Fast forward to about a month ago, I saw the "wire towel holder wall bin" was on clearance from $49 to $19.99! So I bought it having our guest bath in mind. Well, we installed it a few weeks ago!
It was a year and a half ago when we painted stripes in the guest bathroom. And at that time, I basically called this bathroom done. Because, well it was! Here's what it looked like. Well, when my mom last visited us in November, she remarked that having a place for guests to put stuff in the bathroom would be nice. Actually, she was just telling me she's on the hunt for something (a basket, container, etc) to put on the toilet so her guests would have a place to put stuff. So she wasn't referring to our guest bath or anything like that. But it got me thinking. Yea...that would be nice. Fast forward to about a month ago, I saw the "wire towel holder wall bin" was on clearance from $49 to $19.99! So I bought it having our guest bath in mind. Well, we installed it a few weeks ago! I put a bunch of magazines there for now but when we have guests over, they'll be removed and the space will be free for toiletries, clothes or whatever.
0 Comments
You know what? I'm going to make a bold statement and say that gardening has matured me and made me a better human being. Why do I say that? Well, this hydrangea is my teacher and taught me some valuable lessons. This hydrangea is the first one we bought. I searched through my archives and realized we brought this baby home 2 years ago! Wow, how time flies. At the time, I was as newbie as a newbie can be to gardening. Though I definitely still consider myself a beginner today, I'm farther along than I was 2 years ago. Looking back in one of my first garden updates, I amaze myself at how full and gorgeous the bush was when we first bought it! But things quickly took a turn for ill shortly after that and the leaves of the plant seemed to be under some sort of mold attack. I also struggled with "Am I overwatering or underwatering?" and "Does it actually like sun or not?" The poor plant was getting dragged to the four corners of the garden as I proceeded with trial & error. I lamented in the start of my 2012 garden that even though it was growing leaves, it'll probably never flower. And I was right, the hydrangea never flowered in the 2012 season. (We know now that we shouldn't have cut the stems down to the ground even though it was fighting a disease. Live and learn.) I told David that we should just buy new ones and throw this one away and we did. We bought 2 more hydrangeas last year in June and planted them. The following shot is June 2012. You can see the pot of hydrangea has leaves but no flowers even though it's flowering season. Good thing David has a soft heart for plants and I am forgetful, because we just left the first hydrangea alone. I didn't even want to bother looking at it. So winter 2012 came and gone and the hydrangea basically dropped all its leaves and looked like a scraggily skeleton. I didn't even want to take a picture of it. I took the following picture literally minutes ago. The bush probably doubled in size compared to last year and It is just thriving. You can see the first white bloom. It is massive. And there are many more bud clusters forming and I'm so hopeful and delighted. I know it's silly and it's probably one of those things you appreciate if you go through it yourself, but from these two years I learned the importance of waiting and letting things play out. Yes, in that moment of adversity, it's bad. And depressing. And you want to just toss it out of your sight to move on. The garden has taught me that things are seasonal. There is truly a time for everything under the sun. If right now is a time to mourn, then later there will be a time for laughing. Wait. Be patient. And it will surely come. Remaining hopeful is so important. Now you know why I have enough still shots to make a time-lapse video of its first bloom this year. :) I've been waiting for this flower for a while. And it's definitely my time of laughter and joy. :) On the subject of joy, here are the flowers of the 2 hydrangeas planted last year. I am in love of this beautiful blue-purple hued flower. It's just gorgeous. This one was supposed to be a blushing pink color but perhaps the pink forgot to return. :) I don't know. But I'll take another white/green hydrangea. This one didn't recover from winter as well as the blue one above but I've learned my lesson -- there's always next year.
This past Sunday we decided to head over to Stevens Creek Trail again. And as promised, we took pictures this time! And this time we headed north to Shoreline Park. The following captions are provided by David. All messages are approved by the most illustrious and beautiful Jen. ![]() Taking yet another break. If you look carefully in the background in the left, you will see a dome shaped building. That is one of the hangers on Moffett Field, home of the NASA Ames center. I guess this picture can be the "pre" picture before we work out. Hopefully I can make a dent in the battle of the bulge.
