if there's a tree at the door, let it in

These days, it seems like there is always a tree at the door.  I'm not complaining, because I'd choose a tree over a sales person any day. 

It started a couple of weeks ago when we bought this hibiscus tree for my grandparents.  To make sure it got enough sunlight, we put it in front of the glass storm door every morning.  I would walk by the front hall about ten times a day and see it out of the corner of my eye and think, "Oh!  There's someone at the door," only to realize it was just a tree. 

 

We drove up to Virginia and delivered the tree, only to receive an orange tree as a gift from Steve's family while we were there.  An orange tree!  We've always wanted an orange tree.  Have you ever smelled orange blossoms?  They smell like honeysuckle and candy and heaven.  Seriously. 

 

It's too cool at night still for the orange tree to live outside though, so it sits by the back door all night, patiently waiting to be let out each morning.  It's like a dog, only way better. 

 

Today, the orange tree and I are both going to enjoy some time on the patio- it's way too beautiful to stay inside!

 

we'll decorate for your wedding, even if you don't ask us to

We had the loveliest weekend with my mom.  The weather couldn't have been better and we spent 90% of our waking hours outside.  We took Mom to the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens for the first time and I think she loved it as much as we hoped she would. 

As no trip to the gardens is complete without a party banner, we brought the newest one along with us.  The White Garden (our favorite spot) happened to be set up for a wedding, so we got some super cool pictures there.  A man walked by and asked if we were part of the wedding, (a legitimate question, since we were actually decorating the space at the time) and we said no.  He seemed a little confused. 

Steve and I always get really inspired to work on our own yard when we visit a big garden and it affected Mom the same way.  It's so pleasant there, you just want to take it home with you. 

I mean, literally, I wanted to take it home with me.  I kept wishing there was a (legal) way that I could take cuttings from some of their plants and root them at home.  You know I've been having great luck with rooting cuttings and they had so many varieties of flowers that I can't find in a store!

The whole weekend went by in a blur of flowers and coconut macaroons and sitting on the patio and frozen yogurt.  It was over way too fast. 

Today, among other tasks, I am making room in the cabinets for my birthday gift from Mom- a beautiful set of monogrammed glasses, plus a matching pitcher. 

Later this week I'll show you pictures of the project that the three of us worked on over the weekend- some new product tags!  They are so cute that I am tempted to start tagging everything in the house, just for fun. 

what leaving looks like

- enjoying my new gloves while I mow the lawn

- (trying not to mow any bunnies)

- cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry

- an empty inbox!

- buying sunscreen, getting the umbrella out of the attic, packing, packing, packing

We leave for the beach in three days and I can hardly wait!  Today I'm getting everything in order so that my biggest worry next week will be which book to read next. 

I'll be back here Monday with a special celebratory post before we hit the road- see you then! 

ps- class registration is open for Summer Sewing Classes!  You can register in the sidebar and find all the important details here. 

i love free plants

We have lots of plants in our yard that I am quite fond of.  But, if I'm honest, I have a special love for the ones that were free. 

If you were around here last spring, you may remember that I rooted a bunch of plant cuttings.  I had previous experience with rooting geraniums, so I did lots of those, but I also tried some new plants- hydrangeas, Russian sage, and mums. 

They all worked!  I couldn't believe my luck at the end of the summer when I had pots and pots of new plants on the porch! 

But then came the real test- could they survive the winter outside?  I planted them all securely in the herb garden where they could huddle next to the huge oregano for warmth and hoped for the best. 

I am happy to report that when things started popping up out of the ground this spring, all the newly rooted plants popped up too!  I needed the space in the herb garden for- you guessed it- herbs, so I had to find new homes for everyone. 

Steve was kind (and strong) enough to dig a new bed for me along the side of our house.  It is about 12 feet long and ranges from one foot to three feet deep.  We did not buy a single plant for the new bed- we just filled it up with a few that needed to be moved from other spots in the yard and a bunch of the rooted cuttings. 

And now I'm hooked.  This spring, I am going to try to root a little of everything.  We don't even need more plants, it's just so much fun to make a whole new plant out of one small clipping!

Lest you think that the plant rooting around here stops at ornamentals, I will also tell you that we have a pineapple top growing roots in a jar of water on the kitchen windowsill.  It looks just as weird as it sounds- I'll share some pictures next week.

ps- Would you be a pal and vote for me in the Handmade Olympics today? My summer tote is a finalist in Event 1 and I'd just love to win!

something to celebrate

On what was possibly the least traditional Easter Sunday of my life, we moved plants around and dug beds until every muscle was sore, and then finished the day with Chinese food. 

