next year: Let someone else grow delphinium from seed. That or I should just sow them straight into the soil. Hmm... I've got some extra seed, maybe that's what I will do this year too. Can't hurt, right?

Progress!

Jman has actually made it out to the house and has started scraping old paint! This brings be great joy! I also now know that is has to be completed by June 1st as this is when the city inspector will be coming by. YAY! He's already purchased the siding color and he says it seems "awfully dark..." I really hope he got the correct color... I'll take some pictures when I get home of his scraping progress. Apparently we are going to potentially be getting a couple new windows too (fingers crossed on that one). Jman "has a guy" and I've told him about the rediculously amazing quote I got from UM, and he was pretty blown away by how cheap it was for really good quality Pella windows. But who knows. He said he wasn't sure how he was going to be able to pay for them...

I was even thinking of applying for another Home Depot card (ha) just to see if we could get windows from them on a payment plan.

A Comparison...

These pics were taken from roughly the same spot and I can't get over the difference! And thats after only 7 days and almost no sun! I can't wait to see what next weeks comparison looks like!

A Week of RAIN!

A week of very little/no sun and a whole lotta rain did wonders in my little veggie garden! Everything has officially sprouted! And most are getting their secondary leaves in too! I think a nice dose of sunshine over the weekend with be just what the little plants needs to help boost them to bigger plants! I'm thinking of transplanting my peppers this weekend too. I have 5 pepper plants that will be put down in the same row as the tomatoes.

Here's a quick look at the veggies I posted last Friday, and what they looked like this morning!

Zucchini:

Squash:

Peas:

Cucumber:

Yes indeed they have been doing quite well with cold and wet! So now that it is going to heat up a bit, they can really get cracking! Once I see secondary leaves on everybody, I'll put some preen mulch down. As it was so wet all week I didn't do squat for weeding... and they are kinda getting unruly in there... Darn weeds.

The transplanted garden looks so much better! The bleeding hearts are bouncing back like gangbusters, the fox glove are starting to die back a bit now that the first big bloom stalk is pretty much spent. The hosta's that were slumbering have now opened and are HUGE!! Not to mention my viola's LOVING the soil they are in as every single plant is blooming like crazy (thats what the purple halo is down below under the bird bath). And those darn ferns snuck in there... I thought I had gotten all of them out, but they appear to be as tricky, if not moreso then those freaking lillies! But where they came in looks kinda cool, so I may leave them there... for now.

Weekend Arts and Crafts!

I think Sunday afternoons we are going to dedicate to making some kind of craft project together as a family. I bought a couple little birdhouses, some paint on sale, and a couple sheets of scrapbook paper for my bird house. The babies ended up completely covered in paint (but delighted!) and I'm quite proud of my birdhouse! My goal was to make something "upscale" looking to nestle within the branches of my new hydrangea bush. It was an adventure and a half getting that hydrangea, but I can't even begin to express how excited I am to actually own it! It is going to go in the back corner where the dogs tromp, but since it's a woody bush, I think they will leave it alone for the most part. I think. I hope...

So here's what will my hydrangea should look like later this summer:

And here's the birdhouse that will be hanging out within it's branches. I think it turned out quite lovely!

I Wasn't Kidding!

Here's part of my little veggie garden as of 7:00am this morning. All kinds of little plants popping up all over! We may get some veggies out of this garden yet! Below are some detail shots of the little guys making their way to the surface and beyond. (The seemingly empty row is where I planted carrot. There are a couple teeny tiny wispy sproutlet's, but I'm not sure yet if they are carrot, or if they are just weeds. I'll give them another week to see what they end up being)

Zucchini! Their leave are so thick and wide, I guess I never realized how HUGE their starter leaves are! These little plants are over 2 inches wide!

Squash! Slightly smaller than the zucchini, but just as glorious as they break their way through the surface!

Peas! I've put a little cedar trellis down to train my peas on, but I'm thinking this might not be the best solution for these little guys. They look so complex as they pop their little heads through the soil. They haven't opened any leaves yet, but the way they are all curled in on themselves looks pretty amazing.

Cucumber! These guys are still pretty small yet, but they are a beautiful dark green. Such pretty starter leaves!

Last night I did a quick till job between rows to keep the weeds down to a minimum. I'm considering using the Preen mulch for between rows, but need to do a little more research on it... I don't want it to effect the soil composition since this is a veggie garden and I don't want herbicides in contact with food! Not sure if we'll have kohlrabi or cabbage this year, since I managed to stop right in the middle of those 2 rows. Oops.