Supplemental:
Since this is the last photo, I would like to inform you that we survived this trip without any loss. Although... I almost crashed into a deadly bush due to an evil curb. Oh.. and Jen reminded me that I also almost lost control my bike when I went on gravel on high speed. Nevertheless, this was a spectacular success and I would like to commend the man and woman who dedicated their Sunday afternoon to risk their lives for the better of all*** ***defined as: David and Jen It's been quite a long while since I sewed or crafted so it was nice to get an opportunity to sort of do both. A few weeks ago, Lois and I were both contacted to send something for someone who hasn't been going to church for a while. And somehow, we thought that making some felt animals/objects would be fun! Here was our inspiration. I wasn't feeling that ambitious and picked the sun (#5). Lois picked the bear (#4), which had a head + body piece! We got together one night, got supplies from Michael's and started working. Being an engineer (and really having no freehand art skills), I used two concentric circles to help me outline the points on the sun. A few knots and back-stitches gave eyes and a smile to the sun. I also glued the orange face to the yellow rays using fabric glue. Then after that, it was all just hand-stitching the sides together. And that actually took the longest. I was a bit surprised at how long it took, actually! After this experience, we both were willing to fork over money to crafters who make these things. Time is money. And here is the finished product! At first I thought it looked like a starfruit or something and was kind of disappointed with how it turned out. But I think it grew on me and at the end I thought that it does sort of look like a sun after all. Haha. And here is Lois' bear!!! I was so impressed. The head and body are actually two separate pieces. And that was our fun little crafting adventure. Definitely more fun doing this with someone. :)
Yes, I'm squealing like a teenager right now. WE JUST BOUGHT 2 PEONIES!!! Here's a teaser. :) Okay, I need to calm down. Here's what happened. Last night when we got back from Sweet Tomatoes, we noticed that the left rear tire was flat! Nothing like a flat tire to deflate (har har) your day. So we set out change out the tire with a spare and then go somewhere to get it fixed. But for the life of us, we could not find the tool you need to loosen the tire bolts. Me in my infinite genius thought that all those bolts are created equal and quickly produced one from the other car only to realize that it just doesn't fit. Bummer. What to do now? We finally decided to drive it to Costco (we had bought the tires from there). We made the painfully slow 2.5 miles drive to Costco and let out a sigh of relief when we made it without incident. In situations like these, sometimes people imagine weird things happening like...tires flinging off the vehicle (totally unrealistic since we couldn't get the bolts off anyway) or fire erupting from the friction between the road & the tire rim. But thankfully, none of that happened. We got there and panicked for a moment because we thought the tire service place has closed already. No lights and there were chains in front of the "garage" spaces. Oh no! Thank God though, a man happened to walk out at that moment and said they were open after all. Good thing I have a strong heart. So long story long, the man saw the nail in the tire and said they'd patch it for free. Yippee! So we left the car in the lot and went into Costco. So yea, I don't remember leaving Costco without spending money. I think on average we spend $100 per visit or something. And as soon as we walked into the store we saw peonies. Oh no. It was like that time last summer when I saw gardenias when I walked in. And we all know what happened then. Yup, I have no self control. And here they are in our backyard. :) We put them in a shaded part for now to acclimate them to outdoors. We got two blushing pink beauties. There were 3 colors available at Costco: a darker pink, white and the blushing pink. I think the blushing pink ones must be super popular because we moved around several pots to find these. Here's one of them opening! This picture is terrible and does it no justice. The petals are pink, not white as it appears. I'll take a better picture of it someday. Promise. And since I feel like I was being a partial parent, I decided to take pictures of other flowers in the garden. Here's the 100th shot of the blooming hydrangea. I really think I have enough photos of this for one of those time-lapse videos. Lots of strawberry flowers now, too! And our pink nemesia is having a second flowering. So pretty. These would look so nice with the pink blushing peonies. :) I mean, it looks nice all by itself, too. Ahem. So that's my happy story about our peonies. You should read the post again in the voice of a squealing teenager. It's pretty entertaining. :) Update: A truer color of the blooming peony. :)
I think we've talked about getting bikes for a year now? Well, we finally just went and got them last Sunday! David is having some pain in the knee he had surgery on and the physical therapist recommended cycling to build thigh strength. I think that's what lit a fire under our butt to just go get it already. Nothing like health troubles to inspire action, eh? So here I am with my lovely Electra Townie and my super cute mint basket! And of course safety is first so I'm wearing my helmet. We were just on our way to Steven's Creek Trail! We are probably going to take every visitor there from now on. It's close and beautiful! Will take pictures next time. I actually forgot to take a picture of David and his bike that day so here he is posing with his bike a day later. Don't worry, he has a nice fluorescent yellow helmet. My husband will never put fashion over safety and I love him for that. So now we are protected by his glowing head whenever we're out. :D We both marveled at how our neighborhood is so different from the bike seat. And it's amazing the distance you can travel on a bike. It's exercising without feeling like it's work! If that's not win-win, I'm not sure what is! To cycling!
