What a weekend! Part 1 - Saturday

Oh, Saturday. Oh, how I looked forward to you - selling all my excess stuff, some extra money in my pocket. Meeting new people from my 'hood as they came to browse my wares.

Yeah, it didn't really go as planned.

Our original plan was to get up at 4(!) a.m. and arrange everything beautifully, and have the most pimpin yard sale ever known to man.

When 4 am came (too early), sleeping in until 6 seemed like a better idea. So, we got up at six, headed to McDonald's for some early-morning sustenance, and then to the Bip's storage unit to pull out a few things he wanted to sell. We got it all set up and sat on the porch swing waiting for all the customers to roll in in droves. Except they didn't come. Yes, we had some customers, and yes we made a little money (about $130), but it was such a disappointment compared to my last yard sale, where I made more than twice that amount with less stuff to sell. There were a lot of factors that went into this, I think.

1. We are on the 'wrong' side of the neighborhood. Although technically, we are a PART of the neighborhood, the side I live on is composed of a lot of renters (and owners! Shame on them!) that don't take pride in where they live or the integrity of the houses/neighborhood. Therefore, we don't get nearly the attention that the other side does. It's upsetting to me, but I see why it is this way. I know when I lived on the "Good" side, I was a bit snobby about the 'other' side - and we're far back into it, baby. We're not just a little bit on the undesirable side, we're ALL THE WAY BACK. However, we've got a beautiful home and the yard is sooooo great for the area. It's the perfect size for us and all we want to do with it. And it only takes one person to start a revolution. If we just keep taking pride in our home, it will spread (maybe slowly, but it WILL spread) to the rest of this half of the hood.

2. It was a community-wide sale, and there was an estate sale hogging all the attention.

3. Many of the people in our neighborhood went to help a neighboring community (a neighborhood across from us) that was badly damaged in the flood. That cut down on our customer base, as well.

4. Only 2 other people on our side of the hood had a sale.

5. I think I made my signs too small.

But we did do one thing right.... we advertised on Craigslist, with pictures, and I think that helped us a little bit.

Out of the ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY BOOKS I had to sell, I sold exactly ONE. Isn't that insane? Does no one read anymore? And I don't know if the person that did buy it COULD read. She was a trip and a half. We did have some very interesting customers, for sure.

We kept a couple (3) of the items that didn't sell to put on Craigslist (in fact, I JUST put them on CL about 10 minutes ago and Josh just texted me that one item has already sold!), and we packed up the rest and donated it to Goodwill. I felt good about that, since so many people have lost so much. And, I used to have a second job at Goodwill that I LOVED (working two jobs really sucked, but I really did like it there). I'm happy to donate to them anytime, and especially now with so many people in need.
But, if we ever do this again, I learned two things to do differently:

1. MAKE BIGGER SIGNS.

2. Be the only sale in the area, so people don't spend all their cash BEFORE they get to me!

After our Goodwill trip, we made a trip to Rita's to get some yummy shaved ice. I got the raspberry lemonade and the Bip got the vanilla. A very delicious and refreshing reward.

Some good things did happen on Saturday, despite the disappointing yard sale:

1. our sweet neighbors (from the good side of the 'hood) Tim and Merdith came over to visit. Love them!
2. My shasta daisies started to bloom!

We have several more we started from seed by the garage.... wonder if they will take off?

3. My first peony bloomed - oh, it just smells so heavenly, words cannot describe!

4. Our zucchini are about to go INSANE. See these buds?

Each of those buds will trun into a flower, which will then turn into a zucchini. There are about five buds on the plant alone, and we have about 5 or 6 plants total - um, that's A LOT of zucchini!

Here is our garden at 4 weeks in:

I will make a post about Sunday later on today.

xoxox

Rough morning already!

Last night, I finished sorting through all of my books. These are the 'keep' piles...

I am very proud of myself, though, because I am getting rid of three large boxes of books! Really hard to do when you're a book lover, but I did have some I felt indifferent about, so I chucked 'em. Can't wait to get shelving and everything in there... it's going to be a glorious little library once finished.

This morning has not been the best morning. I was woken up at 3:30 by a funny sound. It sounded like Jorge trying to get out of the baby gate (the dogs sleep in the laundry room now. Julio adjusted wonderfully, but Jorge is a bit more willful and rebellious about it). I tried to go back to sleep, but next thing I know, I heard the click-clack of dog toenails by the side of my bed. Jorge had escaped. Then Julio started crying. It was kind of windy out, so I thought maybe Jorge was worried about a storm and that had set him off. I let them outside to pee, then made them go back to bed, and blocked the gate with some chairs to keep them contained. I don't understand why Jorge would rather waste his time and energy rebelling when he could be sleeping! They have beds, toys, water in there. It's hardly prison conditions, and it's only at bedtime!

