Remodel: New Living Room Windows

Wow... can you believe it? We got our living room windows today! Only 5 months after we were promised them, and not exactly what we were promised (slide-by's instead of casement), but they're in, and they're nice! They allow us to get a breeze in the living room, and they are (supposed to be) more energy efficient!!!

One "before" picture:
Oh, wait--here's a funnier "before" picture, taken in February:



Here's the "after" pics:

And while I was taking pics, I thought I'd do an update on my impatiens, shown here in their infancy. They're growing!

Time to plant the annuals!

Part of my mother's day gift was a flat of impatiens. I planted them early this morning, as it's supposed to be REALLY warm today (possibly breaking records) and to rain all day tomorrow.

I'm always amazed at how well impatiens do in our soil and shade. We can't get much else to grow.

Last year I didn't take pictures of the impatiens in their infancy, so I wanted to do it this year.

Here's my annual bed:



(if you want to see what it should fill out like, here's a link to the picture from last year)

And I had a few extras, so I put them in front of my bulb bed:

My flowers

As posted earlier, not all of the bulbs that I re-set last year came up. Actually, most of them came up, but less than half bloomed this year! Does anyone know if it's possible that I traumatized them in the move and that they'll recover in a year or two? It seems like I remember reading that somewhere. Or maybe I planted them too deep? Anyway, lots of green, but not a lot of blossoms. Here's pictures of some of the things blooming, though.
And my forget-me-nots are AWESOME! I wouldn't mind if they took over my flower beds. I remember my Grandma having lots of forget-me-nots and I loved them!
G. bought some tomato plants at his school's Ecology Club plant sale, and since the remodeling isn't done in back and I don't want to risk planting something and having siding dropped on it, I thought I'd put the tomatoes out front--in the middle of the flower. We'll see how that works!

Unfortunately, that one truly invasive, awful plant that I can't identify to save my life, poked through all the paper I laid down under the mulch :( so I wasted three bags of mulch and it's still coming up! I even sprayed it with Brush-B-Gone, which is supposed to kill, well, BRUSH! It still didn't work.
Finally, I transplanted mint, too. I see two plants came up. I think I must be the only person in the world who can't grow mint! Everyone else calls it invasive, but I'd love for it to take over around my patio. No luck...

Spring is finally here!

Remember those hundreds of bulbs that I re-set last fall? Temps in the high 60's yesterday made them finally start to bloom!
There's hyacinths and one tulip, next to the house (warmer). The far bed is still gearing up. And even my grape hyacinths, that poked up so early, seem to have recovered nicely. They're not blooming YET, but when they do bloom, it'll be a lot!

The flower beds

Last fall G. and I spent a LOT of time and effort trying to eradicate some evil weeds from our landscape. I re-set about 200 bulbs, and though not ALL of them are coming up, an awful lot of them are!

Here is the post with "before" pictures.

And here are some "after" pictures:So far only three crocuses (crocii?).

I'll continue to post pictures as more and more of the bulbs bloom.

And my friend Abby gave me a tip about laying down newspaper, and then covering with mulch, to stop weeds. I'm wondering if brown paper bags would work, too...

Landscaping and Composting

We spent two days of our last weekend of summer doing landscaping. I wish I'd taken "before" pictures, but to give you an idea of what we are/were dealing with, here's a picture of the crap that seems to have taken over everything in our yard:
I have no idea what this stuff is. It appears to be similar to the stuff my Grandma called Frost on the Mountain, but it's solid dark green. It's got a sort of carroty/queen anne's lace-y smell and it gets ugly white heads on it. But what's truly amazing about it is the root system. You cannot pull it out. You can barely DIG it out. At the beginning of spring, I decided to try something similar to what my parents did when their garden was overgrown with weeds. They laid thick black plastic over the whole garden and took a year off of gardening. So I took black plastic garbage bags and weighed it down with rocks and left it. It kinda worked:
But I don't know if it will work permanently, so what we ended up doing with a small chunk of our front yard is digging out the entire section (6 inches deep or so), laying down landscape cloth, re-setting the rock wall, sifting all of the dirt pulled out (to get rid of the roots), then putting the dirt back in, mixed with new top soil, and topping with mulch. We did that back in May and it worked so well that we tackled two more sections of landscape this week (replacing the cedar posts on my flower garden with brick retaining wall). In addition, we pulled out bulbs from these two sections (and then, of course, re-set the bulbs). Anyone know if I've ruined my bulbs by transplanting them in September?

