May 31, 2009

Treasury Fun

Wow! I've been featured in a couple treasuries! Here's an awesome red and yellow one by time4acure!And here's one full of gorgeous summer items by avivaschwarz!

May 29, 2009

Composting

My compost bin is composting! It's small, but then again, so's my garden. Last week I found that it was full of maggots and I was afraid that it had been ruined. I checked out some information online which indicated the maggots wouldn't hurt anything, so I left them alone.
Well, kudos, maggots - they've done more in the past week than would have happened with natural, dry decomposition. It's starting to look like soil! Hooray!

I was going to take a picture, but then I realized that everyone else is probably not as keen on a bucket of rotting foodstuffs as I am.

So check out my hot peppers - these were planted April 13th:


May 27, 2009

New Clutch

Here's my new little clutch purse!It's so cute, I think i might keep it!

counter blues

So, here I am, stuck on the counter at work. Not making things, not creating, just playing customer service rep to a stream of rude, incredibly needy people. Same place I was yesterday.
That's fair.

Not that I'm bitter about it or anything.

Anyway, since I'm lucky enough to have my computer here to distract me, I'll show you how my garden grows.
My cilantro is becoming quite large - I had to re-pot it.

My sister's baby's breath. I lost track of when this was planted so I'm going to call it ten days old.
And my dill, too, at almost a month old.


May 25, 2009

new things

So, I spent much of yesterday re-planting seedlings into larger homes. I'm hoping I can keep most of them potted, since I don't have a ton of money to drop on making a box garden and because south Florida is overflowing with hungry insects. I was happy with my collection so far, but my sisters wanted to keep planting so we started again with several varieties of lettuce, artichoke, a pumpkin, and a cantaloupe. The lettuce is starting to sprout:

And the white pumpkin:

May 24, 2009

enter, summer

The pool is back! I cannot recall how long we've been without it. Seems like forever, but it's only been a few months, I'm sure. It's almost thirty years old and has cracks and leaks and broken tiles. Well, it did. My cousin fixed it! Hooray! Now if we can get the lightning to stop, I may just have a quick dip.

Although I would love to have the sunshine come back, this rain has been great for our yard and plants. My coleus, shown here:I can't wait to see their full color patterns. They're not even a month old yet.

And, here's my mother's banana tree, making a sweet comeback. There are two, but after resuscitating the second, smaller one, my cousin promptly ran it over with the mower.

May 22, 2009

*gasp*

Well, as luck would have it, one of my co-workers at the night job asked if I wanted to switch for a morning shift and I said, "Sure thing!" because I rarely make any money on a Friday night. Mostly because I feed on the tip share and they throw a couple extra bodies on for the weekends, meaning less money for me.
And I'll have the evening to relax, for once, on a Friday.
Really, I need to get some work listed this morning, but instead I goofed off in the etsy forums.
So here's one of my new coin purses that i will be putting up this afternoon:

May 20, 2009

weird wednesday

Today has been slightly uneventful, which is not necessarily a bad thing. We were supposed to go out on a short cruise this evening, in part for my mother's birthday (which was a few weeks ago) and also for my sister's beau's birthday (which is today). However, the rain we have so desperately needed over the past few months has chosen today to make it's presence known. Good for plants, bad for boating.

Figuring I would relax after work, I logged onto mySpace and discovered a funeral announcement for an old high school classmate. Now, I'm not going to pretend that I was very close to this girl, but she was in our clique, or circle of friends, or however you describe your childhood notions, and she was sweet, quiet, and a bit shy. She never said a negative word to me, and that's more than I can say for a lot of schoolyard chums. I'm not sure if I'll attend the funeral yet. It's tomorrow.

May 19, 2009

hello, Tuesday

Here's a quick before picture of our above-ground garden.I was rummaging around in the old house when i remembered my old toy box. I hadn't used it in years and the lid was cracked, so I figured we'd give it a go. I want to get an after picture as soon as it stops raining. (Yay, rain!)

May 18, 2009

Pollywogs!

I have tadpoles. I used to have about a thousand tadpoles living in our rain-filled pool, until my cousin killed them all in an attempt to kill mosquito larvae. I think they're toad tadpoles.
So here are the little guys Allen and I are keeping to watch grow into whatever they grow into.
I fed them spinach from my garden and they seem to love it!
Once they've got legs, we'll move them to the canal out back.

May 17, 2009

It's gardening time again!
The weather is nice and my plants are growing. I've had to re-plant most of the peppers and all of the sugar snap peas. Today I hope to work on some cherry tomatoes.
My Basil, here at 33 days. And I found the evil-doer who has been eating the leaves and removed him!My Stripey tomato has some blossoms!

The cherry tomatoes at 21 days. Some of them are over six inches now and I want to try re-planting at least one of them into the ground.

My Sugar snap peas at 21 days. this was right before I replanted them all.
And my lemon cucumber. Man, has he grown - also 21 days.
And finally, my cilantro - at 33 days!I'm still having issues with caterpillars eating my spinach. Does anyone have any natural pesticide knowledge or recipes?





May 14, 2009

May 13, 2009

NEW sandals!


Omigosh - these came together a lot easier than I thought they would and they are soooo cute!
I used a grey and black striped print with bold raspberry pink. The soles are Black rubber.

I think I should add a small heel.

May 11, 2009

Ah, Monday

Someone has taken my Mondays from me!! I usually have all Monday off work, so it's a day of relaxing (since I do most of my cleaning on Sunday). However, my night job has been a bit short-handed this week and I (foolishly) agreed to pick up some shifts on Sunday and Monday. *sigh*
So, no cleaning was done yesterday and very little will be done today.
I did get some relaxing in, though.
We went to the beach this morning!And my friend's baby found a dead fish and named him Fish.
Fun morning. Way to ruin it, work!

May 8, 2009

Fantastic

Allen sold a Beer Holster! Specifically, this one:I'm actually surprised it didn't sell before now; it was always one of my favorites. Now we need to buy some more veg tan so he can make more.


In other, garden-related news, my seedlings have grown!
Check out my HUGE sugar snap peas, at 13 days.
My onions and Coleus at 12 and 13 days, respectively.
And my Cosmos, at 25 days.
My Cherry Tomatoes at 13 days.
And my Basil is by far the best growing plant at 25 days!

May 7, 2009

It's..... Thursday

Indeed. Allen's tooling a bit of leather.

And I'm making a new sandal. I have my pattern all cut out and now I'm stuck on which leathers to use. Black? Brown? Exotic fish skin? A patterned leather?

May 6, 2009

Wednesday Activities

Well, we were supposed to go out on a BYOB boat tour ride this afternoon for a late birthday present to my mom. My older sister works on the boat and can get us all on for cheap (or free) and we scoot down the intercoastal while they point out houses that were once owned by celebrities. However, my little sister has a school function so I suppose we will be putting it off until next week.

In the meantime, I've been making a new pair of sandals! Combining some silk fabric with gator print leather.
AND.... my lemon cucumbers have sprouted!

May 3, 2009

Garden update

The weather is lovely today and since I completed my errands early, I'm going to spend some time planning the re-planting of my seedlings. My spinach, at 21 days, is out-growing it's starter container!

The cilantro, also at 21 days, is starting to look delicious!
I had to re-plant my onions and, at a week old, they've started to sprout!
My sugar snap peas, at 8 days, are HUGE! They will definitely need to be replanted soon.And my peppers, at 21 days, are doing well, but seem a bit stunted.Okay, well, I'm off to plan and plant!