Tea With Stephanie

My surprise flower that I still don’t know what it is. One stalk was pink and the other a delicate light yellow.

The front bed after I cleaned it out and moved the tree in the center from its previous place in the corner nearest the front door. It was growing sideways, it is much better looking now.

The very healthy oregano, with chives on its left. Unfortunately the basil and parsley really did not fair well. Some pretty petunias in the birdhouse box on the fence.

Our spiral of succulents. The top kettle was mothers and the rest were mine but empty.

Our extremely healthy and happy tomatoes. Seriously never had tomatoes ever do this well before. I think I have a combination of containers and sun in the right spots. You cannot quite see a really pretty planter box on the right hand side of the chairs.

This is my hanging basket out front, Mom helped choose things and planted them, they turned out VERY pretty.

Despite the fact that my weedwhacker needs a mysterious new part that I have not bothered to discovered what it is I still managed to get part of the lawn edged. I remembered that I have a pair of old fashioned scissor like sheers. So between that and just flat out pulling out the weeds along the front flower bed the front beds are now edged. I still need to do along the walk and the trees before mowing but some progress was made.

Not sure when I will get to the mowing or all the rest of the weeds in the yard either. I also managed to pull/yank out all the vinca major sometimes commonly called Periwinkle from the front bed as well. This plant is a ground cover that has been pissing me off in the front bed. It creeps into everything and then gets to big off the ground to really be a good ground cover. However I pulled enough out that had root pieces that I am going to bury some of it on the wooded side of the house to fill in the stark weediness. I figured this isn’t supposed to be a weed and will even bloom sometimes when happy. A large bed of this will be quite lovely over there. If it decides not to live I will not be upset at all.

Other updates: The kids and I are going to be resetting some expectations over the next several weeks and especially reestablishing routines. I think that we shall even begin the process of getting up at the time we would for school. That way we don’t have to do it at al at once the end of the month. I have done absolutely nothing on the chair project. That should really change soonish. The next steps are 1 sanding all the chair frames and 2 putting the fabric on the backs and bottoms. Trying to decide which to get to next and also contemplating the whole primer question.

I took some pictures of the back garden on the 15th. It is still pretty weed filled but I liked a lot of the flowers. Granted these are not in their prime most of these are a bit on the spent side of blooming. Anyway here goes:

The above picture is a photo of my Malva along the back fence. I was really pleased at how well it did this year. Despite putting it inside a support this year part of it still decided to grow its own way. The plant is almost as tall as me and I just love how many blossoms it has on it.

This picture is of some magenta flowers with some sage leaves. I like the plant though I am completely spacing on what it is called. I got all of these from my friend S. She had them coming up like weeds all over her yard and hated them. I just kept digging them up and bringing them home. I planted them in a tight swath along a 4 foot section of the fence. It has nicely kept any weeds from growing along there. Plus the constant flowers since June have been very lovely to look at.

These are probably my favorite flower of all. This is a pink Dianthus or Carnation-like flower. This is along my back fence as well and it doubled in size this year. Unfortunately only 1 section had flowers on it but they smell heavenly and blend nicely with all the other pink/magenta colored blossoms along the back fence.

This is another perennial that suprised me this year. My balloon flowers really did well this year. I thought they died over the winter but came up late and strong. I love watching the balloons open into these pretty blossoms.

These have a funny story about them. I was at a yard sale in early June and someone was selling this small section of daisies for 50 cents. I figured 50 cents is worth seeing how they would do in my yard. So I bought them, brought them home, cleared a small patch of weeds in the back yard against the house and plunked them down. Watered them a few times and left them alone. This was my suprise! I thought they would be regular daisies but these are fantastic! I just love the wispy edges to the petals. The plant has more than doubled in size and I can easily see this taking over an entire bed in the backyard if left to its own devices. I just love suprises like this.

Last picture:

This is what my new patio chairs look like. I bought 1 each visit to Costco until I had 4. I think they are comfy and eventually I will get some simple cushions for them as well. They stack and go well with the table and even the plastic chairs. I now have enough seating for 7 people outside. To continue the black theme I am contemplating painting all this short little plastic fencing I have black. I think it will look fabulous with all the plants and make it look coordinated and planned. I have a big pile of some white fleurdilis style fencing that is going to get done first before I start on the little picket fencing. Almost everything else in the backyard is black wrought iron so I think it will be very nice when all finished.

Sometimes.

I have been dealing with a lot of family drama lately. So far I think it will end up resolved in a positive manner for all involved. Needless to say this was stressful.

Other news: Congratulations to my nephew Ethan who earned his Eagle Scout award and is having that award ceremony this coming week. Also my oldest niece Chloe is graduating from high school! Wow!