I woke Josh up and asked if he could go roll up my car windows in case it rained. I have been keeping them down a crack at all times these last few days because the floors on the passenger side of my car are SOAKED. Somehow, my front passenger window was open just a fraction of an inch during the storms over the weekend (not sure if it was my fault or Josh's - he was the last one in it). It normally wouldn't be a big deal, but because of the amount of rain we got, it kind of is a big deal. The back especially. I don't want things to get moldy and stinky, so leaving the windows cracked all the time until it dries out is my best bet.

We went back to bed and I couldn't sleep. I told the Bip I was going out on the couch, usually flipping channels and a change of scenery helps me. He asked if he could join me. So there we were, one at each end of the couch, except he likes to keep his knees bent when he sleeps, so his legs were over me. It was comical, and not comfortable, either. Josh also took a benadryl because he was feeling lousy (allergies, asthma and mowing grass aren't a good combination). So, back to the bed we went. He fell asleep right away, but I couldn't. I had all this stuff running through my head - things left to do to get ready for the yard sale, the fact that I'm way overdue for a checkup with my lady parts doctor.... and then I started worrying about that. What if I can't get pregnant... I mean, I'm almost 34. And then I was worried about the medication I take to sleep. It's not pregnancy safe, and I've tried going back to Unisom (which is pregnancy safe) but it really doesn't work and it makes my arms feel all prickly and then I get anxious, which does not help with the insomnia. And then I started thinking about how last time I took prenatal vitamins, I got kidney stones from it. All the calcium I guess. And I am sure I could take a modified vitamin, or just Folic Acid, but instead I thought "WHAT IF I GET KIDNEY STONES WHILE I'M PREGNANT?" It would be so horrible. They couldn't really give me pain pills or do any procedures for it, I wouldn't think, and sitting at a desk 8 hours a day with Kidney Stones? That's probably what hell is. So then I started crying and having a panic attack and I woke up the Bip to comfort me, and I had to take Ativan to calm myself down (also not pregnancy safe), and I was finally able to fall back to sleep about 10 minutes before the alarm went off. Grrrr.

So I got up and decided I was going to bring some Zen into my day because it was off to a bad start already. I went out to the garden to look at my veggies and soak in some peace. Then I noticed one of my broccoli plants was looking kind of rough... I inspected further and noticed that the stem on a couple of the leaves looked funny. Oh, jeez, that's because there are CATERPILLARS ON THEM that identically match the plant.... just munchin away on my broccoli leaves! I started ripping them of and flinging them across the yard. So much for my Zen. I did do some reading on it today, and birds like to eat those evil little creatures, so we're lucky that we have a LOT of birds in our yard. I am counting on them to save my broccoli!

Then I drove to work and traffic sucked and now here I am. My problems are very small (nonexistent, really) considering what so many others in the area are going through, and I know that, but still, it felt good to write them down and get it out. I did make a doctor's appointment for June 9th, so I am looking forward to at least getting some questions out of the way with that.

Onward and upward! Looking so forward to this yard sale, and then the one we'll do in Ohio next month. I can't wait to get rid of stuff.

Lunch date.

Pesto Pasta Salad:

My sandwich (Pimento Cheese):

Bip's Panini (Chicken and Pesto and Pears and other stuff):

Art for sale (I'd love both of these):

And we finished it all off with a delicious mocha.... I honestly don't think I've ever had a better hot mocha (other than the ones I make myself):

A very nice mid-Wednesday date with my love.

If you're in or around Nashville, try the Flatrock Cafe on Nolensville road. It's a cute little place and their food is to die for. I really hope they are around for a long time!

Yard sale is just 3 days away! So much to do!

IKEA and floods....

Last Friday, we decided we would go to the IKEA in Cincinnati instead of Atlanta. Cincy was 46 miles further, but Atlanta doesn't have a Tim Horton's. That sealed the deal.

http://www.timhortons.com/

We got off to somewhat of a late start, and the fact that Ohio is on Eastern Time landed us there about 11:00 pm. We were on an exit with a Tim Horton's AND a Outlet Mall, so we were happy.

This is how Cincy looks at about 70 mph.

