What I do these days...

Not having to work would be absolutely perfect if I got paid for it... : )

So now that I'm unemployed, and classes haven't started yet... what do I do?

Well...

I hang out with a lot of four-legged friends.

There's Oliver...

(he likes to sleep in boxes!)

Beyonce...

you know Bella our chocolate lab by now I'm sure. And of course let's not forget our kitten friends. You know about them as well (note... if you're following the kitten progress over HERE and haven't added as a follower yet - please do! That way I don't feel like I'm writing to myself!)

I do things like re-cover chairs, and attend cake-decorating class.

I also tend to the garden... well, that's kind of a lie.

The rain destroyed my dahlias for the most part...


They need some major stakes and ties in order to survive. Some of the individual flowers still look pretty, though.




Then there's the green beans. We've had a couple handfuls of beans so far this season - but I've been scared to pick them too early, and by the time I've picked them they've gone bad! Anyone know when green beans are ready to pick?




And then there's the poor, poor tomatoes. I kept them inside for FAR too long and now they are way behind schedule. Plus Bella has knocked them over and pulled plants out several times. I was ready to write them off until yesterday I saw that they had started to FLOWER. Flowers then fruit, right? Is there still hope? Maybe I'll have tomatoes by October... : )

Happy Hump Day!

Adventures in my own back yard

Well, not literally my back yard. But pretty darn close!

You see, we walk Bella to the dog park relatively often. It's about 1.2 miles from our house. Especially now that it's summertime, walking there and letting Bella run around for a half hour and then walking back is just the right amount of exercise to wear her out. And as they say, a good dog is a tired dog!

Yesterday Heather, Lily and I took Bella for a walk down to the dog park. The park is situated right next to a little school that I always knew was there but had never paid much attention to. Heather was curious as to what school it was, so we veered left on our way out to take a look.

As soon as we walked that little bit to the left we made an AMAZING discovery. A huge community garden that I had no idea even existed!




After reading the signage, we discovered we were allowed to walk the trails around the plots as long as we didn't enter actual pots. We had a great time oohing and aahing at all of the wonderful, delicious looking produce that was being grown.

Some plots were very well organized, while others were a little overgrown!



We chatted with this gardener for a few minutes.... he was picking collard greens...


He said that for one huge plot (seriously, they were huge!) for a season it was just $50 to rent, which included access to a water supply. Amazing right? Heather and I mused how great it would be to split a plot and get her kids involved in taking care of it. This coming from me, who can barely keep her six tomato plants + hanging baskets alive... : )

The produce was really amazing. There were a few flowers in there, too...








It was so neat! Not far off the road, it felt miles away from civilization. It was truly magical to stroll around and see all of that locally grown garden-goodness.

In a food rut...

Travis and I are in a food rut.

Actually, we're almost always in a food rut.

Although Trav loves to cook, and I don't mind it, we're almost always...

a) too busy
b) too lazy... or ...
c) completely uninspired!

It's no good at all.

We grocery shop sporadically, and eat out way more than we should. What's more - when we eat out - it's the same old stuff.

That's really the biggest problem - no matter if we're cooking in, or eating out, we're always eating the same stuff. So boring, and generally not very flavorful or healthy.

Last night, we got home late from meetings and needed to grab something relatively fast. We made a bold step and headed over to a nearby Lebanese restaurant that we'd always talked about going to, but never actually visited.

We walked in, completely ignorant, having no idea what to order. It was kind of fun in a way!

We ordered takeout, and came home with... (excuse the photos, it was dark out...)

a combination plate of chicken tawook, kafta kabob and beef shwarma and...

an order of baba ghanouge (blend of roast eggplant, tahini, garlic, and lemon)

Our meal came with a lebanese salad with homemade dressing and lots of fresh pita!

Oh my goodness was it good! The combo was plenty to share, and everything was just so fresh and flavorful. We really enjoyed it. Such a nice change from our usual blah fare.

Which brings me to cooking. We want to get better... we really do! We always have the basic meats on hand - steaks, chicken, ground beef and turkey - in the freezer, and have a great farmers market down the street to utilize. I think we just get bored of basic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti, and the likes.

We're going to plough through our cookbooks (we have a ton!) and see if we can pull out some recipes that meet the following qualifiers for our lifestyle...

a) quick (this is key!)
b) flavorful
c) light (it IS summer after all!)

