What's Bloomin' In The Snow

You've heard the old saying about March: In like a lion, out like a lamb.

Ha. This year, it's the reverse: the beginning of March was beautiful, but yesterday it snowed...and today it's cloudy and windy. Oh, spring, you fickle fiend. There are still plants blooming, though, even through the snow. Bless them.

My apricot trees "popped":

My neighbor gave me these lovely violets, that just smell heavenly:

Using a milk carton for transplanting small plants is just genius, let me tell you. And after they were planted, they still looked (and smelled) lovely:

I am especially excited about these because they act like a ground cover. With a yard as large as mine, I'm always looking for ground covers that will work!

And I am thoroughly disgusted with my forsythia, which has only four flowers to show for itself:

While the neighbors' forsythias all look pretty much like this:

Hm. Maybe I'm not watering it enough - or maybe it needs another week or two to impress me. At any rate, my daffodils also started to come out. They are a little weighed down by snow:

This time of year, you have to be ready for anything. Have a great week!

What's Bloomin'

Keeping with the last few weeks, a new crocus color popped up...along with beautiful pin-striped stars:

The stars are actually called "stardrift"

A better stardrift picture

And I had to plant a few more flowers, because the bulbs really aren't filling up enough space yet:

Candytuft, so cute

Mostly, though, the last week of gardening was just planting, planting and more planting. More of my internet plant orders came in. One of them came with every stem broken:

And GardenerDirect.com happily agreed to send me a new one after I emailed them my sob story. Love when a company stands by their product! Even better, they told me to just plant the one that had been broken in hopes that it would eventually send out leaves. So, I did. Other than having every stem broken, it was actually in very good shape. I just don't want to start with a non-existent plant in the front of my house, which is where I'm planning on putting the full plant when it gets here.

Hoping you're enjoying spring as much as I am!

The Good, Bad and the Monday

This past weekend, there was some serious excitement around here. I went to my mother-in-law's for a "sister" party - all the women in Doug's family were invited.

It was primarily a talk-fest, which was wonderful. If there's anything I need more than sleep, it's being social. Especially with women. There's something unique about the female relationship, especially when sisters are involved. Lovely, restful weekend.

Doug had an entirely different weekend. As one would expect, being alone with all five children without mom around. However, he also decided it was the perfect weekend to hang drywall in the basement. Last week saw him prepping the basement with metal strips along the ceiling:

He also brought out the scaffold, which the kids LOVE

Two of his brothers came to help with the drywall. Along with four of the kids' cousins. Par-tay! And it was. The kids all reported having a blast.

My basement is also happy-happy:

Yes! Drywall! Granted, there is still a lot of taping and mudding to do, but the strenuous work is done. Now comes the tedious part. Go, Doug.

So, that is the good part of the weekend.

The bad part? I am still sick - after three weeks of being sick, I was diagnosed with a sinus infection on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully, antibiotics should take care of it soon.

And then, there was Monday. Argh. The morning was a typical long haul with crabby kids who had stayed up too late all weekend and slept in to their hearts' content. Then I went to take Jack to school.

We have had issues with our garage door over and over and over since we moved in. Sometimes all is well, and then there is the majority of the time where it goes slow, or even slower than slow. Yesterday was the slower than slow day, but I wasn't paying attention. I checked to make sure the door had cleared the back window, and reversed out of the garage. Except there was a huge "clunk" where the top of the van hit the bottom of the garage door, bending the door, knocking the fin off the van and generally making me feel very, very dumb.

The back of the van

The piece that is supposed to be on the back of the van

Doug was, of course, home. Always good to have an audience when doing something stupid, right? Luckily, he was able to get the garage door working again (it was also knocked out of its track). The van is still minus a fin, but at least it's not a safety hazard.

And the day didn't stop, of course - after a dentist appointment and putting in more plants (because I am me), I just crashed last night. Thank heavens it's Tuesday, right?

Finally - some evergreens in the yard

Flowers tomorrow, I promise.

Quilting for Malena

A few years ago, Malena came home with a comforter. She had talked someone out of it at a garage sale, and was pleased that she got a blue blanket (her favorite color) for free.

It was stained with dirt and went immediately into the washer. Sadly, it never really looked any better than it had when I first laid eyes on it. Doug was livid - he hated that someone had given us charity (when we had plenty of blankets) and thought it was a mangy old thing that he didn't want in his house.

To be honest, it wasn't really mangy. It looked like something the kids had dragged outside for a picnic one too many times, but really, not too bad. Whatever, Malena loved it, and there was no prizing it away from her at any cost.

I finally took pity on Doug's sensibilities (four years later) and decided to cover it and make it look presentable. Malena chose the fabric and stipulated that only the front could be covered. The back is far too comfortable, you see. My stipulation was that it couldn't be too difficult, since quilting is time-consuming at its simplest. Here's what we ended up with:

Not bad, huh? It was draped over the railing while I was working on it. Looking at it from that perspective, it looked like a young girl's party dress. She loves it even more now, thankfully.

