Week 2

...tried to harden off the Cucumber Diva plants. And failed. No laughing.

Finally the Lisianthus flower germinated. And the plants are so tiny!

We have this odd space in front of the house; a square patch of grass...I think a bush might have been here at some point. It's a nice little place for a mini garden because the sun hits it all day long. So Adam made a box for the space yesterday.

He also built a trellis for me last week which I painted purple—although, some people may think the purple is out of place and obnoxious—it's the opposite of green on the color wheel, so I think the plants will look snazzy on it. My "someday" landscape garden colors are purple, lime green, and white. What are yours?

The box is filled with "Mel's Mix". According to the Square Foot Garden book, the perfect soil mix is 1/3 peet moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost mix (made of at least 5 different types of compost). Hopefully we did it right. The soil is really nice, loose, drains, holds water well etc. But it was EXPENSIVE. So we'll be putting A LOT of plants in this box....sorry if you can't get to our front door sometime in the future....

So far I've transplanted only the Trionfo Violetta Beans (the beans will be purple). And also planted more of the seed so we'll have a longer harvest; can't wait for the climbing to begin!

7 Days of Garden Growth

Quickest growers: Blue Lake pole beans and Trionfo Violetto pole beans. We're already starting to harden them off.

Most surprising sprouts: Lettuce (variation). I don't know...I think I was expecting them to look like mini lettuce.

Most Robust: Small Wonder Spaghetti Squash.

Generally: The rest of the sprouts look like this. The peppers have just shown up. And the Lisianthus flower hasn't sprouted yet at all.

Most worrisome: Here are the vertical grow bags with a strawberry crowns planted in each hole. (10 per bag.) They show no growth yet. I might have planted them wrong, or they were no good when I got them. We'll see.

I am so excited to hear so many of you are starting gardens too! Share your progress and methods...how fun!

Chopped: Double Date

Have you seen the food Network show, Chopped? The rules according to us were:

1. Say yes when your friend texts you about this great idea she has, even though you have no clue what she's actually talking about.

2. Split up into teams—girls vs. boys. and shop for 4 secret ingredients. Let the guys push the cart with the purse and the baby.

3. Flip a coin to see whose house the boys end up at and vice versa. Tell the boys it doesn't matter which house we get because we can make anything work.

4. Race home, split up the ingredients, steal some cheese. Pretend not to notice the boys took the pizza dough recipe.

5. You have ONE hour to fix dinner and dessert. Have fun searching for stuff in a strange kitchen.

6. Finish early, even have time to do some dishes and feed the baby before meeting up again.

7. Meet up and plate your meal (because looks are worth points) while trying to figure out how/if the other team cheated.

8. Eat the edible parts of the meal. (Most of it was! We all got full.)

Above: Boys' Dinner. Cinnamon chipotle pizza and jalepeno poppers.

Below: Girls' dinner: Cheese chile stuffed breadsticks, with steak and salad.

Above: Girls' dessert. 3 layer dessert with oatmeal crumble crust, cream cheese filling and berry topping.

Below: Boys' dessert. Oatmeal...mush, berries with rock hard chocolate drizzle and whipped cream.

The Secret Ingredients were:

steak

canned chopped green chillies

whole jalepenos

fresh strawberries

frozen raspberries

heavy whipping cream

cream cheese

oatmeal cookies

Best of all, it was really FUN! I did take pictures of our "date". But since it was only our first date...I don't want to seem too eager. So I'll hold off for now, we'll have to see where this goes first....

Sneak Peak

Have you ever looked at other peoples' outstanding/amazing work and been green with jealousy and also discouraged because you don't think you'll ever be "great" like them...but also motivated to improve? I have some design heroes whose work did that to me.

So, after sulking for a bit and wishing I were in New York amongst those heroes and opportunities...I got busy. I want to develop my typography skills specifically, so I decided to do posters which are a good medium for that. And BOY am I learning a lot! Practice, practice!

Above: One of Dwynne's favorite quotes by Walt Whitman, American poet. Below: One of my favorite quotes by Napoleon Hill, personal development guru.

Below: Quote by George Lois, advertising man. First original font by me! I guess I'll have to think of a name for it...

The posters will be available on the MinelollyLiving site (until I can think of a new business name for my design), but I'll be adding them slowly as they take a lot of work.

Adam is also learning too. Isn't he a great model? He's getting better and better. He's also been really great at giving me constructive feedback. So, thanks Adam!

Starting

Seeds arrived this week. There are 23 different plants to try. That means we did this today:

So excited. Have a garden journal, have vertical grow bags, soil, pots, labels...am imagining all the bounty!

Smallest seeds were English Thyme (from Israel. Huh.)

Most interesting seeds: gold pelleted seeds for the Lisianthus Flower. Each seed is enclosed in a clay-based round pellet, and then placed in a capsule for safe shipping.

Can't wait! Will share more later of course.

Pillows

Minelolly is getting a few new...lollies added to it. I do not LOVE sewing, but I like graphic textiles...so I thought I'd give this combination a shot to see if I enjoy the process and the results.

I've been having fun, I don't know if it's because of the project or because while sewing I started the old TV show "Beauty and the Beast". Dwynne said Beast is "way better than Edward" and she's totally right! But there's been around 12 episodes and they still haven't kissed! They just look into each other's eyes and then...and then...hug. Will they EVER kiss???! Maybe I missed it while I was looking down to sew....NOOOOOOOO!