In the morning, of course we got our bagels and iced capps from good ol' Tim's, and we headed to the Outlet Mall first. They had a JCrew outlet, and the dress I want for the wedding is from JCrew, so I thought there might be a chance they had it there. They did, although not in white. But it was nice to try one on, even if it was black, so I could see how it fit and all that. I will order the white one online.

The Bip lucked out, finding a white linen shirt for the wedding.... it was on sale, too, and after his student discount, it only ended up costing about $20! We went to the Banana Republic outlet, too, and everything was marked down wonderfully low. Josh found some great shirts, AND right before we were going to check out, he found some drawstring linen pants for the wedding - 40% off! So, he ended up spending just around $50 or so for his total wedding outfit. Not bad.

From there we headed to IKEA. I've been to IKEA a good handful of times, and I usually enjoy myself. However, I usually don't buy any furniture, just decorative stuff from the Marketplace. Buying the furniture was no fun at all. First of all, I had checked online to make sure the couch was in stock. It said they had 7. But when we got to where they were supposed to be, there were none there. Wild goose chase ensued, but we did eventually find it set up elsewhere, which was a blessing. Because to drive 4 and half hours for a couch only to come home couchless would have made us pretty grumpy indeed. We also grabbed our ottoman, slipcovers, an expedit unit for the tv, a rug (though I think we need the next size up), curtains (for four rooms of the house - only $40 total!), shelves, some placemats and a few other odds and ends. Unfortunately, we had to come home without the chairs we wanted. They are not big chairs by any means, but the boxes were HUGE.

We are supposed to be heading to Ohio one month from today to get my stuff out of storage that is up there. We're going to sell as much of it as possible at a yard sale at my mom's. While we're up there, we're going to hit IKEA again (there's one about 40 minutes from her house) so we'll grab the chairs there and possibly (hopefully) several expedit units for the third bedroom/library.

Here's our new couch and ottoman (silk feather pillows were a steal at Target for $9 on clearance. The room is eventually going to have blue/grey walls. Couch is brown, chairs will be cream, accents will be yellow):

Since we couldn't get chairs or agree on a side table, we snagged our sexy chairs out of Bip's storage unit and are using a trunk and old lamp to finish out the living room for now and help it feel kind of like a living room...

And here is our little TV unit. There is another door that goes in the top-left corner, but the Bip has to cut out a notch in the back for the cords to go through. The fact that it's white will make sense once the trim is all painted.

The TV is temporary, too, until we get another. But it works fine for now. Even with all the 'temporary' things going on, the living room feels and looks 100x better than it has since I moved in. I feel so grateful to finally feel peace when I walk in the door instead of stress!

However, IKEA stressed me out enough. It was not as fun as usual, and I was so frazzled I left without buying my usual exit cinnamon roll! And then, when I was outside holding a parking spot for Josh so we could load up the truck, some toothless old man cussed me out for holding the spot. Let's just say what he called me rhymed with "Clucking Pitch". Maybe it's wrong to hold spots? I don't know. All I know is Josh told me to stand there and not let anyone in it, so I did. It was only for 60 seconds or so, but the longest 60 seconds of my life, and next time, HE can stand in place while *I* go get the vehicle!

Our drive home was pretty eventful. We had to tarp everything down because we knew we were going to hit rain. Well, the tarp kept flapping up and Josh kept stopping every 20 minutes to re-situate everything, and then I realized somewhere in KY that we missed our exit to get on 71, so we were heading to Lexington instead of Louisville! Luckily, we had only gone about 20 miles out of our way, but still.  We got turned around and back on track. We hit some rain here and there but for the most part, all was clear. When we got to Louisville there was a lot of traffic stopped and heading north. We assumed it was from the Derby, drunk drivers being stopped and such... then we passed a car on it's side on the interstate, and people lying on the road. It was backed up for miles that way. So terrible.

South of Elizabethtown we finally got rained on.... and rained on, and rained on. It was so heavy! We knew there were supposed to be storms, but we really had no idea how bad it was going to be. It stopped raining around Franklin, KY, and was still dry when we got home (although our tarp was shredded, all our purchases made it home dry). About 15 minutes after we got everything in the house it started again. HARD. Lightning, thunder, tornado warnings. We luckily didn't lose any power, but I was afraid to go to sleep. It continued raining and storming all through Sunday and places were flooding, people were losing their homes, all interstates were shut down, lives were lost. It was such chaos. We just kept staring at the TV, unable to comprehend our city in such distress. Our neighborhood was pretty unscathed. Some people had some flooded basements, but that was about the worst of it. The only thing we lost was several of our sunflowers. Very small price to pay.

