Brown Thumb to Yellow-Lime Thumb

Alright I am not going to jinx myself by saying that I have a green thumb just yet but I am well on my way to a green thumb!  Check out the back yard!

Yes if you compare to other pics the grass has really filled in the back yard. There are still a few bare spots but we are gaining ground. All of my flowers are doing quite nicely as well :) You have no idea how happy I am this year with my garden. Mind you none of this would have been possible without all of the rain we've had this year.

You can see in this picture how much bigger all of my plants are and where the grass has really filled in the yard. Still have all of the stumps but hey I feel that what has been achieved compensates for the stumps. The front yard still has a lot of work that it needs and most of the plants are seedlings at the moment but as you can see there are a lot of blooms as well. The one with the pink flowers has survived many years of my neglect and now that it has full sun it is incredibly lush and beautiful. In the distance there you can see a row of plants growing at the edge of the neighbors grass - those are sunflowers! Yup a medley of stuff in the front yard but next year it will take on a more organized look. This year I wanted to clean it up and make sure that I made the major changes. I feel it has been achieved. 

Not fully green but approaching a yellow-lime color :)

Brown Thumb

I am glad I chose a different career path than that of waitress, I would have starved to death. I cannot walk and carry a cup of coffee to save my life. I'm amazed some days I can tie my own shoes but then I remember that I can purify difficult membrane proteins and I am a little more forgiving towards myself. According to the brain there must be sacrifices made, carrying a cup of coffee is not the end goal. The brain is a little full of itself most days.

Speaking of the career path, today was a good day. I like days where I have neat results with beautiful images and it all makes sense. I'm trying out some new protocols this week and I'm a little hesitant to do them. I always feel like if I mess them up I'm wasting money, mainly because I am wasting a lot of money. However, failure in science can be our best friend but not always, sometimes it's just a colossal waste of time and modest loss of money.

In other news this weekend was a good one, as I have moved some of my yard projects along! As you can see the walkway is expanding and it is looking rather spiffy if I do say so myself. I had a few rosebuds this year, a whole decade and this rose bush has produced exactly 8 buds. Eight. Buds. Yup. This year it was going to be torn out but then I noticed the rosebuds and I gave it a 10th chance. I mean come on 10 years and this is the only time it bloomed! The rest of the garden is coming along nicely thanks to some lovely rain, OK not lovely because it was rather destructive. We had a really bad storm last week on Monday but that pushed my sunflowers through the ground in record time. It takes about 14 days to germinate with constant watering but that mini-monsoon we had got them there in less than 7 days! We're expecting another mini-monsoon tomorrow so hopefully that will help the other seeds I planted in the back. Today if weather permits I'm putting down some more seed, I just got my wildflower mixes! I'm excited because a lot are perennials and the annuals self-seed after the season is over blooming all summer well into fall. As for the backyard the moon has a bunch of seeds that should really benefit from the rain and the little fruit garden has all sprouted! I have lots of corn coming up, lots of watermelon, and lots of cantaloupe sprouting. I also added to chile plants to the set because the seed I had put down did not come up. This whole black thumb is looking significantly browner, who knows by the end of the summer it may be green.

Satisfying

Life moves way too quickly in my opinion, even if it is sometimes beautiful to see it pass us by. I think that's why we never notice the passage of time, it's a beatiful tapestry. Then we look up and a decade has gone by or a year or an hour. Weird but I find it difficult to reconcile the years with the course of life sometimes. I'm sure everyone feels that way sometimes, if not all of the time. Why so philosophical? Well this month has the 1 year birthday of a good friends daughter (today actually! Happy Birthday A!) and my nephew's 5th birthday in a few days! My time goes by quickly. A little too quickly sometimes. I feel like he's still a baby and I am just thankful that he loves hugs, cuddles, and kisses. I feel bad for my sister sometimes, imagine how she feels seeing her baby grow up!

Cleared walkway.

Test run with mold.

Well besides contemplating my mortality, I have also been busy working on my yard and I have quite a bit of progress. The back yard is about as good as it's going to get but the front yard has been my main focus for the past 2 weekends. The backyard now has a sun and a moon, with tons of lovely fruits and grains coming forth. Yes for once I may not kill my whole yard! Let's not jinx myself and just put in the work. The front yard has had quite a transformation truthfully. A tree is gone, 3 bushes have been moved, sunflower seeds have been planted, bermuda grass seed was distributed in desired areas, and all weeds/crabgrass have been cleared! Well most of the yard has been cleared. I have maybe 10% that needs to be cleared but that is part of a larger project so that may take a few more weekends. I have cleared an area next to the walkway to make it wider and plan to place some lovely stones in the midst. I also created some drainage for the rain gutter. Moved more lemon balm into the area too. Love that stuff! Did a test run with the mold that I bought last summer and never used because volunteering. I was satisfied but i think I may have a friend or two help because that was a lot of work to mix and pour by myself. This is only part of what has happened in the past 2 weeks, there is so much more to do in the coming weeks but this weekend it will be temporarily halted because I have Mother's Day coming up. Yup been busy but happy about the progress. Although with all this work I will say I have not been good about doing the piano playing like I had promised. I may have to pace myself a little better. I will show a better picture as soon as I take one of the full yard.

Moon to the left; sun to the right.

Rain Gutter drainage.

