from a very busy weekend. We didn't take a mini vacation as lots of other people did, instead, we worked around the house, NON STOP, for 3 days. DH normally shows no interest on decorating or organizing the house, but he is a very stubborn person, once he set his mind on something, it has to be done immediately. This weekend, he had his mind on the basement. So, the basement it is.
But first, he wanted to buy a new bike, so we can go for a ride together. We have 3 old ones in the basement, I repaired the newer one, and we went for a LONG ride friday afternoon, two and half hours long! I didn't realized that untill we got home. My legs were shaking so badly, and very painful. I was exhausted. I haven't exercised for years, and that was just too much to handle. So, after 2 load of laundry, I collapsed and I slept like a baby that night.
Early Sat morning, we completed the first step of organizing the basement. Remember I cleaned up everything a while ago? At that time, I piled all the stuffs I want to donate in the middle of the basement. I normally drop off all my donations at the end of the year, but this time, we decided to do it now, kind of semi-annual donation. We loaded everything into my car, the trunk and the backseat were full, and we carried two older bikes on the back. I have to admit, having all that clutter removed from the house made me feel much lighter, like someone just removed a huge rock from my shoulder. I used to hold on to everything, but watching so many home organizing and interior design shows changed my mindset. They are right, if I haven't use something for the past several years, I will never use it again. Then why keep it and clutter my house and my mind. Then we moved all the shelves and exercise equipment to the center of the basement, and started waterproof the walls. I bought a smaller can of that stuff and tried around the stairs several months ago, let me tell you, that stuff stinks! So, this time, we closed the door to the first floor, opened the bulkhead, and the small window, and turned on a box fan. We bought a couple of heavy duty masks, and I didn't smell anything. That was great! It's not easy to paint the concrete wall, because it's not smooth, has lots of tiny holes. DH used the roller to cover the big area, I used a brush filled up the holes. The whole process took about 4 to 5 hours, and when it was done, we were covered with tiny white drops. DH's hand was so tired, he couldnot even hold chopsticks. And my arm was so painful, I could not even fall asleep.
Then yesterday, I heard some strange noise in the basement, and noticed the reading on the Radon Gas alarm was much higher. Our basement had Radon problem when we purchased the house, so we had the builder installed the radon reduction system. Everything was fine after that. But we didn't want to risk it, since we exercise and do lots of other things down there, we bought the alarm. The reading has been 1, which means radon level in our basement is less than 1, almost undetectable. But ever since we sealed most of the gaps between the floor and walls before we painted it, the reading went up. So, we bought more of those already mixed cement stuff, and sealed everywhere we can hear air leaking noise. We will let the cement dry and see what happens.
Now that the basement wall are done, we are thinking about painting the floor too. I took a class on how to seal the garage/basement floor at Lowe's 3 years ago, but never got to do it. (Because I had all those junks in the basement) Now is the great time. I had all these design idea for the basement, once it's all done, we will have a exercise area, my crafts area, laundry area, and storage area all nicely separated. Cannot wait! It won't be a finished space, but well organized and that is enough for us at this stage of life.
Oops. No pictures! OK, found some. Here are some pictures of my friend's blooming flowers in her office. Enjoy.
Forgot this one's name. But it sure is beautiful.
Her Phal.
Amazon Lily. We got the bulbs from AK at the same time, mine still has only one leaf. Look at hers!
I don't know the name of this lovely yellow flower. It's perennial, grows about 12" tall, and multiply quickly. The flowers open during the day, so I can only get some pictures of the half opened buds. 
And we all think this one is a weed, but its flower sure look like a pansy!
Astilbe? Really elegant!
And this is how it looked like the day before. 
Apparently, a bunny or some other animal dug a hole under the chicken wire fence, and ate all 5 of my precious celtuce! All the leaves were gone, and the growing tips were chewed off as well, which means my celtuces have no chance to keep growing. 2 smaller ones probably can survive, since they were too small and the bunny just ate the leaves, didn't touch the stem. I was so pissed! That is my favorite vegetable, and not very easy to grow. I only got this 5 plants from the 30-40 seeds sowed. Great thing about celtuce is you can keep picking the lower leaves as it grows, (BTW, they taste just like lettuce), and when the stem reaches about 12" tall and 2" in diameter, you harvest the whole thing. This is how it looks like. 