Monday, Josh's exams were cancelled as was work for me. It seemed so strange, to be home on such a sunny, beautiful day, but it wasn't so beautiful once you ventured too far. Roads were still flooded, and are still flooded today. I had a heck of a time getting on 40 today.

Just say a little prayer for this city I love, and the people in it who have lost so much. Count your blessings.

Today is the day!

We're heading to Atlanta once I get off of work today and then to IKEA tomorrow morning - new living room furniture is just hours away! I can't believe it's finally happening. :) Couch, chairs, table, shelving, perhaps lighting and a rug... I'm hoping to tackle some painting in the coming weeks, so that the house finally stops feeling so blah. I think The Bip's honey-do list is going to be pretty full once he's done with finals next week!

Josh finally got his TV sold on Craigslist last night. We're holding off on buying a new one for the living room for now, until we see where summer leads him as far as jobs go. I think everything will be fine, but it's best to err on the side of caution, especially with the wedding coming up. So, we're just going to use our bedroom TV in the living room for now, and put the 3rd bedroom tv in our room. We're also holding off on the painting of the trim until we see how the job thing goes. Trim painting is not going to be a cheap job, nor is it one I feel comfortable going the DIY route on. We have a LOT of trim - 4 inch moulding around the windows and doors and 6 inch baseboards! I can live with the stained wood trim a while longer, as long as I can get some color on the walls, while Josh feels the opposite. Oh, love... such a compromise sometimes! ;)

Speaking of that sweet love o' mine, one of the many things I love about him is that he wears my "Cooter's" hoodie all the time. It's too short for him in the torso and sleeves, but he doesn't care. He puts it on when he studies, when he goes out to water the garden, any time there is a bit of a chill in the air. It never fails to make me smile.

So dang endearing.

In wedding news - everything has been reserved! We got the reception venue we wanted, and found an adorable cottage to honeymoon in through Mermaid Cottages. http://www.mermaidcottages.com/ We'll be staying at "The Shrimp". All is set to go for September 4th. :) We're keeping it pretty simple, but I am looking for forward to all of it, especially the food! We're looking into doing personalized Jones Soda bottles, too. I was thinking root beer? Yum! How good would that be mixed with some vanilla vodka? Like a sinful root beer float... Okay, so now I'm hungry and thirsty... moving on...

I can't seem to go one entry without talking about our garden, can I? So why stop now? Right now we're celebrating OUR FIRST BROCCOLI! It was so exciting to see it last night. We check on everything every day when I get home from work, and it's just crazy what all can happen in a garden in a day!

Broccoli:

Here's how everything looks 2.5 weeks in:

Our Zucchini and Broccoli are the overacheivers so far, but the thyme, dill, peppers, rosemary, tarragon, basil and pumpkins are trucking right along at an amazing pace, too. I think we're down to one yellow squash plant (boo!), but at least it's not dead yet. And the lavender has done nothing. It's still nice and green and lovely, but it has not grown one bit. We're still hopeful about everything, though. And we have two more asparagus!

Our first three asparagus came up on the 23rd of this month.4 days later, this is how tall they were:

One last bit of yard talk - I think it's a maple tree in our backyard, near the garage, but it has just sprouted the strangest flowers... I've never seen such tropical looking flowers on such a plain ol' suburban tree before!

Pretty, though!

Abandoned nests and changed plans....

As soon as we got above freezing temperatures, I bought two ferns for my porch. Immediately, birds built nests in both of them. Both were abandoned, one with an egg in it (sad!). In the meantime, my ferns croaked (I couldn't risk drowning baby birds). Over the weekend, I decided I had waited long enough for the irresponsible birdie parents to come back. I took down the ferns, removed the nests, cut all the dead leaves out, and took the ferns out back and doused them with lots of water and Miracle-Gro. I fear I'm too late to resuscitate, but it's worth a try! And next year I won't hang plants until nest building season is over.

While I'm on the subject of plants, of course I have to talk about our garden. Everything is doing beautifully. We lost some yellow squash plants due to critters. I don't know if we lost them all, because we planted them next to the zucchini, and at this stage of things, they look exactly the same! Doh!

Our three little asparagus stalks are over a foot tall and branching out. I don't know if this is going to turn into the fabled 'asparagus fern' that is supposed to come and grow up to three feet tall or not. This is our first time, so we're learning as we go. We're also getting some good rain lately, which has done more for everything growing than our liberal waterings and feedings ever could. Sunflowers are good.

