Posts Tagged ‘Pretty Pretty Flowers’

Pretty Little Things

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Can we please have three-day weekends every weekend? This past weekend I was able to get so much done that had been waiting on me to hurry up and get better. And after all that work, I was still able to do some cooking, which I will share later this week, and woke up Monday morning feeling refreshed. It was just plain perfect.

After those hundred-degree days last weekend, my garden demanded that it was about time I mulched. My hydrangea was looking quite wilted and sad. So this past weekend I had a date with about 13 bags of mulch. (Boo on our favorite landscaping place for being closed all weekend long so I couldn’t just get it by the truckload). Not only that, but because my mother-in-law has such a green thumb, she has plenty of plants to spare and loaded me up with pretty shade plants for our garden in the back. The amount of greenery back there has literally doubled. I am constantly looking out our windows to look at everything I accomplished this weekend.

Not only did I get some gardening done, but I was able to get our house looking a little more orderly and added some cuteness to our bathroom window.

a little wire birdie (that needs a tealight.. note to self)

little purple flowers

lavender in a French soap dish

ferns in a pretty wine bottle. Cale knows how I choose wine: by how pretty the bottle is. He actually picked this one!

The amount of joy I get from something so simple is just a little pathetic perhaps, but still, it makes my day to see the little details and everything come together so nicely. What are the little things you do around your house that make you smile?

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Posted in Those Corwins | 13 Comments »

Day of Love… and Fruits and Veggies apparently

Monday, February 16th, 2009

I bet your Valentine’s Day consisted of yummy food, wine, and chocolates. Right? I mean come on that’s what Valentine’s Day is all about.

Well the bonehead that I am decided to do a spring cleanse over the weekend before realizing that I would be ruining all hopes at pigging out in the name of Saint Valentine. But I did not give in.

Why? Why in the world would you cleanse? you ask? Well, I don’t know! My tummy has just been so angry at me lately over cheese, and well just everything. So I figured I need to start over with this eating stuff. Our work uses the Boston Health Coach to give us health teleseminars, and this lady is just adorable and really is just so smart with eating right and being realistic about it. So I knew her cleanse would be just what I needed. And reading through her ebook, it is impossible to not get fired up about starting fresh in time for spring. It’s very simple and flexible. It is not like the master cleanse, and I did not act like Kelly Kapoor on The Office. I did fruits and veggies only on Friday, added rice and simple soups on Saturday, and added beans on Sunday. I won’t lie.. Friday I was gruuuumpy. But today I feel great. It forced me to think of ways to eat my fruits and veggies (lest I starve, which I really did think would be a better idea on Friday night when I was just too lazy to figure out how I could make lettuce and tomatoes taste good with just lemon juice). Let’s just say the next time I do a cleanse I will not skimp out on grocery shopping just because I didn’t want to miss the start of The Office.

On Saturday we went to sushi where I had hot tea, miso soup, and veggie sushi rolls. Totally within the rules, and a perfect Valentine’s Day lunch. The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out at home, working on a puzzle I bought (in case you didn’t already think I was a crazy loser. It was a Beatles puzzle though, if that makes up for anything), and practicing the guitar Cale and I bought each other for Valentine’s Day, all while Cale was busy writing paper after paper. Though it doesn’t sound like much, it was truly a perfect weekend spent recharging and spending quality time together.

Our Valentine’s in pictures:

What is Valentine’s Day without flowers? And sent to my work? Even better.

An all-fruit smoothie that tastes like heaven. Made better with a bendy straw.

And a guitar to help me cross another item off my list. And to make me curse because my fingers don’t move that way! But I’m getting better!

How was your Valentine’s Day? Did you celebrate in the regular ol’ dinner and drinks way? Or do you have another fun way to celebrate? Or did you not celebrate and hate that I was yet another blogger to go on and on about Valentine’s Day?

P.S. Is it weird how much I love our new header pic? It’s just so us, I can’t stand it. It makes me smile, and I want to make it the background to every computer I have.. and stare at it all day long.

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Posted in Those Corwins | 15 Comments »

Bringing Flowers Indoors

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

In my dreams where I am a rich successful woman who doesn’t work and tends to her house all day long (how I get rich that way I have yet to find out, but I’ll let you know when I do), my house is always full of big beautiful fresh flowers. Because when you are rich you can afford a weekly flower service.