Today Devin is in Arizona where he is visiting his family before doing yet another presentation on Tuesday. At least this time he was able to use his travel for a little bit of personal travel as well. We had to take him to the airport really early this morning and then we came home and crashed. The kids woke me up with breakfast in bed this morning. They made me baked amish oatmeal and tea, it was really cute. Plus they gave me a card, tissue paper flowers, and paintings for Mother’s Day Friday after school. The poem Alaric wrote in his card just cracks me up “grass is green, water is blue, when I’m around you are not blue.”

I have been loving our partially sunny weather. It has allowed me to catch up with my gardening. The backyard is relatively weed free since I like gardening when under stress. I got the grass mowed, and even started edging in the front. Also my friend S was redoing her yard and thus getting rid of her herbs. So I took an entire car load of rosemary, basil, 2 different types of Thyme and lots of chive plants home. They all seem to be fairly happy in my backyard so far. Also I finally finished my 1 chair per a Costco trip buying and got all 4 wrought iron chairs for my patio table. I also picked up the long 100ft hose I wanted and it is already nicer to use.

I am sure I have other news but it does not occur to me right at this moment. Other than to say I dislike Scotch Broom very very much as it hates me. I like being able to breathe without having allergy issues. Not sure why but this year is particularly bad.

Yesterday and today were just beautiful. Today it got over 70 degrees outside according the thermometer in the shade on my front porch. My garden is looking awesome and I am pleased with my progress. I have slowly been working on getting my Garden ready for spring. I have mown the lawn, and done a touch of weeding here and there between torrential downpours and even snow on Monday.  

The weather was wonderful today! So nice in fact that I went out a couple of times to check the lawn. Yup it had grown up quite a bit and it was nice and green. Of course a little past time to cut but at least it was dry enough. So after picking up the children from school I went outside and used the pushmower on the lawn. It wasn’t too bad and a bit easier than I thought it would be. Of course I was a wee bit tired after all that exertion. However I still made dinner close to on time.

After dinner I had the girl pick up the piles her brother raked. I went out to make sure the bin got to the alley. I decided it was still just light enough out to do a bit of weeding to attempt to fill the bin. I weeded quite a bit in the backyard and along the alley. Even with all the weeding I did the bin still wasn’t full but it was now too dark to see.

Apparently it is supposed to be nice like this for the next couple of days. I am definitely hoping to get a bit more gardening done.

My Mother was up last week as she had a craft show. Remembering that I had been to the Flower and Garden show she brought me an awesome present. A HUGE bag of bulbs. At least 14 different kinds. I am going to plant them in pots and try either forcing them indoors or seeing if they will bloom outside. Either way they need to get planted soon so they don't die before fall planting time.

In my garden all sorts of things are starting to come up. My daphne bush is just about to bloom, all my bulbs are poking up and my daffodils are just about to bloom. My little mini daffodils actually have blooms on a few of them. Even the dreaded hateful bush in the front corner is budding.

I have also been doing some crafts this past week. I got all my stuff out and started painting so I could finish a couple of projects. One project I did I did not take a picture of yet. It was a jewelry organizer. Basically a picture frame with some wire mesh to hold my earrings and some hooks for all the necklaces. Fortunately the majority of my earrings are french hook style so I have plenty of room now. I also at the same time painted the last piece I needed to finish my garden wreath for my front door. I also painted a 2 tiered server that I had gotten for really cheap. It now looks wonderful and will actually be able to be used now.

Well after a nice rest and decent night of sleep I am ready to start the second part of the show.

After resting Friday and doing my work at homewe got ready for Saturday. We were up rather early for us on a Saturday but didn't really get there until 10-11 a.m. We parked and then went up to the convention floor. We took an unconventional route and started at the back corner and worked our way to the front. The children and I had read about a scavenger hunt they were doing so decided to go grab that first and see what it was all about. We picked up the forms for the scavenger hunt which was to take place in the display gardens. We then did the back half of the exhibitor floor. I was able to show Devin and the children the little gardens from Two Green Thumbs and Devin agreed that they were pretty cool. I also found out the Point Defiance Zoo has a garden show in June along with a tea they do. Here is a picture of the table which caught my eye this time.

Other exhibitors that got our attention we not that many in the back. There was someone who had a support to put on your low back and wrap around your knees that was neat. Devin especially liked it and will probably get one for airplane travel. We got majorly annoyed by the guy at the Seatlle Post Intelligencer booth and did not appreciate his manipulating us or not taking No for an answer. There was plenty of other interesting things to see but nothing really ever said we had to have this or that. We were mainly getting ideas.