How about you? What are your favorite weeknight recipes? Do share - we need inspiration!

And on a completely unrelated note... Look what sprung up outside our house!


I thought that we had just a bunch of grasses taking over everything, and almost dug them up when I weeded and mulched the beds in the front of our house (closest to the street, across the sidewalk) and am SO glad I didn't!

I realized that they must be day lilies awhile ago, and was expecting bright orange flowers. Instead, we have these beautiful dark red ones! Sooo pretty! Can't wait for them all to bloom!



Happy Hump Day to you all! Don't forget to share some recipes with me!

Beauty & Destruction

I snapped a few photos on our evening walk with Bella tonight.

First, outside our house... it's blooming! My first dahlia!




And then we walked over to the old Iroquois School.

I don't know the stats on this building - only that there was a lot of controversy when the uninhabited school lot was purchased and readied for demo. Granted a new school will replace it, but this one was such a staple in the neighborhood, now reduced to rubble...



I don't know the age of it, but you can tell it's been around for a long time. Think of all the generations of students that walked its halls.


It really was a beautiful building. Travis and I were shocked to see how much had already been torn down and so quickly. Look at the beautiful brick and colored tile work around the arch...


There's something really tragic about seeing a school in this state. I feel like there is some kind of subliminal message to see a school torn to shreds - almost like it represents the state of our education system or something...

I heard they were preserving some of the pillars and tile work for the new school. I sure hope so.

How Does My Garden Grow?

It's been awhile since we've had a garden update! While the grass in the backyard is growing in rather nicely, I haven't had the time or energy (who wants to garden when it's 90+ degrees outside?!) to do much in the front.

I've resigned myself to the fact that most of what we do this year will be in pots. Once the weather cools down I'll get the front of the house weeded and set up beds, but they will likely stay empty until the Spring.

My tomato plants are doing really well on my enclosed front porch, so I've just left them there rather than putting them all the way outside and risking them dying. No tomatoes yet...

Travis' parents gave us these pots from their yard. They're a little dirty in this picture (we'd just watered) but they look really neat on the front steps.

My lilies are coming along nicely!

My Dahlias seem to be doing really well - especially this one!!! It's HUGE! I planted both these and the lilies from bulbs. This Dahlia is getting ready to flower and I can't WAIT! Every day when I come home from work I check to see if it's bloomed yet. It's going to be beautiful!

Here's my bulb garden. I have some calla lilies in there too that I thought were a lost cause but have just started to come up in the last week or so. So exciting!

And finally the beans. They're funny, those beans. Remember how strong they were? Well, they continued to be the best looking plants of the bunch. I transplated them into pots and they continued to do excellently on my front porch with the tomatoes. When I moved them outside, however, it all went downhill. They were on the back patio, and were just getting bleached out and yellow. I was watering them when they needed it, checking to make sure they weren't water logged, etc. etc. I couldn't figure out what was going on! I moved them to the front steps and they are doing a little better - this photo is actually their most flattering angle - don't be deceived!

And then just yesterday I found this...

A BEAN! Just one... but a bean all the same! Could this symbolize the bean plant comeback? Only time will tell... : )

Adventures with George...

Allow me to introduce...

George the Garmin!

Travis has wanted a GPS for a long time. We drive a lot, and one of the two of us is sort of navigationally challenged (hint, it's not Travis!) so he figured it would be a good investment. Not to mention re-routing during all of the summer construction would be AMAZING.

So, after much hm-ing and haw-ing over a period of several months, we went out and purchased one this weekend! And yes, we named it George. I mean, it does need a name - it talks to us after all!

Of course we had to try him out right away. So off we went...


Road trip worthy snacks in tow...

And had George navigate us to Countryside Greenhouses in Allendale!!!



I love greenhouses. I actually worked in one in college (KSP shout-out to YOU, Stacy!) which was sometimes fun, sometimes not, but I for sure LOVE to visit them. I love wandering around the colorful greenhouses, smelling the herbs, and feeling good about spring and better weather.

Oh, and I like to buy things there too...


We picked up some hanging baskets for our front and back yards, some annuals for the front yard, and a variety of herbs for our garden. I'm excited to get it all planted (or hung - in the case of the baskets) - the trickiest part of all this is going to be finding the TIME to get out and garden this week - I'm just swamped!