Sometimes it's good to break from routine. 

The tradition is not the celebration and I was reminded of this early Sunday morning as I stared into the wide eyes of a five year old who asked me to connect the bunnies and eggs with Jesus on the cross. 

And I could not.  But I looked out at the crowd, more this Sunday than usual, and told them that because Jesus died for us, we celebrate.  Our celebrations may look like baked ham and biscuits, or egg hunts and candy, or bunnies and chicks.  Or they may look like dirty fingernails and wheelbarrows full of dirt and riding home from dinner with the windows down and the music turned up, holding hands. 

And while Steve took the older ones and offered the cracker and the juice, I gathered the youngest ones around and I told them about the freedom.  The freedom from sin that we all have now and the new life that is ours in Him. 

Later, I searched for signs of life in the yard.  I looked hard for bits of new life, poking up from the earth, seemingly back from the dead.  It still amazes me how they always come back. 

It still amazes me how He came back, for me. 

I thought about it all day and, in the end, it made total sense- life is the celebration.  Sunshine and spring rolls or hymns and ham- it's a heart full of freedom that makes a happy Easter. 

spring forward

Going outside to investigate what's in bloom was the highlight of my day yesterday.  The air was balmy and warm and smelled sweet.  We live pretty close to the Frito-Lay plant, so sometimes the air just smells like potato chips.  Which isn't as nice as you may think, no matter how much you like potato chips. 

But yesterday- sweet like grass clippings and daffodils. 

Our yellow daffodils have been up for weeks now, but we have some fancy white ones too.  Planting close to 200 daffodil bulbs has been one of our best home improvement projects, to date. 

The warm air and flowers popping up have gotten me so excited, that I've started a list in my head of all the things I love about spring:

1- a change of clothing.  Is anyone else about to throw their pilly sweaters in the trash? 

 2- leaves on the trees.  Our yard is nice and private and enclosed feeling when the trees are full of leaves.  Not to mention, I like green. 

3- more sunlight! In the winter, I usually want to put on pj's and do almost nothing in the evenings. But if it's light out after dinner? I'm ready for anything! Let's go to the store! Go for a walk! Paint the living room!

4- fresh produce.  If I have to eat one more bean or potato, I might croak.  And, although I have fairly strong opinions about how far my food should have to travel to get to me, I have to admit that I bought strawberries from Florida at the grocery store this week.  It's only three states away.  And they appeared to have had a nice trip. 

5- making summer plans.  Even though practically nothing about our schedule changes in the summer, it still feels fun and vacation-y. 

What's your favorite thing about spring? 

easy floral arranging tips

It's true- one of my required courses in college was Floral Design.  And, as with any serious science course, (you didn't realize that floral design was a science?) the class involved both a lecture and a lab.  In my case, a night lab. 

I don't know about you, but I always considered night labs one of life's real cruelties.  To have to go to class at night?  When it's dark out?  During my dinner time?!?

Somehow, I made it through that semester.  And there have actually been multiple occasions over the past twelve or so years since (how can it have been that long?) that I've been glad I did. 

So, without any further complaining about missing dinner, here are, what I consider, the five key points of floral design:

Lesson 1: any container can be a vase.  For the arrangements we made over the weekend, we used one actual glass vase and four smaller glass jars.  I believe that the glass jars all came from candles we have purchased over the years, finished, cleaned out the jar, and saved it for just such a moment.  Much like the Scouts- we like to be prepared. 

We cut thin strips of burlap and wound them around each jar, securing with a straight pin.  This not only looked cute and went with our color theme, but it unified the dissimilar containers to look like a group. 

Lesson 2: you will need help keeping your flowers in place.  You can use any number of things- a chunk of florist's foam, a flower frog, or tape.  We used regular old scotch tape and made a grid over the top of each container. 

Lesson 3: greenery is your friend.  And it's cheap.  If you were to make a flower arrangement using all flowers, it would not only be very expensive, it would be so full of flowers that you probably couldn't appreciate them each properly.  Before you start adding flowers to your design, you want to fill in the outer edges with green stuff.  In this case, we raided the yard and clipped eucalyptus, cedar, and sprigs from a nice green bush. 

Using the holes in the tape, I put greenery around the whole outer edge of the container.  I tried to have some hanging over the edge and some standing straight up.  A good rule of thumb is that your highest piece in the arrangement should be no more than two times the height of your container. (I can hear Dr. McDaniel cheering me on right now...)