Seems like all the posts recently are garden-related, huh? :) I think I need to get back to some organizing and sewing projects after planting season is over. The plants are at a time when they require lots of attention. :) Not that I mind. I love our garden. Well, recently we've been seeing flowers! This is the first strawberry flower of the year. I never realized strawberries are so easy to grow. We literally leave them out all winter long, barely watering them but they come back in the spring and even flower! Our hydrangeas are just flowering and growing leaves like mad. Here are a few petals unfurling. :) It's so pretty. We saw a stink bug on it the other night and after doing some research, I read that stink bugs were accidentally introduced to the US. They are pests and not welcome in a garden so I'm glad we immediately got rid of it when we saw it. We noticed a spider living inside a freesia flower. Spiders don't bother me at all, I see them as beneficial insets. Freesias are so rewarding to grow. They are hardy, don't require watering much and they produce the most fragrant flowers. The following photo credit goes to David. :) And finally... my babies (aka sungold tomatoes) are blooming! :) There's a pride in my heart that cannot be explained.
Yesterday I decided to take pictures of the plants growing in the new raised garden bed. I was thinking it would be interesting to document them so I can see the difference a few months down the road. So here's the location of the bed. It's situated in the sunniest corner of our garden. And here's what it looks like. We planted herbs on the left side and the seeds on the right side. We relocated the lemon thyme from its pot to the bed and David remarked that the leaves seem to be so much bigger than before. Granted, it was in a pretty small pot before so that's probably why. Our parsley is also here and it's just been thriving here. I think we need to use some of the leaves so it won't get too leggy. And this is our cilantro. Same story as the parsley -- need to use so it won't get too leggy and unwieldy. We were growing our pot of basil next to a sunny window but we noticed that the stems and leaves were turning yellow no matter how much we watered. So we decided to move it out of the house and into the garden bed. We realized that there were actually 5 separate plants in that pot! After reading some gardening forums, I realized that it was turning yellow because it was lacking nutrients. So the relocation was perfect and we now see green leaves emerging from the plants. :) Hopefully all five plants will grow nice and bushy for us. Then we have the alliums. The farthest back is a red onion we planted. We also planted 3 garlic bulbs (I plan on planting more when we buy some Gilroy garlic from the farmer's market). So far they are growing well and we've read they are good pest deterrents so we're excited to have them in the bed. Here's the red onion up close. Then there is the seed part of the bed. I planted some mesclun lettuce seeds and seedlings have emerged already after just a few days! They look like butterflies on the soil, ready for lift-off. We grew them last year, too, and honestly we didn't really get a good harvest. I'm hoping this year would be better. :) This year I decided to plant mini lettuce heads. I was hoping to find mini romaine lettuce seeds but didn't see them for sale anywhere. So we bought the mini butter lettuce seeds and here are the cute seedlings. I foresee a lot of healthy salads this summer. :) I also planted some cosmos seeds. I'm crossing my fingers that we'll get flowers to cut this year. Here is a seedling. This isn't in the garden bed but I'd be amiss if I didn't mention our mint. We had a pot of mint last year and it was completely root bound. So we removed it from the pot, cut away a lot of the roots and repotted them in two separate pots. We didn't plant mint in the garden bed because it'll basically become a mafia boss and take over the whole thing, squishing out all the other plants. After all that planting and repotting our hands and tools were wonderfully worn. The rest of the post isn't about the garden bed but just some updates on our other plants. The hydrangea is putting forth flowers! And has grown super healthy and bushy! Our freesia has flowered! And it smells soooo good. I'm hoping these guys propagate and we can have more freesia bulbs going next year. :) And that's it. :) All in all, I think getting the bed really good soil made all the difference. I feel more confident than I ever felt before for having a great harvest this year. :)