Gardening with Melasma

Well hello world! I am feeling pretty good today despite being sore from this weekends activities. I have been working hard on my garden despite it's lack of love towards me. although the weeds have been less aggravating this spring! I put down some feed & weed a month or two ago and it seems to have definitely helped despite some reviews online to the contrary. Although not 100% where I want the yards to be but better than nothing at all or the wild jungle of weeds from last year. Seriously last year was harsh, those weeds tried to take everything over! I spent most of my time trying to kill off all the purslane that seems to have infected the whole neighborhood, OK not the whole neighborhood but almost. Well except for those people who seem to have an amazing green thumb on my street, some of those yards are amazing. The major focus of my weekend was to clear out remaining tree stumps and branches, also some planting because I am lazy and should have done this last weekend but I have an excuse - it rained. I planned out a rising sun or setting sun as my nephew said. I planted some corn, watermelon, cantaloupe, some herbs and peppers. It's all from seed so cross your fingers it all comes up! The tree is a jujuberry tree, I love those things!

The downside of working in the garden when you think you're still in your 20's? Although I am a firm believer in wearing spf containing lotions, it was not always so. Sadly I moisturized but rarely ever wore anything with any spf in my younger days. Now I face the consequences. I have always tanned easily and rarely burned, mostly in my childhood when you don't know when enough is enough. I recently had a course of antibiotics and a lot of sun exposure, combined they caused melasma. People wear your sunblock. People always ask whether you should avoid sun exposure when taking antibiotics or other medications. I'm hoping some aloe vera will help fade the problem but usually once you develop melasma it's very difficult to get rid of it. It's most found in pregnant women, called chloasma a hyperpigmentation of skin. Melasma is mostly associated with people who tan easily or produce melanin easily, of course including sun exposure without protection. Oh how I regret those weekend carwashes I did with the church group and no sunblock.  Seriously the amount of sun and water wasted is enough to make me groan now. Well fingers crossed the aloe vera makes it all go away.

Goals this summer now include having my own aloe vera and finishing the yard.

Amor & DIY

I am behind in my goals, feeling like I keep on falling behind but not so. I have actually accomplished quite a bit this year already. Truthfully I have done more than can be expected but always the perfectionist nothing is done to my liking. Anyway that is the current state of affairs, a feeling of lagging but when analyzed not so bad.

The garden is a slow go and right now a little difficult because it's been crazy weather. Freezing threats prevent me from fully believing I can put seedlings out. Some of my seeds are not cooperating and that is irksome. Otherwise it's been pretty good. I also managed to kill my rosemary. It had survived this long and then last month I thought hey let me clean up it's base. Next thing I know we had a frost and the roots were not as protected as they had been and it died. I checked the branches by pruning and it is dry as bone :( I was sad. I will go look for one this weekend, I really like rosemary and this time I will not trust warm weather!

Portulaca grandiflora

This past weekend we had a bachelorette party for a friend (guess who was volunteered to plan it?) and it was tons of fun. I had to recover on Sunday. All. Day. Sunday. I know, I know, it was also Easter but we have discussed the not so religious thing. I did go to an Easter BBQ if that counts, I know it doesn't. Anyway as a gift to all the guests, I turned some mugs into planters and put Portulaca into them! I know Portulaca does not sound good at all but let me translate for  you. My mother calls it Amor, (aka Love) and in some places here in the USA it's called Moss Rose. It's quite beautiful. It requires full sun and very little water. It produces tons of seeds so I would not recommend that it be put in the ground, keep it contained. It is a relative of common purslane, bane of my life but it is much prettier in my opinion. At the actual party the seeds were only just starting to sprout but I'm sure that if everybody takes care of it, it will do quite well. I thought it was fitting to give out a plant that is called Love :) As for the mugs I also did a little special thing there. I drilled holes in the bottoms so that it would drain properly and then I marbled them!

mycraftyspot.com

It's a simple process really. In a bowl or any container you don't mind ruining you place some warm water, not boiling just warm. Drop in a few drops of nail polish - multiple colors or one single color - and quickly dunk your mug into the area where the nail polish has spread. This is a quick process because the nail polish will begin to either dry and create a film or bead up and sink to the bottom. Using glittery nail polish is a pain, you need more than a couple of drops and it has to be layered on top of other colors or bottom, as long as that is the last polish you add to the water. Otherwise have fun with this! Also once you drop in dark colors if you don't do enough of the color it will thin out and be a very pale version of what's in the bottle. Put it somewhere to dry and in an hour or two you have a marbled mug. It is not dishwasher safe, the polish will come off in there. Also do not scrub very hard, use a soft sponge because you can rub it off with a brillo pad.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

#HomeOwner Problems

So many pinterest crafts to do and so little life to do them all. Sigh. I was scrolling through my craft board last night on Pinterest. I am so over my head on that list! I think I need a pintervention at this point. Well speaking of pinterest, I have completely removed the branches from my front yard but there is one little problem with that. I have a huge tree trunk and I refuse to pay to dispose of it, I'm trying to convince my brother in law that if we slice it in half and let it fall where it may we can turn it into a planter but he remains circumspect. I know it's very scrooge of me but I have great difficulty separating from my money for things I find superfluous. Like gym clothes. I buy clothes to specifically sweat in them and not be able to wear them anywhere else. Does anyone else find that a superfluous purchase? Anyway, that is not the point, point is that I really don't want to have to pay for removal of the trunk but I guess I will eventually cave.

Add 2 augurs, another plunger, and bottles of acid.

Something you do need to pay for - plumbing issues. Monday I caved and finally called the plumber. Oh yeah, my bathtub had a clog; just the tub. I have 2 augurs, I used both but to no avail. I tried the vinegar & baking soda trick that has worked before - nothing. I even tried chemicals, something I don't like and still nothing. I even tried to vacuum it out but nope. The guy came out on Wednesday (good thing I have a second bath) and couldn't remove the item clogging the tub so he pushed it through the main line. Hopefully I no longer have issues with that tub because I hated paying the $95.