Lesson 4: add flowers in layers, starting with the big ones.  We bought three bouquets of different types of white flowers from the grocery store.  If you are worried about your skills as a flower arranger, or you don't have a great flower selection to work with, just choose flowers that are all the same color.  Using one color flower in different shapes and textures always looks good.  I somewhat evenly spaced my first flowers throughout the container, keeping the flower heads fairly close to the top and letting them rest on the greenery. 

Lesson 5: fill, fill, fill!  An attractive flower arrangement is a full flower arrangement.  Instead of seeing individual flower heads, you want to see one solid shape of flowers.  This shape should be slightly rounded, with a few longer pieces sticking out as accents.  You also want to stuff in enough flowers to hide your tape or floral foam.  Don't forget to add a few that can peek out under your greenery around the sides.  Turn your vase as you work so that you don't leave any bald spots. 

And, done!  We made five flower arrangements in one hour for about $12.  Not too shabby.  If you want to see some more pictures of the finished arrangements, you can check out the photos that were taken at the shower. 

Happy arranging!

the ongoing quest for the perfect pumpkin

We haven't bought a pumpkin for the porch yet.  Remember how hard it was to find the perfect one last year? 

I keep wondering if the last week in October is too late to acquire pumpkins.  But they're still cute in November, right? 

We went back to the greenway over the weekend to enjoy the sunshine and cool air.  We did not take a picnic this time and I personally felt that our visit was the poorer for it.  Lesson learned: always take a picnic. 

The other difference between this visit and the last is that this time we both wore sensible shoes, ready for tromping along dusty paths and across the swinging bridge.  We tromped so far that we ended up at the fall festival again and treated ourselves to some orange sherbet for making it that far. 

The other big activity of the weekend involved tucking all of our plant cuttings cozily into the ground for the winter ahead.  We've had two cold nights already and some of them were beginning to look a bit worse for the wear. 

This week, I'm working on some exciting plans for the shop and getting ready for a giant fabric order to arrive.  I love getting fabric delivered to my door!  I'll be sure to share pictures once it's here!

Friday list

Wake up (reluctantly).

Make big bowls of fruit and yogurt for breakfast.

Send Steve off to work (with my cell phone, unknownst to either of us).

Start mowing the lawn. 

Unclog the mower about six times. 

Find a nest of bunnies in the front yard.  Try not to mow bunnies that are leaping all around. 

Finally give up mowing the front yard- see above.

Mow the back yard.  Finish mowing just as the rain begins.  Cheer a little.

Start making peach pie.  Eat some peaches while working. 

Roll out crust.  Cut lattice top with this fancy crust cutting thingy.  Wonder who gave me this handy tool. 

Finally get crust in pie dish. 

Check the clock and note that the recipe says it takes "30 minutes hands on time".  Wonder if I am an especially slow pie maker.

After noticing the time, wonder why Steve hasn't called yet. 

Remember that Steve has my phone.

Pour peaches into crust.  Squish them down a little so they fit.

Study the picture in the magazine and attempt to make a lattice top.  Take lots of pictures of the lattice top because I'm pretty proud of it. 

Finally clean up kitchen while pie is baking. 

Decide that ice cream is needed to go with the pie.  Start making vanilla ice cream.

Admit that what I really want is vanilla bean ice cream.  Steal a vanilla bean from the jar in the pantry where it is supposed to be soaking in vodka and making vanilla extract.  Wonder about the effects of vodka on the ice cream.  Decide that they can only be positive.

Scrape seeds out of vanilla beans and mix everything together in the ice cream maker. 

Pull the pie out of the oven.  Drool a little. 

Wonder if I have to wait for Steve to get home to eat some. 

Feel inspired to vacuum the whole house while it smells like pie.  Even get out the attachments and vacuum cobwebs out of the corners.  Wonder why we have so many cobwebs that it appears we are living in a haunted house. 

Check my list for the day.  Note that I have only completed three items, but it is already 4:00.  Feel a bit defeated. 

Glance at the pie.  Spirits are boosted. 

I'm beat, but before I begin my weekend, here are some of the recipes from Mom's party:
Smoky Chicken Barbecue Kabobs

Veggie Potato Salad

Blue Cheese Bacon Dip

The dip is an old favorite, but the other two were new to me and both really good.  The potato salad is especially great for a big group! 

Hope your weekend is as sweet as peach pie!