This weekend was one of those weekends when we eagerly awaited Sunday afternoon's arrival. It wasn't a bad weekend, just a busy one. We both had RE this Saturday and we just happened to be assigned to lead Rehab service on Sunday, too. So after our classes on Saturday, we gave ourselves a little break but didn't feel the full rest until Rehab was over. So yea, after Rehab was over we had lunch with everyone and then went home. And we found ourselves completely unsure of what to do with the rest of the day. David ended up taking a nap and I think I just passed time on Pinterest. When he woke up, we decided that we should go out and do something. So we set out, having no idea where we would go. And somehow, we ended up here. The Bay Trail is next to the Sunnyvale SMART station. We ended up here because David's been here like 3 times this past week or something and he said he saw a flock of goats/sheep so he wanted to show me. I didn't take a picture because they were too far away, but there are probably hundreds of them! :) I secretly hope they'll come somewhere closer so I can snap a picture of them in all their grass-eating glory. {A word about the SMART station. You can basically drop off your recycling things (we usually drop off glass & plastic bottles) and get CRV for it. We're definitely not in it for the money (5 cents per bottle? not worth the gas) but it makes us feel pretty good about not tossing more stuff into the landfill. The awesome thing about the SMART station is that they also offer mulch and compost for free! So last Sunday we actually shoveled ourselves a huge tub of compost.} Anyway, back to the trail. So since we were in the area we decided to try out this trail. It was actually surprisingly nice with views to the bay. We were lucky with the weather and we could see all the way to East Bay. Here's the trail head. We probably got there at 5ish pm or so? There were some interesting flora here. I love this pink pom pom flowers with the silver-gray leaves. The leaves look like eucalyptus but I'm not sure if they are related or not. And there was a massive bush with these dainty little flowers. I like the purple polka dots against the white flower petals. About 2 minutes in we came to this fork in the road (the picture shows the path left). It reminds me of rice paddies for some reason. I guess it's because there were so many bodies of water in such a small space. The clouds were just beautiful and constantly shifting yesterday (it was supposed to be a stormy day but it couldn't decide whether to be gloomy or bright & glorious). We ended up taking a right because it looked like a shorter loop. We took a picture of the beautiful scenery with our silhouettes. There were an abundance of these yellow flower plants that were over 6 foot tall. They were so beautiful, encircling one of the ponds. It just felt amazingly bucolic and serene to me. We kept walking and saw ducks! Mallard ducks, to be exact. They were mostly in pairs and it was so cute to see them walk together, dive into the pond together and lift up into the air together. Are ducks monogamists? We kept walking and suddenly the sky turned gray as the sun was overshadowed by clouds. It cast such an interesting light onto the bay and somehow all the ducks decided to push off the shore and swim towards it. So I took this picture (color was not changed to black & white). By now it's probably 6 and we were sort of eager to find our way back to the trail head because it felt like it was going to rain soon. This area was like a maze; there were lots of paths but some lead to dead ends where you end up being surrounded by water. We could see the path we needed to be on, but the water between us forced us to walk all the way back again and try a different path. This was when I wish I could fly like a bird and leap over the water. Finally we decided to just re-trace our steps to find our way back. We passed the happy yellow flowers again and returned to the trail head. Thank God, the clouds stayed puffy and did not pour down rain. I'm sure we'll be back here someday soon and try the larger loops when we have more time. Three cheers for spontaneous Sundays. :)
|
Archives
March 2015
Categories
All
Current ProjectReupholstering & Tufting 2 Benches |