My sweet 100s tomato plant (far right at top of first picture) doesn't seem to have grown much to me, but it appears to be getting ready for it's first set of little yellow blooms already!

I also got my little baby clematis into the ground and I'm hoping they take off like a shot now that they are in dirt and touching a trellis to climb. They have been hanging out in the front porch with my other little seedlings until the threat of frost was over (which reminds me, should post a picture of my seedlings... Peppers aren't so little anymore!) and they just kind of stunted at 2 inches tall. I'm hoping that was because they had nothing to climb and less than stable roots. I think I'll take weekly pics on Friday mornings to keep track of all my little plants progress. :)

Ugh... What Did I Get Myself Into?

So my Dad had called, all excited about this little barn he was offered on a job site and called to ask if I wanted it. He thought it might be kind of fun for the kids to play in - like another little house in the backyard. He said all it needed was to be hosed off, a new coat of paint and maybe a couple shingles and it would be good to go.

Then Mom sends me a picture of the little barn... And asks if I really want it. What I didn't know is the picture she sent me was of the good side, so I had said "Sure! A little paint will fix it right up!" Note to self... When Mom politely says "Are you sure you want this?" it actually means "RUN!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!"
Um. It arrived yesterday. It needs more than a little paint before I even consider letting the kids near it. It needs to be scraped, patched, cleaned (it currently has a foot of leaves in the bottom), THEN painted... and thats just the inside. The outside need the sheetmetal exterior tacked down in spots, the roof needs to be re-shingled (I just happen to have shingles! Woo!), AND it needs to be repainted. I'm thinking of getting a gallon of each of the colors I was thinking for the house and doing a mini "test run" on the barn to see if it actually looks good, or if it looks like poop. This just might be a blessing in disguise...

166

Back to 166 lbs! And steadily plugging away! My latest insane goal is walking 10k in 2 weeks. 5k on Saturday (21st) for Race for the Cure, and another 5k on Sunday (22nd) for the Weight Watchers Walk It Challange. I've been walking everyday since last week prepping for the walks, and I think after the walks I'm going to keep on training. My "big" goal would be walking the 3-day in August, but I don't think I'm quite to that level yet. 60 miles in 3 days is a really long way to walk... So I figure if I start training for it now, I MIGHT be ready next year. :) If nothing else, I'll get more exercise and more focus. I hear walking helps with memory loss, and Lord knows I could use some help with that!

I'm really starting to have fun pushing myself with my weightloss journey. I've started doing "Dance Parties" on Tuesdays with AP... Talk about a workout... I was SO SORE last week - but in a really really good way! Busting my bum for sure! Getting there... slowly but surely!

And a couple eggs too

Mothers Day 2011 egg for my momma ^

Mothers Day 2011 egg from the side^

Basket Cross pysanky (unvarnished) ^

Basket Cross pysanky from the side (unvarnished) ^

Emergency Exits are located to the back and sides of the garden...

(sigh)
You know it's gonna be a good post when I start with a sigh... I had to do an emergency evacutation of my little side garden last night. After the dogs broke through my little trellis barrier and managed to stomp 1/2 of the plants to death in my little "secret garden" I decided I was not going to sacrifice another plant to the dogs tap dancing routine. So at 8:00pm I set forth clearing up the front flower bed and getting everybody moved over to the new location. It only took me about an hour when all was said and done, so I'm praying everyone survives the transplant. I'm pretty sure one of my Bleeding Hearts is toast... it was completely smashed flat and the stalks are broken down at the ground level. :( When I transplanted it I packed in the dirt to hold the stalks upright... we'll see if that actually does anything. Here's the after shot from today - after the plants got a good soak last night via the hose and also some rain overnight/this morning.

You can really see how the Fox Glove on the far left has basically had all the blooms plucked clear off. And the hosta in front of it has been pretty trampled into nothingness, but they are hearty little guys, so I'm hopeful it will come back. I had to pitch one of my Columbines tho. Makes me sad. :( It was in full bloom and beautiful too.

Ah well.

Weekend Warrior... cont.

Above is the back corner of the yard that I have been attacking. You can see the patio with the trellis's, the mini corner garden with the bird bath, and also a side shot of the veggie garden.

These are the Day Lillies of DOOM in the front bed. I spoke with the next door neighbors for the first time this spring and they informed me those lillies have been there forever. And as I've been digging them up, I believe it. Each plant has about 40 root/bulb stalks attached. Unbelievable. Seriously. :-/ I'm trying to get them out of there tho so we can have something a little prettier than just orange blah day lillies.