Here's the section next to the house but inside the fence:

(If you click back to this post, it's the section with the red tulips in it--you can see the beginnings of the green crap taking over) Also, if you look THROUGH the fence you can see the impatiens--this is the first area where we dug down and put landscape fabric--and how well that has taken off. Here's a closeup of the impatiens bed:


And here's my *flower garden*! it's at the tip of our fenced-in yard and it was a good idea, IMO, to have for a flower garden, but the green crap essentially prevents everything from growing there other than bulbs, first thing in the spring):

(If you click back to this picture from early May, you'll see some of the bulbs, and, of course, the green crap taking over)

I think I re-set over 200 bulbs. I sure hope they come back.

In addition, G. patched up some of the grass in our balding lawn, and (my favorite thing) he built me a compost bin:
I am SO excited to be composting! I had the kids gather dead leaves from last year (the ones stuck behind the shed and other places that the rake wouldn't reach), had G. mow the lawn for grass clippings, and stopped by Starbucks to get some coffee grounds! Anyone experienced with compost bins? Things I've read have differing tips on how much green vs. brown matter and when/how often to turn them and how often to water them and so on. Also, just what kitchen scraps are okay to put in it. I'd love advice on that, too.

Garden pics

Here's right after I planted in the spring.

And here's what my "garden" looks like now:

There's:
curly parsley
flat-leaf parsley
chives & thyme
dill
basil
and, if you look closely, some tiny little tomatoes...

(the cilantro's already been picked and used and a second round of seeds has been planted)

a little this; a little that

It has been raining constantly for the last three days, with high temps in the 40's... I guess I shouldn't complain, however, since my mom got 18 inches of snow!

At any rate, I'm feeling positively cooped up. The good news is that I've been able to do quite a bit of knitting. Of course, I'm knitting gifts, so I can't post photos. I've even "created" a pattern of sorts, which may or may not work out well. If it works out, I'll even post a pattern (my first!)

The lousy weather has given time for "practicing" of T's new birthday gift. Here's a picture of T. and C., watching the DVD on "how to play guitar". Very cute...

And finally, I took this picture one short week ago--when it was still nice outside:

It's not quite California

Unlike my dear Californian friends, Stefaneener and Suzee, my planting is limited by the late last frosts. However, it has been above freezing for awhile and I have been itching to get SOMETHING done garden-wise. We live on a tiny little corner lot in a wonderful suburb. Our tiny lot has essentially no back yard and our limited side yard is taken up by an enormous playstructure. So I have to be creative with my planting. First, my "planter" (ie: old laundry room sink) which now contains seeds for parsley, cilantro, basil and chives:


The Ecology Club at the University where G. teaches had a plant sale this week, and he kindly picked me up some plants. We have:
Hot Peppers (that's how they were labelled!):

Tomato:

Cherry Tomato:

Here's the whole "system":


And finally, my tulips are blooming!

Sock-Hops, New Hair, Sock-Pals & Bulbs...

First of all, I'll start with my last Girl Scout Sock Hop as a Girl Scout leader! (unless, of course, I end up being a leader for M.... let's not think about that!) C. took some friends to Culver's (for burgers--just like in the 50's!) beforehand:

Here's a picture of C's troop at the end of the Sock Hop (They had so much fun and were very sad that this would be their last Sock Hop. Someone said that they wished there were sock hops in middle school and I reminded them that, starting next year, they'd have real dances--with boys! That was met with a mix of excitement and disgust...)

A bit about me...

As usual, I live in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction with my hair. In this latest round, I have tired of my straight, dull hair and I'm frustrated with all the hair I've been losing as I age. So here's a picture of me a week ago, followed by a picture of me after my perm:

Not fantastic...as a matter of fact, in usual fashion, I immediately declared that I would never get another perm in my life! But it DOES look thicker...

We just got back from our "Spring Break" trip. While everyone else goes somewhere warm and South for Spring Break, we headed North as usual. After four days in Northern Wisconsin, we joined G. at his Department meeting in Central Wisconsin! At least there was a pool at the hotel we stayed in. :)

While on vacation in Hurley, I went in search of something fun to include in my Sock Pal's package. I am lucky enough to have a Sock Pal who lives in another country, which is really fun, but it also means that I need to mail her socks ASAP... Anyway, I went to Art Unlimited, which is a sportswear company (they print most of the advertising type shirts you find from Budweiser to specific vacation spot shirts...) and found the coolest sweatshirt that I hoped matched the socks I knit. It even says "Wisconsin"! Tell me what you think:

Oh, and while we were gone, my bulbs started to bloom! All the grape hyacinths are blooming, the daffodils are up, and even my first tulips have opened!

That's all for now. The kids go back to school tomorrow and that gives me a chance to get things somewhat back to normal--or at least routine!