I Can See Canada from Here...

It's in the air. Really. Canada was on fire. Look.

The haze isn't the reason they're called the White Mountains. The haze is burnt-up bits of Quebec floating our way.

For those of you not in The Know, I went to Boston for Memorial Day. So no yard projects. But lots of fun, and good food. Lezzee... there was...

• Pizza (1 + partial)
• Stromboli (1)
• Cannolli (2 partial) 
• Rum baba (1 partial, enormous)
• Italian cookies (Many)
• Ravioli (5 or so)
• Mexican Sampler Plate (1)
• Delicious Rolls (2)

No, I don't have to go all the way to Boston for good mexican food. I could go to New Mexico, too. I am not a fan of Tex-Mex, which is about 98% of what you get here.

I did manage to eat some pesky normal food, too, but that's hardly worth mentioning. What IS worth mentioning, I think, is that I spent four whole days in Boston without entering a single Dunkin' Donuts. If you've been to Boston, you will understand just how remarkable this is. There might be more DDs than Starbucks in Boston.

But let's get back to the fun stuff! The afore-mentioned raviolis were homemade. 

 

Well, technically, they were half homemade, half hotel-suite-made.

And funny-shaped.

Yum.

The Balancing Act

As I have just posted on my Facebook page, tonight I started one project... and I finished one project.

Those two clauses do not refer to the same project. Get real. This is Juli.  But the PiP (Project in Progress) balance remains the same.

Some of my yard projects have hit a snag or two (insert shocked gasps here), so I shall instead show you the results of some of my indoor activities.

I replaced the thermostat a while back. That in itself is not terribly exciting, but take a gander at the wallpaper I uncovered! That must've been one stylin' entryway when the house was built - especially paired with the light fixture that was in place when I moved in (all of my tall helpers will remember that thing forever).

I've also been slowly replacing all of the doorknobs in the house. In addition to being, well... ugly, the old knobs were treated quite carelessly when the doors were last painted. For a change, I have a before picture...

 And an after picture:

And the project I finished tonight... ok, it's a subproject. I've been gradually repainting the kitchen. This has come to involve stripping three layers of paint and a layer of varnish off the cabinet doors. I might finish that part before I move out. The built-in parts of the cabinets are now painted, as is the pantry door. And as of tonight, the cheap wire thingies that hang on the inside of the pantry door to Hold More Tea have been washed, straightened a bit, and rehung... CORRECTLY. With hollow door anchors and the little tabs facing the right way and all that, so that my Immense yet Insufficient Supply of Tea (and granola bars) won't tear the thingies out of the door.

I shall now proceed to enjoy some of said tea. You should, too. But maybe not my tea, since it's far away from most of you.

Broken Promises

I said I would show you the herb garden next. I lied. Thing is, there's another project in the middle of herb garden, and it's not cooperating. So instead, you get to see my philodendron. As usual, there is no "before" photo, but that's because in order to get to "before," one has to go back to early January, before hell froze over. This philodendron was huge. Huge. I had to cut it back twice last year just to be able to reach my water knob. I couldn't see out of the window over it. There was more wrought iron stuff between in and the house that I didn't know about until the leaves froze. And died. And got hacked off. But it's a philly, and it gamely started growing back. In the meantime, I noticed that wate coming off the roof was washing away the soil in one particular spot. My solution: dump more rock on it.

See the leaf on the left touching the ground? That's the only leaf that made it through the freeze... the last leaf that was there when I moved in. I named it Mike. Minnesota hockey fans know why (and no, I won't be cutting it off anytime soon). The rest of you will just think, "oh, I see she's still naming inanimate objects." Which I am.

I fully expect my philly to be as big and tall and even fuller by the end of the summer than it was last fall. At that point, I probably won't be able to see the nice rock, so I'd best enjoy it now.

Well, Would You Look at the Time...

Is it April already? Has it really been four months since I've posted anything?

Ooops. Sorry.

I shall attempt to make up for it with a series of fascinating and reasonably-spaced accounts of the various Projects I've been working on. Will that help? I'll start with one I just finished today. I didn't think to take any "before" pictures, because really... who would want to take a picture of THAT? If it were pretty enough for a picture, I wouldn't've ripped it out and dugged it up and redoned it, right? Well, what I did was take out all the weeds, spider plants (which grow like weeds around here), and dead trees in little pots that didn't make it through the freeze (that's right - freeze. It got down below 20 for two or three nights in a row in January)... the sections of rusty iron fence I found beneath the dead plants... the odd terra cotta pot laying on its side in the dirt... I took all that out from the corner of the back yard and replaced it with this:

The bushes are Photinia. Their new growth is a nice, dark red. Other than that, they are pretty bushlike. I put some of that deep red volcanic rock around them, and a row of zinnias in front of them on the fence side. There really wasn't enough room to put them along the house wall, too.

And here are some of my friends who helped me with this project:

Of course I can't thank everyone; there simply isn't enough time. I'll have to save some of it for the next Project: herb garden.