The other side of the door has been cleaned up as well too. There are huge dug out holes where the neighbors on the other side dug out and took our hosta's. I'm not a fan of pilfering other peoples plants... especially when I'm on the robbed end of it all. Granted, they took them shortly before we moved in, but still. Not happy. The little bush to the right of the mailbox has had a major haircut. He started off also laying on the steps and covering most of the mailbox post. There are a couple hostas left that are starting to poke up, and we're thinking of yanking out the shorter bush and putting in a little Japanese cherry or something ornamental and flowering and pretty... then putting actual flowers in as well as other lovely plants.

House should be painted in the next 2 weeks too. I need to get Jman our color selection and let him go nuts scraping all that horrible paint. Pewter and white may have looked sharp when it was freshly painted... but it just looks industrial and cold now. Poor little house... it really needs some love on the outside!!

Busy Day!

I did some major pruning in the front yard! The dinky bushes on either side of the door got quite the haircut. The above is the after. Before you couldn't hardly see that huge bolder, and the bush was resting on the stairs. Not pretty. But now it's nicely cleaned up! Next task will be to prune back the big bushes and get some mulch and plants in. Need to check out what works well in shade since the bushes will still be there.


Veggie garden has been planted as well. I went a little nuts over planting it, but the thought process was to plant like crazy, then I'll be able to weed out the extras. I planted 15 different veggies, not including the 2 types of tomatoes and 3 herbs! Above is post a good soaking. You can see all my little identification markers. and my stepping stones got a little covered in mud. Oops.

Here's a shot of my tomato plants. The closest is a "Big Boy" and will yield classic red tomatoes perfect for sandwiches. The further plant is a "Sweet 100" and should yield a poop ton of little cherry tomatoes. Hopefully they make it through the next couple days... In my planting impatience I failed to check the weather forecast. (sigh) I don't mind all the rain we're supposed to get... hmm... as long as it doesn't wash away all those seeds I just planted.... D'oh.

Next to the gate are my herbs. We have German Thyme closest to the gate, next is Sweet Basil - with its big beautiful fragrant leaves, and last is Rosemary. I'm hoping these thrive... the air smelled AMAZING after I got these in the ground.

And now my son is screaming, so I'll have to update more later...

Oh!

I almost forgot! I have more egg pictures to update! Below are my lastest egg creations. 1) Four Seasons - the only pic I took was of winter. 2) "Tangled" inspired Floating Lights - background color totally did not turn out like I wanted. I'm thinking of recreating this egg again to experiment with the color scheme a little more and see what happens. I may try a color "wash" before proceeding to the blues/greens after the gold... I think that is what tripped up my color scheme - too much gold underneath? 3) "Tangled" egg from the side view.

1)

2)

3)

BFF is coming over at somepoint tonight to play in eggs too. Yay!! So I should have more eggs to post over the weekend! Debating who to post on Etsy...

April Showers Bring...

May flowers? I couldn't resist any longer and planted a little garden in the back corner (the corner that borders the veggie garden and also the edge of the patio that now has the trellis work. I'm holding off planting my Clematis under the trellis just yet since I just got a notice that Consumers is going to be coming out to replace our gas meter at some point in the near future. Nice of them to do that for us. Too bad my house will get torn to shreds on the inside since the dogs will undoubtedly go nuts the entire time... I think I may have to put A's door back up just so we can shut the dogs out of the back rooms. Hmm... All we need is another broken out window. :-/

So back to my little garden! We have ivory and lilac Foxglove (SO PRETTY!!), Columbines, Bleeding Hearts, Hostas and Viola's. Not to mention the tiny little bird bath. I still haven't touched the veggie garden as I'm trying to hold out until May as to not jinx myself into planting before the last frost... but we'll see how that goes this weekend. ;) Here's a pic of the little side garden right after planting. Since it has been raining for a week straight post planting, I really hope that is helping to establish all my little plants! vs drowning them all...

The plants are all pretty dinky at the moment, but I'm sure they will all fill in and be fabulous. And of course now that I'm looking at it from this angle it looks horribly spaced and lopsided... but oh well! :) I have flowers in my back yard! Woohoo!!

Next gardening trick will be to finish tearing up the lillies of doom in the front yard and whip those hedges back into shape. Talk about unruly... Our house really is quite the eyesore of the neighborhood, but my goal is to get it back to fabulous soon! Not to mention the fresh coat of paint that the house is supposed to get in the next week or 2. I'm really hoping the J-man is cool with the color scheme I've picked out... Since we'll be buying the house on a land contract anyways, may as well be the colors I want.