She even helped me put together a matching pillow.

And I have one more project off my sewing table! I'm getting really addicted to having projects finished...could start a trend in the household!

What's Bloomin' in the Wind

Oh, it is soooo windy here. And my allergies can testify to that fact. All I have to do is walk out the door, and BAM!, can't breathe.

But I do have a few lovely blossoms to share with you. It's amusing to me that only one color of crocus will bloom each week. This week was white and purple variegated:

The periwinkle also decided to wake up and pop into bloom.

Several of the plants I ordered from online nurseries showed up this week, too. Love that they have to be planted as soon as they arrive - so there I was, sick with a head cold and allergies, out working in the dirt. Most of the plants are just roots, so a picture wouldn't be very useful. But I do have these two that have actual leaves:

These are Goat's Beard plants - they look a little like a fern until they send up white shooting fronds. I saw these in Shenandoah National Park last year - they are just beautiful. At the time, there were some of these trying to grow in my backyard. They died. Now I'm hoping that these in the front yard will do a little better.

Hope you're enjoying spring where you are!

Baby Plants

Although Doug has finally decided he is not in competition with commercial nurseries, he is still trying to come up with some good transplants for his garden.

He started a week or so ago with seeds he had saved from the previous year. They were amazing little seeds - they started coming up in a day or two, as opposed to the 7-10 days their packages warned they would need. They were aching to grow!

Doug was so excited, he decided to relocate them outside in a makeshift greenhouse. He put them on the south side of the house, on a lovely day. Unfortunately, it was a warm day - probably about 60 degrees out - and they fried in their warm little box.

Sad day. Doug brought them back inside and gave them a day or two to wake back up. They didn't make it.

So he started another few trays of seedlings, with both the older seeds that he had left and some newer seeds that we finally purchased (it is, after all, March - and we can buy things again!). We're hoping this time they will live.

Just as a side note: seedlings don't like direct sunlight until they have at least two sets of leaves. And then, they still want about a week outside in shade before they greet the sun. Apparently, Doug was just a little too anxious to start his garden.

Peek-a-boo!

The real reason I make curtains for my house: so my kids can play peek-a-boo. You always knew it, right?

Sophia, peeking out from my new curtains

These are the same curtains I was working on in December, right after Doug installed our new sliding door. Well, I was getting tired of them looking like this:

Using blind cords to hold my curtains back: not so great. And the bottoms of the curtains weren't hemmed...oh man, I could go on for a while on the drawbacks of this situation. So I got some new curtain rods from IKEA (super cheap, and I could get the curtains very close to the ceiling - important with this dropped ceiling here).

Then Doug sprouted a wild hair and just decided to put up the new hardware. What?!? I was excited and so I headed down to the sewing machine and just slammed out the curtains for the side windows, as well as finishing the ones already hanging.

Hemmed and everything. Ha! Doug was a little impressed, I must say. There are still a few things to do here:

• Finish trim around new door
• Replace flooring (the tile doesn't go all the way to the door...and I wanted to replace it anyway
• Paint the alcove
• Raise the curtains just a titch so they hang just above the door

No big whoop, right? Except that I have to wait for Doug to get excited about installing trim...that could be awhile. S'okay - not like I don't have anything else to do!

What's Bloomin' & Transplantin'

There are only a few crocuses blooming, but I have another color to share with you:

The weather has even been nice enough for us to spend many-a-day outside, weeding and planting. Yikes! Did I say planting? Yup. My online orders (made who knows how many months ago) came last week, forcing me to plant them immediately. My neighbor walked over, concerned: "Is it that time already?"

No, no it is not (she was visibly relieved). But these plants didn't look so good when I received them, so I had to make them at home right away. They look little better in the ground, but the stems are much more pliable.

These are going to be mock oranges. Since I can't grow real oranges here in Utah, a mock orange is the next-best thing...smells like an orange, even if it does not actually produce oranges.

Okay, so back to the crocuses. Remember last week when I was wondering if anyone had tried transplanting bulbs while they were in bloom? Well, no one responded, and I couldn't find anything in my full 10 minutes of research. So I decided to go ahead and try it.

I was veeery careful, moving a huge clump of dirt as well as the flowers themselves. A few days later, they still look very happy. The real test will be next year when they do - or do not - come back. I had to move these guys, though, because they are seriously intertwined with another plant that I'm also moving in a few weeks.

So, lots of movement on the planting front. Here's hoping we have another good/rainy week so I can get more done outside before the growing season officially starts...and I still have some motivation!

