Graden Bed #1

There are 5 garden beds planned for our little backyard. Today we planted the first one. I'm tired, sunburned and really pleased with how it turned out.

Michael, laying the ground work.

Holes dug and plants placed.

FINISHED!!

It only took ALL DAY to get this done.
It will look so much better when there is grass.

Close up of the plants. We have 3 Hydrangeas, 2 Peonies, 6 blue-green Hastas, 1 veragated Hosta, 2 Columbines and 1 Minnesota Faux Orange tree. Whew!

My day off

In honor of my recent promotion I decided to take the day off. I wanted a day to myself where I could just get some things done that I have wanted to do for awhile but never seem to find the time. So here's the run down. (Updates throughout the day!)

7:15am - I'm up. Why am I up? I could be sleeping-in but apparently my body is ready to get on with the day.

8:00am - After a breakfast of waffles and taking time to empty the dishwasher and make the bed I surf the web looking for a hat pattern to knit with my leftover Cotton Ease Yarn for nearly an hour while listening to Radio Lab's episode on "Memory and Forgetting".

9:00am - Pull out the pieces of the quilt top I started nearly 2 years ago and finish the top up. So the quilt top is finished and it is pinned to the batting and the backing. Then I got nervous about the actual quilting and rolled it up and put it back in the closet where it might live for the next 2 years.

10:00am - Went to the basement to tackel the mold issue, but after about 5 min decided that was a less then fun way to spend my day. So I drove to Sonic for a giant Dr. Pepper and then headed to Brookside to look for a nice spray bottle. It doesn't exist. But I still wandered around The (New) Dime Store for quite a while taking in all the interesting items and buying some sliders to put on the legs of the ottoman Michael and I will be building this weekend and a little notebook with an accordion file to hold my coupons - in a stylish way.

11:15am - Ran through Wendy's for chicken nuggets and then headed to Angelo's Nursery for some plants to liven up the front garden.

11:30am - Set the flowers out and realized that I needed more! So I packed Tallulah into the car and headed back to Angelo's where I picked up some more beautiful plants.

11:45am - Planted the pots on the front porch and set out the rest of the plants and started digging! Tallulah hung out in the shade of the big elms while I toiled in the sun.

1:00pm - Realized that it is silly to be planting in the garden in the sun and if I just wait an hour the area will be in the shade.

2:00pm - Went to grocery store for strawberries, bananas and swiss rolls.

3:00pm - Started digging and planting. Lots of digging. Very messy, muddy digging.

4:00pm - Tried to water the plants and clean up but Tallulah decided to run right through all the freshly planted flowers, breaking the stems of many of them.

5:00pm - Exhausted, drug myself into the shower and then proceeded to take a small nap before getting ready to go out to dinner with the extended Amick-Brownfield family.

7:00 - 10:30pm - Super long dinner.

10:30pm - Crash into sleep.

So Sore

It only took 7 hours, but we have tile in the sun porch. it's not grouted yet and we can't walk on it for another day, but the tile is down as far as I'm concerned. While Michael prepped the sun porch I worked on planting the remaining pots that have been sitting around. It looks good, but I'm too tired to go take pictures.
Whoo!

The house smells like earth, rich and loamy

We decided that this year instead of buying chintzy valentine's bears or only okay candy we would buy house plants. We needed some greenery and I like the idea of having extra oxygen production in the house. So today we celebrated early by running out and picking out some plants while everyone else was busy watching the Super Bowl. I have never seen the Home Depot so empty.
Then we had our Valentine's Day dinner in a blissfully empty PeiWei (where we had our first dinner as married people - still dressed in our wedding finest). It was nice celebrating early because it is a lot easier to remain pleasant and "love-y" when no one is around. This may be our new Super Bowl tradition. I so love that I married a man who doesn't like football. It means that I don't have to pretend to like it, or put up with wild mood swings when the team he roots for loses. Bliss!

So tonight after dinner we came home and planted things.
I love how the dirt has made the house smell.

Ivy in the teapot on the coat rack shelf in the kitchen.

Ivy and some spiky thing in the living room.

An old mixing bowl full of tulips on the desk in the kitchen.
I love this bowl and holding flowers instead of flour seems right for it.

I think we will have a bloom tomorrow!