Dark Blue anyone? With bright white trim and pale yellow accents... Tho just about anything would be better than the current "pewter" color (aka dingy grey... bleck).

Eggsellent!

So I've become addicted to making Pysanky... Here's my latest creations from over the weekend.
Flower/Cross:

No template for this one, so I was completely winging it and making it up as I went. I kinda like how it turned out! I will be giving this one to my sister in law as she really liked the design.

Deer/Tree:

This is my creation from the Pysanky party on Saturday. Took me a total of 5 hours to complete... The dyes were older and didn't quite set right, but it came out pretty beautiful just the same. I think I'll recreate this egg and post the finished product. This picture does not do it justice. I am really proud of this egg. It was also my first templated egg. I think I'll be sticking to templates for a little while yet.

Basket Fish:
Another templated egg! After the Pysanky party, where the hostess with the mostess had an amazing book of patters, I went back to the Ukrainian store that was closed last Wednesday and met up with an incredible ancient little Ukrainian woman. I told her that I was hooked and wanted to learn more. She showed me the books she had available and I ended up purchasing 2 books. :) The fish pattern was in the first book. The other book I purchased has the deer pattern above.

This egg was given to my mother for Easter.

Flower Pots:

This is another templated egg. Same book as the fish pattern above. I really really like how the coloring turned out on this one. White, Gold, Orange, Scarlet, and Dark Red. Very pretty!! This egg is currently in my crystal cabinet waiting for a coat of varnish. I'm tempted to put it up on Etsy and just see what happens... I'm thinking I'll be making eggs year round and see what happens!

Crafting Impatience...

How's that for a catchy title?? Me like!

And yes, I am the most impatient crafter there has ever been. Ok, maybe not EVER, but the most impatient person I personally know who does crafts! Ha! In anticipation of the Pysanky party tomorrow, I prepped an egg with Jesus and a lamb. I was so excited to get cracking (ha) on dying my egg that I simply couldn't stand it and found a local Ukrainian gift shop that sells dyes and kistka and wax and everything I could possibly need! So I bought 10 colors (yet somehow managed to miss yellow?? d'oh) and 2 sizes of kistka and some wax. Then began the hunt for Mason Jars to magically find them at Meijer. It's official, they really do have everything. Mixed up my dye as A was gearing down for the night and set the jars out on the porch to cool. When they were cool I prepped my little penciled in egg with a dilute vinegar solution and contemplated my first application of wax...

Should I have taken a before picture? Why yes I should have! Did I have that much forethought? Yeah, not so much. Read above about impatience... Heh.

So after 3 hours and minimal swearing, I present to you my first official attempt at a Pysanky - Ukrainian Egg. Don't laugh too hard...

Back of my glorious egg:

(yeah, don't look too closely at those lines. I'm looking at it and cringing. Pretty sure G can draw a straighter line)

And the Front of my glorious egg:

So Christ's face is slightly mangled and he's got a bit of a thick neck... But I'm pretty darned proud with how he turned out! Not too bad for a first attempt! Not sure if you can really see it in the pic, but he has multi-tonal shading in his robes and hair, and blue eyes! Yes yes, I know he was probably not a blue eyed white guy, but I'm going off of Medieval stained glass, so ya get what ya get! And now I've got the Pysanky bug... Thinking I'm going to be doing these year round... Maybe once I "hone my skill" I can chuck a couple up for sale on my etsy page that I haven't actually activated yet! :D

I can dream, can't I?

Pysanky!

Random side note for those of you that do the easter egg thing... Blowing eggs is HARD. Friday I will be going to a friends house to dye Ukrainian Eggs (aka Pysanky) and I wanted to have a couple designs ready in my head (and penciled on my egg!) just to make the task of dying a little smoother. So I blew out an egg the other day and think I may have blown a couple blood vessles in the process! Holy COW that was hard! But I penciled on a stained glass Christ with a lamb... We'll see how it turns out. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be called an egg snob for penciling him in... I didn't pencil in the whole egg (that would be smart tho...) but we'll see how it turns out. I haven't made a Pysanky in YEARS.

My plan is to make a couple eggs. One for my in-laws, one for my parents, and I'm supposed to make one for my buddy E too... Whew, thats a lot of eggs! Especially since they take a couple hours a piece to make! Multitasking... Going to need some multitasking vibes!

