planting christmas bulbs.

i love christmas.
did you know that?
L O V E  I T!
more than anything i think. i would be so happy to live in christmas town...i don't think even the snow would get to me if i got to live there. forever.
that's how dedicated i am to the cause of christmas.

anyways come this time of year i dream of all things christmas.
i prepare for all things christmas.
and every year i seem to miss something. but not this year.
i have a lot of my blogs in my reader and i try to get to most of them when i can. they are beautiful blogs filled with shiny things {most of which i will never make}, beautiful decor and soul crushing expectations. something i always seem to see - come christmas - are gorgeous red flowers in the background on those gorgeous blogs {not poinsettias} and little white blooms poking their heads out too and fro. that's when my little light-bulb goes off and i say {sometimes loudly which seems to startle the dog} "ugh! i forgot again!!!"
but this year i didn't!!!!!
this year i hustled to home depot and select a few bulbs for myself. i took the time, set myself up outside, picked a few vases - cause i liked the look of that - and got down to business.
this year we are going to have paperwhite's decorating the house and a glorious bright red amaryllis.

this year i remembered. this year maybe i will be shiny and bright.

right now my house is decorated with vases of dirt...as tony gently put it. but they will be flowers soon. fingers crossed. there are little sprouts, as you can plainly see, and i have been staring at them willing them to grow. and i have seen some progress......i am hoping that i am not the week late that i suspect i am. the point of all this is that i did it. at one point we will have beautiful bulb growing indoors and be able to enjoy flowers come this winter. and then i can celebrate it in my december daily.
so excited about that.
so excited about christmas!!!!!

soon my house will be decorated for christmas with flowers and racing flag bunting for a hot wheels party. now that is going to be fun!!!

love this.....i am political like pheobe. always.
merry christmas!

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i have an important update for you!!

remember 2011 when i blogged to y'all about the new delta faucet we got? the beautiful shiny one with the touch technology to help with your chicken hands? the gorgeous one that i never thought in my lifetime i would have?
well i have been secretly conducting an experiment with it and that has now come to a close.
this faucet has many features, many pros and cons. there was a secret con that i had...well it's not secret but i kept my dislike for it a secret. the fact is it comes with batteries. of course it has batteries - that's how the sensor works. my first thought about this was bummer - now this faucet is going to costs us more money and is it worth it? i see how kids toys suck the life out of batteries and since i am CONSTANTLY doing dishes this is going to suck the life out of them and i am going to constantly be buying and changing batteries for this! blerg! and it took six of them!!!!

today....this morning....the first 6 ran out! after 1 year and four months i FINALLY changed the batteries.

i love my faucet even more now.

:)

tomato: the musical.

for the past three summer's i have taken it upon myself to grow tomatoes.
am i particularly fond of tomatoes? umm..i do like them but could do without them.
the thing is everyone seems to grow them so i said - why not me too!

the past two summers it was a big royal pain in the butt! the first year two out of my three plants grew. and last summer i got one plant and maybe one tomato.
bummer.
i had also done some pots last year with cherry tomatoes and got maybe a handful.

this summer i felt it was time to go back to the drawing board.
the one thing about me is...i am not a researcher.
i know, i know. terrible.
i'm the girl who thinks "if i want to do it, i can do it. i don't need any help."
clearly, in this case, that is not true.
it's not until i came across this post by elise that a few things clicked. {now i know you are going to go over there and she is going to reel you in with all her fabulous-ness but don't get too distracted!!}

this has been a labour of love!

this summer i was to concentrate on three new areas of the garden. converting the existing vegetable garden patch from raised beds to not raised {courtesy of the previous owners}, digging out the two beds that border the grass and the one bed along the house that are filled with river rock and replacing that with dirt and perennials.
i got to the beds and not the vegetable garden.
and i had already bought all these tomatoes!!!
so i put them along the house. all of them. too many of them.
i guess i was going off of past experience and hoping that just a couple might catch.
i also filled the soil with coffee grounds and egg shells. a new tip for me and a secret weapon i think.

they all "catched!" {caught?}

i am blown away.
amazing.

it got so out of control though that i put out a distress call on facebook {yes, here i am asking for help again! it's the new me!! ha!} that all my plants were falling over because they were too big and i learnt about two things - suckers and bamboo poles.
game changer!

after ruthlessly going after the suckers - i might have cut too many..... - and stringing them up with the poles, aren't they looking pretty?

and when we came back from our week away {i will share that with you soon!} i did my first harvest!
i can't believe how many i got. and look how much bigger the plants got!
again...
blown away!

for next year i have already planned things a little better - i'm going to double the poles and also string netting along the back. also i'm going to plant herbs along the bottom of the plants.
that way they will get sun but not too much sun {did you see my photo of my basil harvest?? love it!}

this is now my tomato garden forever!

the transformation of a landscape.

i find sometimes when you are immersed in one thing, live with something, are the thing, you don't notice or grasp the transformation that is happening before your eyes. you almost have to step back, remove yourself from the situation and then look back.

that is how i have felt lately. sometimes i think of the show the biggest loser. we go on this journey with the contestants who are dropping enormous amounts of weight but because we are following and cheering them on, they seem different week to week but not so much. understand? it's not till that pivotal point in the show where they do the then and now do you really see the transformation - the one that you supposedly have been keeping an eye on but apparently has flown over your head. you are shocked. in awe. excited for them.

