Garden Update

Have I become one of those crazy garden bloggers? Oh well, at least I'm in good company.


It's finally been warm enough to hang up our clothesline! Yes, that Texas shirt is cut off to be a belly shirt. Don't mess with our White Trash parties.


The clematis is really taking well to the bike trellis.


The wildflower seeds are coming up! I'm so excited to see the flowers!


The morning glories are up too, in a big way. Looks like I might need to thin them out!


Betty is regulating the garden. There are lots of new things to smell and flies to chase.


Look at my little baby peppers! I'm such a proud mama.


The tomatoes are happy too, if a little wind-blown. Time to secure those cages!


The bike trellis is looking great!

Woke Up This Morning

To this walking down my street:



It's the Mummer's Spring Strut! For those of you unfamiliar, information about the Mummers here.



I really love how manly these guys manage to be, while still wearing feathers and dresses.



It's a family affair! And it's nice that they're letting women participate. Hopefully people of color will be able to join in the fun some day.



I can't figure out whether these costumes are supposed to have an Egyptian, Roman or Native American theme... but does it matter, really?


So as tough as 2 Street can be sometimes, I must say I enjoy the crazy things I see here.

Organized Chaos

If a messy desk is the sign of an organized mind, then I am the most organized motherfucker you'll ever meet.

Anyway, as the season is slowing down, I've started to give cleaning the office some serious thought. So of course I had to take "before" pictures.

I'll get around to all that cleaning... soon.

In other theater news: Les Miserables, what have you done with my girlfriend?

On Solitude

I'm rattling around the house by myself again... there's always something to clean. I'm pretty starved for my circle of friends. We're all so busy lately.

I've had a chance to reconnect with two of my old friends lately, and it's been an eye-opening, bittersweet experience. I'm learning that I can't control everything. I'm learning that people view the world very differently than I do sometimes. And I'm learning that sometimes conflict has to happen, in order for a relationship to continue. I've never been good with conflict in my personal life.

These are good lessons, but tough lessons.

Now I need to socialize, with people who aren't completely stressed out about freakin' Les Miserables. I need to reconnect.

Call me-- let's do lunch. Or drinks. Or coffee. Anything but my current routine of doing dishes, listening to NPR, watching the cat sleep, cooking something, doing dishes...

Two Things

First...




Look at this delicious wrap my girlfriend assembled for me last night. We're trying to eat healthier, and let me tell you, when the food is this yummy, it's not hard to do. She took the chicken, mushrooms and potatoes I cooked in a white wine thyme sauce, toasted up a whole wheat wrap, added lettuce, feta cheese and sprouts & voila! Delicious, healthy late night snack. And what's that in the upper right hand corner? That's my frosty mug of Hoegaarden! (Well, not every part of the late night snack can be healthy...)



Second...





We heard a noise this morning and when we came out to the living room to investigate, this is what we found:




Bad kitty! Bad, bad kitty!


And those are my two things for the day.

Vintage

I'm currently obsessed with vintage and thrift store clothing. Particularly from Retrospect, my new favorite place to shop in Philly. Not only are the clothes one-of-a-kind in an increasingly cookie-cutter world, but the price is right.

Yesterday I got a United Color of Benetton black and white striped tank for $6 and an awesome vintage black slip that I'm going to rock as a shirt for $11. Not to mention the other week I scored a real vintage Hawaiian muʻumuʻu and an awesome turquoise linen dress from the 80's that looks just like something I could have bought at H&M today. And of course my great new (old) red patent leather purse and the two chunky belts that I grabbed for only $5.

Plus buying second hand clothing is great for the environment and makes me feel a little better about my budget as well.

Now don't tell anyone else about this place. I still want it to be my little fashion secret...

My Missing Girlfriend

...or how Les Mis is ruining my life.



Not really, of course. But I think that I've seen Deb for like 10 minutes of every day. And I live with the woman.

She leaves before I wake up and gets home exhausted and jumps right into bed.

Don't get me wrong, everyone downstairs is working really hard, just like her. It's just that... I miss my girlfriend.

This week she even worked on (gasp!) Monday. The horror!

Let's just say that I'm glad for her sake that she gets paid hourly. And it has been nice to have the house to myself for a few days, but I'm over that now.

Les Mis, let my girlfriend go!

The Lusty Month of May

I finally finished planting my container garden today... and by finished, of course I mean I'm finished for now. Apparently I can't go into Lowes or Home Depot or even Whole Foods without buying at least $30 worth of plant related material.

But I thought I'd post some pics of my proud acheivements thus far... and keep you updated as to how they survive the summer on our deck.



Don't these tomato leaves look healthy? Mmmmm, tomatoes. I'm experimenting with my soil mixtures-- one is mostly compost and the other organic potting soil. But I've crushed up eggshells and mixed them into both soils because I heard on NPR's You Bet Your Garden the calcium was good for the tomaters.



Cucumbers! These little guys are growing quite rapidly. The leaves are so cute!



My herbs... I've got rosemary, lavendar and thyme in the top one & peppermint and two different types of basil in the bottom.




Romaine lettuce & spinach in the long planter and red bell peppers on the end. I think I may have planted my lettuce a little close together. We'll see.



A view of my containers...




More containers...




And my bike trellis/planter. Still a work in progress, but I've got clematis growing at the base, some geraniums hanging and a bird feeder hanging too. I've planted some really old morning glory and wildflower seeds in those weird tan planters, so we'll see what comes up.




There's that pretty clematis flower!




Bike trellis!!!!




My neighbor's cherry blossoms... I love spring time!



And I love my container garden! Here's me snuggling up to my lettuce.