Peel off the skin, and the inside is so juicy, crispy, and taste kind of sweet. So, you basically can enjoy it for the whole season. Here is my only harvest of the leaves last weekend. 
It was SO GOOD! But now, it's all gone, and it's cool season vegetable, so it's too late to start over. I guess no celtuce for us this year! How sad! 
And more happy news. Someone bought this yesterday. 
More nasturtium pics. Never had this pale yellow one before, and it's just wonderful.
And look at how big this jasmine flower is!
Here are some other annual flowers on my deck. 
Another pot filled with gorgeous leaves.
Close up on this lovely petunia.
I decided to choose a different one this year. This was a shot of the ones I had last summer. They are just so lovely, I have to post them here too. 
And here are some shots from my vegetable garden. 
This is a close up of a flower cluster of dill. Did you see that tiny bee? It moved around quite fast, so it was very hard to capture this moment!
Oh, another big bee was enjoying my lavender. Actually there were an army of them in my garden, they help me a lot with my cherry tomatoes. 
I took tons of pictures over the weekend, cannot fit all of them here. So have to show the rest later.
She loved my bookmarks, and thought this nursing cover will be great for her girlfriend who just had a baby girl. Thanks, beadsintheround. And congrats to your friend. I always check out my customer's shop, if they are also Etsy sellers. And fell in love with beadsintheround. Her design is so wonderful, and her technique looks insanely complicated to me! (I have no idea about crocheting or knitting). 
And then I checked out her flickr folder. All I can say is WOW! It's like a bead crocheting gallery! Words cannot describe it, you have to go take a look yourself. She is absolutely talented, and so modest. I wish you great success with your business, and hope my panchang knot bookmarks can bring you more good luck.
Notice that nobody used light blue! Well, we'll see. If it's really boring, I will have to buy a different color and paint some design on it. And I am going to make some curtains for the storage shelves to hide the mess. I really love this one, but the fabric could be just a little bit too dark for our basement, which has almost no natural light. But I do like that curtain against the light blue wall. So, it might work for my basement, since we will have white wall and light blue floor. 
And here is my sambac. It has this one long branch, very unbalanced. I probably will trim it and make some cuttings out of it after the flowers faded. 
My deck smells so good now, with all these jasmine and gardenia flowers. And all my annuals in the window boxes and other pots are doing great too. And my garden is great as well. I really enjoy the fresh (scented) air and beautiful view (tons of flowers) every morning. And I love to walk around the garden after work, watching the bees and butterflies. 
More butterflies on my lavender. 
A bee on my russian sage. 
Some of my nasturtiums. 
My gardenia finally bloomed! The flower buds formed at the end of Feb, and took them almost 5 months to open. 5 Months! I moved all my plants outside in early May, and really worried about this gardenia. It is my first attempt to grow gardenia, and everyone told me it's very picky, quite challenging. So, I was afraid all the new buds will drop and then it will die. BUT, apperantly it loves my sunny deck. It grows so well, not even one bud dropped. I took these pictures this morning, and there were 6 huge flowers. Two of them opened last Friday, they suppose to last only 2 days, but these two still pretty good, just started turning yellow. The smell is just heavenly! Oh, all my jasmines are happy too. Remember the one that bloomed about 300 flowers a couple of months ago? I trimmed it, and now it has lots of buds again! And two others started blooming too. 
Her Phal.
Amazon Lily. We got the bulbs from AK at the same time, mine still has only one leaf. Look at hers! 
I was very tired last night, but still managed to make two new nursing covers. One is called "Fushion", has pink and orange abstract leaves design, not a girly design, but very girly colors. Forgot the name of the other fabric, but it has beautiful floral design and big butterflies on yellow background. Both of them are very girly, have to remember to buy some fabric for boys next time. I know I haven't sold any of them yet, but I am preparing for the crafts show later this year. I work at Children's Hospital, there will be lots of parents, doctors and nurses there. So, I am pretty sure these nursing covers and other baby gifts will be a big hit. This is my motivation and excuse for buying more beautiful fabric and making more stuffs. I will post the pictures later.
It looks quite small in the picture, but since our living room is small, and we have a huge sectional sofa, it can barely fit in there. Check out the second picture in this post. That was the old TV and small stand, which are both in the basement now. Now I have to find a nice round end table or accent table for the dead corner. It's like the furniture hunt never ends.