Well then it was time for lunch. So we went out to see how busy the Cheesecake Factory was across the street. The wait was way too long so we decided to get out a bit since it was so nice. We walked down to the Pacific Place and looked around there. We ended up finding a nice Italian restaurant called Il Fornaio Cucina Italiana. We had a fantastic late lunch and a wonderful waiter. We were there for about an hour and a half so really enjoyed our lunch and had a light dessert at the end. Devin and I shared a fantastic chocolate cake. I had mine with tea.  I ended up getting some Earl Grey and man oh man was I suprised! I really wasn't sure how palatable the tea would be as it is often hit or miss in restaurants. Well this was fantastic. I would say it was some of the best Earl Grey tea I have EVER had. The water was boiling when it was poured into the little pot, the tea was from mightyleaf and was organic as well. Isn't the setup nice?

Well after lunch we went back to the convention center and started the scavenger hunt at the display gardens. It was rather difficult to complete as the clues were not that great and things like "red rose" were done at more than one garden. However after a couple of hours we managed to complete most of them. So returned for the children's prize which was free happy meal coupons. I had a couple of favorite things from the display gardens. The one garden that I thought was really neat but couldn't take good pictures of was one inspired by the mideast. They had old silent Lawrence of Arabia like film going in the tent. The tent was neat as well. It almost looked like a large courtyard in fact.  The first picture is my favorite one of them all which was picnic in the Ruins I think. The second is a cute english inspired gazebo where I really liked the little daisies in the lawn. The 3rd is a neat black and white garden I also liked. There are other pictures in my photo album from the show as well especially the display gardens.

We then finished up the rest of the exhibitors. There were some that really made me wonder how they were garden related as they were mainly art and not even garden art. Oh a few others I enjoyed looking at were Smith and Hawken and I got some neat Terrarium and Wardian Case planting ideas from their little take home brochure. I also enjoyed Lee Valley Tools and am looking forward to another catalog in the mail.  Other than that nothing is really jumping out at me right now. There were a few other things I liked and picked up information about but nothing spectacular. I actually picked up one business card solely because it was very well designed.

Well that is the end of part 2. I am sure I will be blogging more.

First off as I was getting over being sick I had to rest before and after each day I went. I was lucky enough to go 2 different days. Once with my friend S on Thursday where we left early and came back before the kids got out of school. Then I went on Saturday with Devin and the children. I spent most of Friday recovering from Thursday as that was a lot of walking. Same again on Sunday for recovering from Saturday.

There was really a lot of things that you see at the show so I am going to highlight the things that impressed me most on the different days.

On Thursday the 2 things that most caught my interest were these minature container gardens and this giant moving garden sculpture.

The minature gardens were done by Two Green Thumbs. I am planning on going down to the store sometime in the next couple of months. The lady at their booth even gave me specific plant suggestions for what to plant in my mini greenhouse to do a little english garden scene. Some english boxwood, baby's tears, and another moss like ground cover. I am very much looking forward to picking those things up.

S and I had lunch at a subway rigth there in the convention center. We were both worn out by the time we were done but enjoyed ourselves very much.

More in the next post!

Well I am now finally mostly better but I have been fighting that end of being sick fatigue. I slept at least 10-12 hours one night and felt better for it.

I made cupcakes and pizza for Nick's birthday. Unfortunately he got sick and thus couldn't enjoy any of it. I also ended up putting it off for a day because I was so tired. So his pizza is frozen in his freezer and his cupcakes are getting stale on a plate in my kitchen.

I also got several more things mailed off including the giant 71 pound box. That was a saga in itself and even involved paramedics. I will just be glad when I get the email letting me know it arrived in 1 piece. I even did the bills last night despite really not wanting too.

It has been difficult to keep up with everything just because I was sick. I am finally mostly caught up but I need to ensure I am getting enough sleep still.

Valentine's day was good and we had a nice dinner as a family. The kids brought home all their valentine's and I was especially impressed with Alaric's container. It had a turtle on it and even a cute little turtle on the heart that had his name on it. He designed it himself and did a very good job. It was SO adorable.  Treanna has now discovered the dangers of consuming too much candy and junk all in one day and ended up throwing up in the night. I was amused but she is now much more into moderation.

Devin had a good conference thing he went too all week. He was impressed with some things and made some good business connections. You can always go to his blog directly and see more.  

On top of all that other stuff I realized I have been consuming too much sugar which might be contributing to my fatigue. So as of today I am cutting it severely out/back. I just hope this will help get me back on track energy wise.

Plus this week and weekend was the Northwest Flower and Garden show. Devin wanted me to be able to attend and to take me himself this weekend. So I bought a couple of 2 day passes and went yesterday with my friend S. We left early and were gone about 6 hours. Man we were both tired. It was a neat show but I really didn't see too much that said "buy me now". So did not spend any money on anything at the show yesterday. Saturday we are going back with the children and I am sure we will be looking at various things. I don't expect that anything specific will necessarily be bought though. I did find one thing I was looking for which is small plants suitable for tiny indoor scenes and terrariums. I even got a couple of specific suggestions for my little green house so I can make the little english garden scene I want.