that's how i felt last week. as you know we moved out east a year and a half ago and this house was less than perfect. the major hurdle was the yard. the landscape. we attacked it that first year. we sweated. we grunted. we found new respect for gardeners and landscapers. finally at the end of the summer - with our war wounds of back aches, scrapes and bruises - we got it to a place where we could do something with it. in went some plants. down went some grass - until next year when the real work could be done.

again this summer we slaved away - this year was the grooming year rather than the demo year but still it's quite the task. more plants went in. a fence was built. more dirt was hauled out. more grass put down. because of our work, the rink will be able to be bigger this year {yeah!}. a rock wall in the front creating curb appeal was carried out. looking to next year it will be major grooming, major overhaul on the vegetable garden, and lots of finger's crossed that the plants we put in work and look attractive. and then we can slow down.

it wasn't until last week when i was forced to clear out the iphoto once the number hit 15,000 that i stumbled upon the photo's of summer one that i sat back in awe. when i look out at the garden i see what needs to be done - i don't dwell too long on what we have accomplished {maybe i do a little but not as much as i should}. i am now in awe at what we have accomplished. amazed. incredible. inspired.

i felt like a contestant looking back and actually feel quite proud of us. now i am excited to tackle the task next summer. the vegetable garden. the fire pit area. the cedars along the back for privacy. possibly a new deck {but that is safely on the wish list where i suspect it might stay for a couple summers}. hopefully an outside access to the hot tub room. we will just have to wait and see.

backyard left side

back yard right side

left side yard

 continue after the jump to view all the before pictures!

there's more to read here >>

my almost green thumb.

jenny jenny quite contrary how does your garden grow?

quite well actually.

since moving into the house last year i have had a buzz to dive head first into the garden. as i have made some progress i still have miles and miles to go. i have made some wise choices and some mistakes and i can almost see a green hue forming on the outer edge of my thumb - very faint and more of a khaki green, more yellow but desperate to be considered green. i am not a gardener by any means but i can see a garden forming and it tickles my heart. i have made a decision (probably too late in the season) that i would like to fill the back part of the garden with as many perennials as will fit there - my irises and day lilies have grown quite nice there -and possibly scrap annuals all together as i am not a very good weeder - i jump in in the beginning of the season then find other things to occupy my time in the middle and end of summer and forget about the weeding. i would just like it to be full and planty.

also there is a vegetable garden and that is quite special. last year i was amazed and impressed by the bounty i (me!!) was able to produce and this year it doesn't seem to be working so well. the house came with these broken down raised boxes i have just sort of kept them going by propping them up and tilling in new soil when they probably should have all been replaced - but what a job that is!!! my potted vegetable/herbs are thriving though and i think i might add some more pots to the collection for next year and possibly turf the large beds all together - except i have managed a weak collection of strawberries there that someone likes to take nibbles out of.

thyme.

my almost tomatoes

the last surviving strawberries - all others nibbled by, i suspect, the skunk which sprayed gordon.

cherry tomatoes planted from a small six pack.

along the back stone patio there are what seem to be beds that the previous owners filled with rocks and the weeds have made this their home as well. this would be beautiful all dug out and planted - what a job that would be! i think that might go on my next year or possibly autumn list if i can muster up the will and desire. you can see a faint inclination of it behind in the picture of the potted cherry tomatoes - see all those rocks? that's a flower bed.

the left side of the house has a plan all it's own as that is where the winter rink goes and in summer it is thick slabs of uneven concrete that the husband has come up with a clever idea of filling the space with gravel to even it out, decoratively placing flagstone, making our fire pit the middle and wait patiently for the grand gift of a yard lounge set and some muskoka chairs (wink, wink).

the front is a work in progress creating that "curb appeal" but at least the ghetto brick planters are gone and i see a beautiful raised bed in our future. as keeping in the theme of the house i hope to keep the colour scheme in white and red up there and upon hearing that there are red day lilies i am very excited to add them in there for that pop of red. i love the look of long grasses when that's the purpose - not when you are a lazy sack who will not mow! i will keep hanging baskets year after year because they add that something special to the front porch but i am hoping to create a garden that will come back every year and minimize my trips to the nursery. i gaze across the street at the beautiful landscape created there and sometimes get discouraged but then i remember that they have lived there in 29 years, that rome was not built in a day and quite possibly their garden looked like mine years ago. being neglected for years, tackled head on last year, seeing improvement by the next and hopefully will one day match theirs in style & beauty. fingers crossed.

hello summer.

hello to lots and lots of playing outside.

 hello to bike walks every night.
hello to breakfast/lunch/dinner on the patio.
hello to shorts and tank tops.
hello to outdoor family activities that don't involved layers upon layers of clothes.
hello to spontaneous water fights.

hello to gardening.

hello to popsicles.
hello to the bounty of fresh produce available at the farmer's market.
hello to the farmer's market.
hello to the annual birthday season and the chance to experiment with new cakes and sweets.
hello to late nights outside enjoying the twinkle lights/fire pit and s'mores.
hello to the t-ball season.

 hello to the best view in the house.

hello summer. how are you? you have been missed.