I found out that the mystery plant in my backyard

is a peony!

We stumbled on the answer by accident while browsing Home Depot over the weekend for more plants (planted dasies, mint, oregano & poppies in containers on the back deck). I am so glad that we decided against cutting it. There is even another one coming up right next to it now!

It wasn't there last year, and I am thinking that perhaps it was mowed down before I moved in in June. Maybe being dormant so long is why it is growing with a vengeance now? Can't wait until it blooms... I bet they will smell heavenly. The only problem is that we will have to transplant them once we add the patio... that's not going to happen right away, of course, but I just hope they will be ok. You can't beat beautiful blooming flowers that take no work!

Believe it or not, there is more going on in our lives than just worrying about gardening. Our wedding plans have been changed and we're so excited bout them! We ditched the Vegas wedding and Mexico honeymoon and decided instead to do it all on Tybee Island. This way we can have more people there and an actual gathering and mingling of our families. We'll have a few close friends, too. And we still get our beach, but I don't have to get on a plane! You have no idea how happy that makes me. Plus it's going to cost the same (maybe less) than we originally budgeted for our elopement/honeymoon, and we get a 'real' party.

We were really excited about the plans we did have, but we're both even more excited now. We're waiting to hear back on if our first choice of reception venue is available. The wedding will be on the beach. The dress I had picked out is not going to work with the new plan, but I've found a couple of light, breezy dresses that could be perfect. We're going to have lots of sunflowers and good food, while keeping things very casual and summery. We've found the perfect honeymoon cottage (waiting for a call back about that, too), and we couldn't be happier about this change of plans. We're only going to get to be there a few days (Fri-Tues) because of Josh's school schedule. The actual 'honeymoon' is only going to be about two days long (Sunday and Monday... we'll drive home on Tuesday), but I know it's going to be the greatest mini-honeymoon of all time. If anyone can pack a ton of love and fun into a short amount of time, it's us.

And the most drool-worthy part? The 'specialty' beach wedding cake of the place we're using is POUND CAKE WITH BUTTERCREAM ICING. Yum, yum yum!

This is what a stoned dog looks like.

Poor Jorge freaks out during storms. He is prescribed doggie xanax for it. It doesn't really help. You'd think it'd knock him out, but he just fights it, stumbles around, runs into things, and loses the ability to keep his tongue in his mouth. Like this.

Obviously, we're having inclement weather here today.

Our garden is getting a good watering, though!

Stuff I love....

My Globes

My boys (Jorge and Julio)

This guy

And our future front door color. Good thing we picked it when we did, because they are discontinuing Ralph Lauren paints,  we can at least get it color matched since we have the swatch!

We love the way it looks with the grey house and white trim. We're going to put some new black numbers and hardware on the door, add a new black porch light and mailbox, and paint the swing and add some outdoor pillows to it. As with all our decorating plans, we disagree on at least a minor part of it... in this case, it's what color to paint the porch swing. I let him win on the door color (I just wanted black), so shouldn't I get to pick the swing color? What do you think?

It's a good, good morning!

First of all - it's FRIDAY!

Secondly, I got to work today way early with much time to spare (traffic has been so unkind lately).

Thirdly, yesterday I read a tip online about sprinkling red pepper flakes around your garden to deter squirrels, rabbits, etc. And I don't know WHO has been eating our squash leaves (and one pumpkin leaf), but that crap ends now. So, this morning I woke up when my alarm went off, put on some shoes and trudged out the door with my trusty sidekicks (Julio and Jorge) and an arsenal of red pepper flakes.

As I was sprinkling them around I noticed something that made my heart stop. Overnight, 3 asparagus spears had popped up!!!! They are thin and tiny and adorable. I ran back in the house and told the Bip to put on some shoes (and some pants while he was at it). You should have seen the grin on his face when he saw them. Then he had to talk to them a little (of course!) and give them some extra red pepper for protection.

You know I took some pictures, right?

Finally living the life I've always wanted. Boring to most, but thrilling to me.

How does our garden grow??

Do you know what this is?? It's a pumpkin seed that has sprouted!

And here are two more! Out of the 6 pumpkin seeds we planted, 3 are up already!

And now, check out the photo below. See all those sprouts.... dozens and dozens of them.... SUNFLOWERS!

The day we planted everything....

And how it looks today... 10 days later.

Filling out quite nicely, yes?

Look at the Dill and Broccoli!

And of course look at the basil!!

 

 It's so stinkin beautiful! We're so excited.