So in my real life where I am not rich and I don’t stay home I have found that there are inexpensive ways to have fresh flowers in my house. There are several options one can take.

Grow them outside, cut them, and bring them in: Now this would assume that you have planted good cutting flowers outside. Have I? A couple, but those are a couple that I am so proud have grown outside that I cannot bear to cut them off! But for those with a green thumb, there is a pretty thorough list here for good plants for a cutting garden. And during my quick google search I read that cutting flowers just as they are about to bloom triggers more flowers to grow. Maybe I will rethink my strategy. Continuing on.

Growing them inside: Houseplants. I really don’t understand these yet. But they are an option. I take that back, I do have a little pothos on my desk at work that is doing really well. But other than that I have not explored this option. I will put that on my list of things to do.

Buying cut flowers: Some may hear this option and write it off as being too expensive. Nay, my friend, nay. Those daffodils you see. $2.50 for two bunches! During my weekly-ish grocery shopping trips I have started scavenging through the floral department. Bypass the assembled bouquets for those poor clueless husbands and pick up the bunches of a single type of flower. These are usually cheaper. An added plus is they give you the opportunity to practice your flower arranging skills (or build some if you are starting in square one like I did) And open your mind! A vase full of just baby’s breath even is better than nothing. This is how I worked that bunch of daffodils throughout the house:

Well and another vase full that I didn’t upload the pictures of for some reason. The next trip to the store brought home a bunch of irises and tulips. Those totaled about $10 I think. But made a great impact and again filled all three vases.

Don’t mind the bubbles I heard somewhere that it helps the flowers stay alive longer. No idea if it’s true.
Another tip to buying fresh flowers is to buy them when they have not opened up yet. You will get a much longer life to them. After spending the last few weeks with fresh flowers around the house, I have really come to love it and hope to make it a regular part of our decor. Do you have any tips for picking out flowers, or growing houseplants?

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Posted in Those Corwins | 3 Comments »

Gardening

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

Spring has most definitely sprung here in northern California, and while the weather has been a little chilly this week, this weekend is supposed to be nice and warm. Perfect time to get outside and garden! As some of you may know I am not the best gardener. But most of my fear of gardening stems from a lack of experience. I didn’t even know you were supposed to fertilize! But this spring has brought with it many flowers that show that even I am not as horrible as I thought.


I am most proud of these last two. My poor hydrangeas. Maisie chewed these down to the ground in the fall, and I thought for sure they were gone. When I was outside and saw the hint of green coming back, I started screaming was so relieved.

I would most definitely not call myself a gardener yet because as pictures can hide the fact that those are probably the only flowers that are growing while the rest is bare. But I have managed to keep all my perennials alive over the winter, and to me that is a success because now I don’t have to replace anything. If you are a complete novice to gardening, I would like to share the things I have learned through my short gardening experience and by observing my mother-in-law Rene and her ever growing gardens:

Relax! Plants know what they are doing. And if they happen to die, learn your lesson and move on. Water. Fertilize. And keep your mind open when you are buying your plants. Don’t plant a full sun plant in the shade. That is the full effort you can give. It’s not much harder than that.

I always thought there was some science to pruning and everything, but what my mind has understood is that basically, if it’s ugly trim it. The garden is there to be pretty, so if you have flowers that have died and are still on the plant, cut it off. Clean up dead leaves, pull weeds. Just make it pretty.

And the last lesson I’ve recently learned is that a garden is always changing, you can take out plants, put in new ones, etc. It’s a design and you can experiment with it. That is how you learn. Now this one I have problems with because I don’t want to spend all my money on plants, but if you keep your eye out for sales, or if you buy seeds, the costs can be much lower.

I was very intimidated when I started gardening but now I’ve become more comfortable with it. Soon we will be putting in a nice big shade garden in the back because one section gets very little sun and the grass just won’t grow there. I’ll let you all know how it goes.

What kinds of things do you all have growing in your garden, or if you don’t have one, what would your dream garden have growing in it?

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Posted in Those Corwins | 4 Comments »