Where did May go? 2013 is clicking away like a champ! Here is a little recap of things from the past month.
First off, Brandon GRADUATED from high school! How is that even possible?
I am sooo proud of that young man. He was the Salutatorian of his class (he takes after me, because I was for my class as well). So I will take all the credit for that one. Ha! No really- he is such a hard working, smart, good kid and I love that boy. Congratulations Brandon! It was so much fun getting to celebrate him and this major milestone in his life.
Someone else celebrated a milestone in May. My sweet, sweet mom had a birthday!
Like our matching outfits? :-/
I got to travel with David's mom and two of his sisters to Atlanta to attend the Living Proof Live event with Beth Moore.
I'm so glad they invited me to go. I had a great time and got a great word from God while I was there. If you ever have the chance to attend one of these events- do it!
My brother took me on a fishing excursion on the Chipola River.
My tomato plant is rocking it's socks off with 'maters. And other backyard related happenings. Lots of flowers, lots of birds, and lots of ball throwing going on out there!
New life abounding with the birth/hatching of my resident house finch that decided that my geranium was the perfect place for her nest. I've been keeping an eye on these four little guys.
When I checked on them this past Sunday, they had finally made their debut.
I can't wait to watch them grow and finally leave their nest. Did you know that a group of house finches is known as a "development"? Just a fun fact for you. Ha!
Guess it is now confession time. I have a new hobby. And that new hobby is ornithology to sound all fancy. But in reality, it's just bird watching. And guess what? I don't care if that makes me a nerd, because I love it and find it fascinating and fun. And thankfully David was taught at an early age to love the study of birds by his Aunt Sybil. She would take him around to look at birds all the time. He pulled out his old field guide of birds that she had given him and what did he find?
He spotted an Eastern Phoebe at my family's farm back in 1991. I'm sure Aunt Sybil had taken him out there to the farm because we used to have an albino hawk out there that all the local bird enthusiasts would come and watch all the time.
So, I have a partner in crime who doesn't mind me watching my birdies all the time. We even have a date this weekend with a painted bunting at Ft. Pulaski in Savannah. And I can't wait! He has seen several of them there (they aren't normally found in my area) and I hope that I can get a glimpse of one too!
It's Sunday today, and it's been a gloomy, nasty day all day today! Yuck. Thankfully yesterday was gorgeous.
Spring is fabulous. I love it. There's just something about this time of year. It's a rebirth of all things. David came down to Thomasville this weekend and he was a good sport and let me go nuts this weekend, shopping wise. Although, he shouldn't complain when my shopping spots consist of places like Lowe's!
I love flowers and I love gardening. All things outdoors makes me happy. And the beautiful weather on Saturday made my passion that much stronger.
This weekend, I experienced a Thomasville first for myself. I have lived here since 2007, and I have never, ever experienced Nesmith 'sNurseries! I mentioned in a previous post about Stacey's newly acquired golden bougainvillea. Guess what?!? Nesmith's totally had one!
Granted, the two that they had looked really rough compared to the one that Stacey got. But I figured I could nurse the one I got back to health and get it to looking great! I had looked all over Tallahassee looking for one of these guys. Who knew there was one right here in Thomasville the whole time! I also score the absolute most gorgeous Salmon Geraniums there are. So pretty that I couldn't turn them down.
These pictures are all horrible, because it's been raining all day and I took all my flowers down and put them under the carport for safe keeping.
Take my word for it though. These geraniums are breathtaking. So gorgeous!
After Nesmith's, David and I hit up Lowe's in hope to get a Cocktail tree. If you haven't heard of these bad boys, you totally should! These trees are specially grafted. They produce lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruits all out of the same tree!
They didn't have any trees in stock, but I did come away with some stuff for my little bird friends.
I got a new bird feeder that looks like a Mason jar and a new hummingbird feeder with sugar water I made myself for my little bird friends. Now I can't wait for the rain to clear and for my plant to get to blooming! I plan on planting a small garden for a few fresh veggies. Did I mention that I love this time of year?!?
Get your heads out of the gutter! I'm talking about a little flora and fauna here and quick little project that I did the other afternoon after work.
It all started when I ran in the dollar store to grab some trash bags. I spotted a few diamonds in the rough on the C-to the-heap. So I decided to break out the spray paint and get down to business.
These little gems are plastic cheap-o planters that set me back all of maybe $10 for all four of these pieces. I wanted some nice planters to put by the front door, but I didn't really want to spend a lot of money to buy some nice ones. So these will work in the interim. I grabbed a couple of cans of oil bronzed spray paint and got to working on these guys.
Boom! All painted up with new ferns looking all fancy pants.
I grabbed the ferns from Lowe's and I didn't do a very good job of picking out two ferns the same size. Oh well! They look great by the door just the same. Now I need to find a pretty wreath to hang on the door to make it all pretty.
While I was at Lowe's I grabbed a few other things. They had a nice tomato plant there so I snatched that up and I can't wait until I can enjoy the fruits of this plant's labor.
There are already quite a few 'maters on the plant, so it won't be too much longer!
My most favorite find of the day was the cutest little plant cage that I got for the kitchen. I picked up an ivy plant to put in it for a little bit of green to brighten things up.
I'm currently on the lookout for some pretty flowers for the planters and a few hanging flowers as well for the carport. Stacey got the most gorgeous hanging bougainvillea plant ever for her birthday. Its a beautiful golden yellow/beige color. So I'm on the lookout for something as stunning. So if anyone is coming from Century, FL to Thomasville, you can bring me one. Hint, hint.