It's a Facade

Doug has (almost) finished the extra shelf in the kitchen. The computer center looks so nice...it's amazing what a little trim and organization will do. Here it is before:

And after:

I say "almost", though, because even though the exterior of the shelf looks beautiful, the actual shelf isn't finished. There isn't any veneer to cover the bottom or the top of the shelf. Notice that the bottom shelf wasn't ever finished, either...so we can do those both at the same time (yay.).

From the top, you can see that the shelf is just plywood.

The plywood on top and the veneer on the bottom shelf...at least no one is often on the ceiling looking down on this, right?

But for now, I'll take it. And we can go get some veneer to finish it up. Maybe it will be finished in the next year or two. Maybe the next time we decide to go on a spending diet, huh?

The First Flower of the Season!

You can tell when it's unseasonably warm when we get flowers the first week of March! The first crocus popped up today, and there are several others just about to pop.

Now here's my question: can I move these cuties while they're in bloom? The sources I've found say to wait until the bloom is gone, but you can still see the foliage. Hmm...that might be easier than waiting until fall and trying to reconstruct where they bloomed in spring from pictures (since the markers I placed in spring have all been "helpfully" taken out of the ground by my helpers.

If anyone has tried moving bulbs at some other time than fall, let me know - I want to know how it went! Have a great week, and I hope you can see flowers soon, too!

Fiscal Responsibility: Finally, It's March!

As some of you may remember, Doug and I took on a project of a different sort in February: we decided not to spend money. Of course, groceries and gasoline for the car were excluded from this ban, since we do have to eat and go to work and normal boring things like that.

So how did it work out? Doug did fantastically, not spending anything for the month other than gasoline. I don't think he even set foot in a store. He might have gone out to eat once with his work buddies. Pretty impressive.

Me, not so much. I cheated once a week on the going-out-to-eat thing, with an extra slip-up last week when I was sick and not interested in making dinner (pizza, anyone?). Going out to eat is my treat - an opportunity for me to be served food instead of being chef, waitress, diner and cleanup crew all in one. Doug hates that I do this, though, since I typically do fast food. Much easier when there are little hands about to go through a drive-through than attempt a sit-down meal. But he hates that I'm teaching the kids how to love food that is not good for you or me.

A good point.

Anyway, back to fiscal responsibility. We decided that there were some definite pros to a month without spending:

• Projects got done. The hallway downstairs was painted and got a blackboard, the kitchen got crown molding, the reupholstered chairs were finished, and the curtains in the master bedroom now reach the floor. Probably these projects would still be undone if we hadn't decided not to spend money.
• We stopped buying just because we could. Conspicuous consumerism is addictive - we like to spend money just to spend it. If Jack asks for a toy, I usually get it for him. Not because he needs it, but because I can. Not a good reason in anyone's book. It's also easier to get stuff for a new project than to finish an older one that requires a little extra work. This is a major downfall in our house. Doug and I can both count many, many projects that we have all the stuff to do...but have lost the motivation to finish.
• The kids learned that we do not have to buy stuff all the time. They were pretty philosophical about it, mostly: "March will come some day." Although Jack did count down the days to March every single day of February.

Here were the cons:

• We decided on a lark to do this, meaning that on February 1st, I said: "Hey! Let's not spend any money this month!" Doug reluctantly agreed. However, a little planning would have gone a long way. Poor Malena didn't really have any good shoes, so she made do with mud boots and some of my shoes (yes, she and Bonnie both wear my same size of shoes).  We also needed to get Valentine's Day stuff, which I lumped in with groceries.
• It was hard not to go to the store when I wanted things. This was a good habit to break, of course - but I found myself wanting to go buy something at least once a day for at least the first three weeks. It didn't even matter what I was going to buy - it just had to be something.

So a good experiment, all in all. Doug agrees that he would do it again - with a little more planning. I'm not sure if I have the guts to do it again, since I had to cheat to even get through the month. I probably should do it again, though, if only for that reason.

Another Finished Project, What?!?

The curtains in the master bedroom have been hanging for many a month (okay, over a year), expecting a flood or some other disaster. They were prepared!

But they weren't finished. I took pity on them this week, and also lightened the project load. At the same time! I would say it's a miracle, but really it's just a result of not being able to spend money.

This was truly an easy project. I took the curtains down one day, and had them up the next. Even with my little "helpers", it went pretty smoothly. It did help that the material I'm using is not tapestry, but rather a medium-weight home decor fabric.

Now the curtains touch the floor. Happy dance! I love the stripes next to the circles on the headboard, too. In retrospect, I do wish the striped section went a little higher, since the small border here looks too much like an afterthought. But it is a finished afterthought, so there.

There is one more issue, you may say: a big, empty space in the corner that needs filling. Ah, be not dismayed: at night, that space becomes a haven for unneeded pillows from the bed.

Don't they look comfy down there?