Weekending

Ugh. It. Is. Hot. When did summer arrive?  It’s like God flips a switch around the last week of school every year and it goes from being high 70’s/low 80’s and breezy to mid 90’s, high humidity and 100% chance of sweat.  Or maybe it’s just horomones.  Either way, my fingers are officially sausages and I had to finally take off my rings for fear of never getting them on or off again!

To celebrate the end of the schoolyear, Jayna and I went strawberry picking last week!  She was much more interested in playing in the dirt, running up and down the aisles, and eating the berries…but I had fun picking!  And it’s always nice to have a refrigerator that smells like fresh berries for a week or so!

We walked our lot last week with our builder, reserving trees and seeing where the house will sit on the lot.  It’s been exciting to watch as the house next door gets framed.  So far, our timeline is for trees to get cleared this week (don’t worry, we saved ALOT!) and foundation gets poured next Friday!  Dave and I have determined that the layout and finishes that we have chosen for the new house, warrent some new furniture and decor.  We have some great, quality stuff that we have acquired since we got married, but it’s matched with older crappier furniture and knick knacks that we’ve just allowed to accumulate.  So, we are taking it one drawer at a time, one room at a time…..cleaning it all out!

We went antiquing yesterday….not that we are neccesarily looking for antiques, but we enjoy the look and feel of the older “stuff.”  So, we took advantage of the plethora of antique malls in our area and window shopped a bit to get a feel for the look we are going for.  Here is some of the stuff we found!

I wish we had found this to use at our wedding…we loved the one we had, but this would have been waaaaaay cooler with a big picture of us and littles of our family….here’s a reminder for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about:

 It was our favor/table assignment table, and it had all of our parents’/grandparents’ wedding pictures alongside ours.

For out front?

For Dave’s sea-themed Man Cave? =)

Storage in kitchen nook or dining room?

Just thinking of you GP!!

Loved the bench and the lanturns!

Jayna lobbied hard to take the “cute little baby chickies” home!

For the garden?

We are loving this as a sideboard in the kitchen nook….wide shelf perfect for bigger appliance storage inside….What do you think about the grey-will it go with all of our brown earthy tones?

I’m thinking with a little refinishing, this will be good toy storage in the playroom.  With cute baskets?

On a separate note, my cousin-in-law Heather is contemplating  summer reading.  She is hooked on a teen book series and is looking for suggestions on her site, The Newly Knotted.  I’d like to give a reluctant shout-out to addictive smutty teenie-bopper series….as I recently was hooked and read the ENTIRE Pretty Little Liars Series by Sara Shepard.  And that was before I even realized that it was a hit show on ABC Family (which, the books are sooooo NOT pre-teen/family oriented…but the series is a wee little better-still smutty, but not as graphic).  Anyway, I’m sorry to say I got hooked on them!  As for a couple of other recent favorites I’ve read….Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and The Help by Kathryn Stockett were definately two I’ve recently enjoyed, as was Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos.  All three a much mature read than the Liars series….if you are into that!

What are you reading this summer?  Read anything good lately?

                                       

How does our garden grow?

Spring is here!  In the spirit of trying to sell our house (and therefore wanting to be able to take our veggies with us), we have decided to plant only flowers this year, and use portable containers for a smaller crop of veggies.  Our lilies have taken over our planters, but luckily we had just enough room for a splash of color.

Back in the fall, I had replanted our mums in the back planter, for them to die almost immediately.  I didn’t really think anything of it, but something has resurfaced….looks kind of like a mum, but there are no flower buds on it (yet?), so we aren’t sure!  But its nice and round, and green and healthy, so we are letting it thrive out of curiosity.  We’ve gotten several compliments specifically on our planters from prospective buyers, so I guess it’s working!

We only have one small tomato plant this year, but it’s already given us three yummy cherry tomatos…and as you can see, we’ll have several more later this week.  We also have a hanging strawberry plant that has already given us a couple of small berries, but a certain curious two year old who happens to love strawberries keeps getting to it first, before I can get a picture!!!

On another note, I am so disappointed in myself, and that I didn’t take more pictures this past weekend!  We went camping with some great friends from church and our girls had a blast!  They are already friends from Sunday School, but Jayna informed me tonight (during her God Blesses), that Caroline is her “Camping Friend” now too!

A fun-filled weekend with clear blue skies, 82 degrees, a perfect two-year old sized lake beach, campfires, Godly conversation, and feral cats! =)

Stay tuned for some exciting house news….coming soon!            

        

Ready for Spring Already?

No, not really….I’m actually kind of enjoying our unusually cold temperatures that have suddenly moved in.  Fall and early winter is actually my favorite time of year as I prepare for holiday festivities.  However…..Since I am new to this blog thing, I have been asking for alot of help.  Mostly from my brilliant friend Martha, who happens to do this for a living.  She told me three things that I need to do to make my posts more interesting. 

1) Write how I talk (does that, like,  include incorrect grammer and an unneccessary usage of the word “like”?)

2) Include lots of pictures

3) Use links to other pages and websites.

So, in honor of Martha, I will get back to my point.  I was doing “research” during naptime, and playing on some blogs that I’ve found.  One of the ones that was suggested to me was this one.  This creative mama has lots of fun things on her blog, but as I was perusing  her site, I was especially intrigued by her posts on straw-bale gardening.  What a cool concept….especially if you don’t have a ton of yard room for a garden (us!), or if you have little ones who want to be up close and personal in the garden (Jayna!). 

This past spring/summer we tried our thumbs (which are anything BUT green), at gardening in planter boxes.  We quickly found that we were more motivated by fruits and veggies than by flowers.  As beautiful as our flowers were when we first planted them, there was just something magical about planting, growing and then eating our very own tomatoes and peppers.  Here are the fruit of our labors (literally!).

 

Anyway, just thought I would share that I think the straw-bale gardens are so cool, and hopefully I’ll still be motivated to try it come spring! (How’d I do, Marth?) =)