What we’ve been up to

I have a ton of pictures that I’ve taken over the past week. Since I’ve been trying to keep all of my pictures on the desk top I have to come to the 3rd floor of our apartment to work on them. The problem is that it’s been so hot that even with the air conditioning running almost non stop the 3rd floor is always like a sauna. Thank goodness our bedroom isn’t up here. So, I thought I would come up and do some work and post to my blog while it raining and still early in the morning. I can always post to my blog from my laptop down stairs, but with out any pics stored on it anymore they would be awfully boring posts. Anyway, here’s a little of what we’ve been up to.

While we were home visiting my parents over Memorial Day weekend I snuck outside early one morning and took pictures of my mom’s gardening.

Isn’t this swing and little pillow cute?

Not long after I went outside my mom woke up and came out too. She let me know that she got these from my grandma’s yard. Actually, quite a few of her plants were ones that someone “gave” her from their yard. I think she took them with out them knowing, but she wouldn’t admit to anything. Pretty soon she’ll probably be stealing plants from people she doesn’t even know.

This was our favorite house from the outside. I love the wood, stone, and brick mixture.

On Saturday Brian and I went to Homearama here in Cincinnati. We really enjoy going and walking through the multi million dollar homes and seeing the decorations and ideas. We hadn’t been in a few years, so it was nice to go again.

This was our favorite house as far as decorating goes. I also loved the copper accents on the outside of the house. Even the drain pipes were made of copper.

We were scared about going on a weekend that it would be really busy, but because it was rainy there weren’t many people there. The weather was perfect, it was cloudy, so not too tearibly hot, and it never rained on us. It did get more muggy as the day went on.

At the end of the show you get to cast your vote for best house, best decorating, and best landscape. Here are my winners for the things I wish we could voted on.

BEST ROOM:

The dog room in the basement of one of the houses. This was probably one of our least favorite houses as far as decorating because everything was so dark and gloomy, but we loved this room. It had the two beds, a dog sized sectional sofa, a plazma tv playing animal planet, and other doggy goodies. This would be the perfect place to put Maggie while we were gone instead of in her crate. The only thing it was missing was a drain in the floor to wash down the floors really well. But I guess multi million dollar dogs must not ever have accidents.

Best Basement:

Not a great pic, I took a ton of pics in this basement, but with the low lighting none of them are great. But the entire basement was amazing! It had a movie theme with old cameras and lights around. Statues like these from different movies. The bar was amazing, it looked like something straight out of a restaurant. They also had a cigar room, wine room tasting room, a huge restaurant booth, and an exercise room down there. Well, and the movie theater. The 1/2 bath down there was even picture worthy. I’ll take one of everything please.

This subdivision is really neat because there is a canal that was built to go through it. I think that Homearama has been in the same subdivision for the past 4 or 5 years as they build more and more homes there. The last time that we went it was nicer out and there were a lot more people out on their little boats on the canal.

One of our friends can get free tickets to the Red’s game tonight and asked us to go. But, I’m totally bummed that Jr hit his 600th home run last night. I was hoping we would get to see it tonight. Oh, well, it will still be nice to get to a game. I’ll post pics from it later.

I’ve been a bad blogger

I’ve been too busy reading other blogs to write in my own.  There’s not a whole lot going on around here.  Last night Brian and i went to see the movie What Happens.  It was pretty good.  Then we went and walked by the river for a little bit down on the levee.  There was a wedding going on and a bunch of kids out after their prom in their formal dress.  It was a beautiful night.  We were supposed to go see my cousin play baseball at Ohio State today, they were doing their senior ceremony for them today.  But, it’s supposed to rain all day and turn into thunderstorms at the same time the game would be going on.  So, I think we’ll be staying home.  Maybe we’ll try to go to the butterfly show today.

It’s been raining so much this week that the drain holes in my pots can’t keep up.  I’ve been having to go around and poor off extra water in some of my plants.  It’s poring right now, once the rain lets up I’m going to move some of the pots where they’ll be protected from the rain a little bit.

Here are a few updated pictures from earlier this week.  My jalapeño is really taking off.  I will have to get new pictures of it when it stops raining.

I had these two strawberries in a bowl of cereal the other day.

This is my little parsley plant. The only one of my herbs that seems to being doing really well.

Garden Update

I can’t believe how quickly my plants are growing.

I took this when it was still dark out as I was leaving for work.  I wanted to get a shot of the tulips before they opened.

My white grape hyacinth, just starting to pop open.

My strawberry just turning pink.

A pic of my jalapeño plant starting to come up.  SPICY!

If you’re a friend on Facebook you can see a bunch of my other pics there.

Planting Season

I planted some seeds today. Last year was the first year that I managed to keep any plants alive. I don’t really keep plants in the house because our cats eat them. I am however considering getting some orchids that I would keep out of their reach. I really miss having our deck, but I’m going to make the best of it. Our deck and outside area in this house face South and the sun is blocked by the building next door, so it is in the shade all day.  I’ve had to be creative about where I’m going to put my plants. Thankfully we have windows that face the north east where they will get lots of sun and I can put pots out onto the roof.

This is a view out of our kitchen window. There’s one more pot off to the left that isn’t in this picture. So far out this window in the blue pots are herbs. Basil, oregano, chives, parsley, and thyme. I have a couple more blue pots like these to fill when I buy some more seed. The large pot has two kinds of chives, thyme, and viola flowers. The other pot outside of the picture has merigolds in it. I still want to get a few more fruit and vegetable plants to put out here. I’m thinking about a mini blueberry bush, strawberries, jalepenio peppers, and maybe a mini tomato plant.

This is a view out of our guest bedroom/my craft room. I don’t have anywhere to place the hanging basket that would be in the sun, so it’s on the roof too.  This picture makes the basket look really tiny, but it’s actually pretty big.  I put purple petunias and white verbena in it. The ceramic pot with the white flower painted on it has periwinkle in it. The blue pot has daisies in, and the rectangular pot has morning glory seeds in it.

I still need to buy seeds to plant outside the front door that will be in the shade. All of the seeds except for our herbs were taken from the plants I had last year. I can’t wait for them to sprout!! The one problem is keeping the animals from escaping onto the roof while I have the windows open. One cat already went onto the roof and Brian had to go out after it. I have to run, we’re going to watch my cousin play in Ohio State’s baseball game today.