Anyways, that was my quick little DIY planter/gardening post. Hopefully I can get my pictures all downloaded from the weekend of Stacey's dirty 30 birthday extravaganza to share!
Hey guys! I am super excited because today is my Friday! Tomorrow bright and early, David, Moxley, and I are heading up to South Carolina to Lake Hartwell.
We are meeting his entire family up there for a little family vacation. I am super excited to go and explore the area and to spend some quality time with his sweet family. I just need to go home tonight and get my bags packed after my Sunday School party. Guess I have a busy evening ahead of me. But this time tomorrow, we will be on the road for a nice weekend getaway. We also have another lake trip planned in July, but this one is closer. We will be heading up to Lake Eufaula in Alabama with a group of friends for a long weekend. So, forget the beach. We will be laking it this summer!
I stopped by the bookstore yesterday to grab a book or two for the trip this weekend, since we have a nice 6 hour drive in front of us tomorrow. Don't get me wrong- I love a good chick-lit book- but I really love historical and/or memoir type books. So I picked up this book, Two Rings:
I started it yesterday when I got home and I am almost finished. This story is heartbreaking and poignant. It is a story about Millie who was born in Radom, Poland and her experiences during WWII and the Holocaust. Every time I read a Survivors memoir, I still can't believe that people actually lived through those atrocities. It just seems unbelievable at times that humans could be so cruel to other humans. It's hard to grasp your mind around.
The other book I picked up was Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I know I'm really late to the party on this one. I can't believe I haven't read it yet. In my defense, I have read War and Peace but that's only because I had to read it in college. Ha! But it is on my list of Classical "must reads" and I will hopefully get it crossed off my list this weekend. Plus, the movie comes out soon, so that is also a plus!
In other great books becoming movies- I am excited that one of my favorites, The Great Gatsbywill be coming out around Christmas. I.Cannot.Wait!!
Moving on.....
Thought I would share a few pictures from this past weekend that I didn't earlier in the week. Just mainly pictures of the massive garden that David's father grew. It is awesome. Although this visit, he had already torn up all his squash and zucchini vines, so it looked a little nicer in there this weekend.
His dad probably had at least 10 different varieties of tomatoes. I was extremely jealous. I made David stand beside the tomato plants, to give some scale on how tall they actually were!
Eggplant
Carrots
Some weird kind of eggplant
Bell peppers
Corn!
Oscar enjoyed checking out the garden for a brief second, then he wanted back in the car in the A/C! Go figure!
Nothing like some self photography :-P
When we got down to the swamp, I turned my camera back on the boyfriend for yet another photo shoot. He refused to cooperate.
He didn't want to get near the ground because "it was wet" or so he claims. I finally got him to halfway cooperate!
Beautiful, right? Hee, hee! A few more shots and I called it a wrap. I wasn't even feeling it. Maybe because I had left my tripod at home...
Poor David. He's a sport, is all I can say. Well, folks. That wraps it up for me today. I won't be posting my Friday Faves tomorrow, unless I find time to do it today. If not, hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Yep. I'm already looking to the future and getting ready for spring. I'm not totally crazy, I promise. It started when I was trimming back that thorn in my side, my wisteria vine. It was like a bulb went off in my head. And no, not a light bulb, but this kind of bulb.
It's that time of year. Time to plant those bulbs so they will be ready when spring comes! I planted all of those above. I planted daffodil, freesia, dutch iris, and those ridonkulous ranunculus. I guess that was not a good enough undertaking in and of itself. I decided I needed to split my lilies. That was fun. But really easy. It usually takes about 2-3 years for your flowers to be ready to split. You will know because you can look at tell that there are several flowers coming out of one plant. First, I just dug those bad boys up.
You can see the different sections of the plant, so it is a good guide as to wear to divide the bulbs. Just gently knock the dirt off the roots and then carefully pull the plants apart. Easy-peasy. I originally had four lily plants that I planted a few years ago, and from those four, I ended up with 19! Wow!!
I replanted them all. Although, by about number 10 or so I was about ready to throw the others out. I have a nice quarter sized blister on my right palm that can testify to my trauma. Please ignore my poor hydrangea. I cut it back earlier this summer because it was getting too big and unruly. It looked dreadful. Then it decided to grow back. I cut it down to basically its roots and it already grew back this much in about two months. Wow. Maybe I really can't kill it!! And do you remember this from my fall decorating?
Yes. When I came back inside from my gardening, it was looking a little more like this:
See anything missing or awry? Yep. My little precious Dapper Darlings had given me a present. I was good and exhausted from planting bulbs, but I guess they thought I needed something else to do when I came inside.
They took it upon themselves to eat one of those berry thingies. Thanks guys! And I guess chewing up plastic decorations is really hard work, it made them so tired. So tired, in fact, that they really paid me no mind as I was fussing at them for making such a mess.
So, pull out your gardening tools and get to planting. Hopefully, you don't have two destructive dachshunds waiting for you inside with a wonderful surprise!!
I was born and raised as a southern farm girl in the gorgeous Florida Panhandle in a small town with (gasp!) two red lights. I now reside in a beautiful, historic city in southwest Georgia with my three dachshunds- Oscar, Brutus, and JR. This blog isn't completely thrown to the dogs...it also documents my love for travel, cooking, decorating,the south, and my life in general. So grab a sweet tea, sit down a spell and get to know me. Welcome!
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