Ah spring...

Here we are on April 18th and it has been snowing since last night. Of course after an incredible weekend of working in the yard, Mother Nature decides to throw a party and is supplying the confetti. ;) Here's the view out my office window (I use the term "my office" loosely. I have a 3 foot tiny desk in a corner).

But on to the incredible weekend! A great deal of time was spent outdoors in the back yard and that makes me super happy! Saturday I met up with my bro at Home Depot to have him help bring home some trellis' that were not going to fit in my car. I also got 2 box planters, some potting soil, stepping stones for the veggie garden, and a few plants: Columbines, Phlox, Pansies and a couple Clematis to grow up my trellis'! Of course I completely forgot to take before and after pictures... But Saturday afternoon was spent pounding in the trellis' as the winds began to pick up and it began to sprinkle. Not to be outdone by weather, I decided to quickly throw together my planters too. Ha. By the time I had finished them, it was pouring rain, 35 degrees, and my arms were covered solid in mud up to my elbows. I was in heaven. Got everything cleaned up just in time for the clouds to really open up with some nasty rain and wind! Here's the trellis' as seen through A's window.

You can also juuuust make out the stepping stones I have scattered around the outside of the veggie garden fence too. The inspiration for the trellis work surrounding the patio is this lovely design from Better Homes and Gardens:

My little patio area isn't going to look hardly ANYTHING like this, but like I said, this was the inspiration to get some garding started in that area. I'm only allowed to tear up a very tiny portion of the back yard, so I gotta make it fabulous where I can!

Sunday was spent running errands and more playing in the back yard. We got the boys some new shoes and headed off to Toys R Us to get some sand for our little sandbox in the backyard. While we were there we started looking at little play structures for the kiddo's. The one I really really liked was out of stock and had to be special ordered. My second choice was available in store and also was 25% off! Score! So we got the sand loaded up and realized there was NO WAY the box was going to fit... so we took what we could home and Daddy went back with the Neon to pick up the cottage. It didn't fit. He ended up opening the box and shoving what he could in the little car while I took the car seats out of the PT at home and got the car ready. Long story short (ha) he brought the first load home and traded cars, then brought the rest home in the PT (everything fit just fine). So Sunday afternoon was spent in the backyard again! Assembling the cottage, getting the sand in the sandbox, and watching the babies run around and thoroughly enjoy themselves! Here's a pic of the new little "house" and the sand box way off to the right:

Here's someone elses children displaying how fabulous the Neat and Tidy Cottage really is: And the interior... Both A and G were sitting on the little seats sharing a bowl of grapes on the little table. SO CUTE. A was walking around on the little phone, chatting away and G was perfectly content just hanging out in the sandbox. Much sadness and tears when Mommy and Daddy said it was time to come inside to thaw out... which makes this Momma very happy. My children now have something to DO in our backyard! It brought me such joy to see them so excited and having a good time. :) Great weekend! Oh, and I brought in the planter boxes so they wouldn't be covered in 3-5 inches of snow... and the Clematis didn't make it into the ground yet, thank goodness! It claims to be a "very hearty" plant, but I didn't want to test that out just yet... ;)

Can't... Take... Much... More...

It's been BEAUTIFUL this week and I'm about to go nuts! I just want to tear up the last of the dirt in the veggie garden and get cracking already!! Granted I have to wait for our tax return to hit the checking account before I can really wrap up the prepping process. I need to get stepping stones or something along those lines to make a nice path down the middle of the garden - to make a clearly defined area that is "ok" to walk on. I had some cheap slate walking pavers at the old house that unfortunately remained there after the move. As did our beautiful retaining wall... sigh. But I was thinking of picking up basically the same walk way as before since they were pretty cheap and already on a grid, so I wouldn't have to worry about them shifting around too much. Something like these Flagstone pavers on mesh would be lovely... We shall see!

I'm already throwing around idea's for what to plant in the front yard too. I need to get all those day lillies out of there before they take over the world. There are a couple irises mixed in with that lot too, but it may not be worth it trying to save them... and there are chives EVERYWHERE on the side of the house! I don't remember them being there last summer, but apparently I have enough chives to donate to all the local Wendy's for sour cream and chive potatoes for a year! Ack!!

I'm also starting to piece together a little "secret garden" idea in my head for the back corner too... Nothing too insane, but definitely inspired by my Auntie Grandma. :) I'll have to start sketching it out to start formulating ways to make it reality... I want a pergola too over the patio we have in the back currently being taken over by grass... HMM...