More of AK's Orchids

Since I brought my camera to work yesterday, I got to take more pictures of AK's orchids.
I don't know the name of this one, I can ask AK later. (Update: Got the name. It's "Miltoniopsis Bert-Fields"). You really have to be here to appreciate it. Its flowers not only big and gorgeous, they are also super fragrant. Entire office, about 500 sqft, filled with strong rose like sweet scent! It's absolutely amazing! Even real rose won't have this strong aroma. And it's very long lasting compare to rose. None of us could believe it. It's so strong, actually giving some of us headache, just a little bit. We don't really mind that, just trying to enjoy the 'nature' feeling in this office we call 'The Ghetto'.
And here is the update picture of the 'Encyclia Ionophlebium'. All the flower buds opened up. They are not very big, but very delicate and elegant. AK just misted it before I took this shot, so it was covered with tiny water drops. I think it looks even more lovely this way.
Oh, if the nice stranger, who left comment here yesterday, don't mind, I would like to share the links with everyone out there. The links he/she gave me is Boston Faces and My Hearts Eye. I don't have time to check everything out yet, but absolutely love the pictures on the MyHeartsEye blog! They are so refreshing. Lolita Parker, Jr., the photographer, has a great eye for details. His pictures captured the motion of the regular things, at a certain moment. You can feel the time and beauty just like frozen in time. I cannot describe the feeling when looking at his arts, you have to go check them out yourself, and feel it yourself. Simply stunning and powerful! Thanks, stranger. I will check out the other one later.

My Typical Morning

How I start my day? Very simple. Check on my flowers and veggies, and hop on my train to Boston. Then take the hospital shuttle directly to my building. Sounds boring? Check out the view!

This is my train station, Anderson Regional Transportation Center. It's huge, has capacity of parking for 2000+ cars, including long-term and daily parking, and the daily parking fee is only $2/day, or $40/month. It has the best location, right off I93, and really close to I95, so very convenient for commuters. And it has several shuttles, to Logan airport (less than 30 minutes ride, and runs every 30 minutes), to Manchester (NH) airport, and other shuttles. There are several hotels very close, and they pick up/drop off their guests here so they can take the train and visit boston. Very nice, huh? See those lights? When the lights on, it means the train is coming, even before you can see it. This is a very helpful trick I learned from Amy, my fellow commuter. So, in the New England cold winter, we hide inside the station, and only come out once those lights turned on. It gives us a nice minute or so to walk over the bridge and get to the platform. See whether you can do that at your train station. You can thank me later. See there is the train coming. Works like a charm!In short 30 minutes, my train arrives at North Station, which is inside the TD BankNorth Garden, used to be the Fleet Center, home of our famous Boston Celtics and Bruins! Even though Celtics lost last night, I still think we can beat the LA Lakers. It's our time to hold the championship trophy, or cup, or whatever you call it. You can imagine how crowded it can get during the season. Oh, BTW, I had my graduation ceremony here. It was great!Hop on my shuttle, this is what you see just around the corner, the Bunker Hill Bridge. It's even prettier in the night, when the lights are on. Sorry about the picture quality, I was sitting on a fast moving shuttle! Pass a 100+ year old bridge (green line subway runs on top), you can see the Science Museum, and state police department. That dome painted like a baseball, is the Mugar Omni Theater. Who ever painted the dome must be a big RedSox fan. Then we drive on the Storrow Drive, which is right on the bank of the beautiful Charles River! I tried to snap some pictures, but there are just too many trees, lots of them are about 100-year-old, and we were moving way too fast. I managed to take a crapy picture of the beloved Hatch Shell, where lots of summer outdoor concerts took place, and most importantly, the concert on July 4th, with the fireworks on the Charles River, it is just amazing!You thought my 'tour' is over after that? NO! Here is THE MOST FAMOUS baseball park in the entire country, the Fenway Park, home of our 2007 World Series Champions, the Boston RedSox. GO SOX!Had enough fun and excitement? OK, calm down. Before I end this boston tour, here are the beautiful roses in front of my building. We had 4 days straight over 90F degree, but they don't care, still blooming like there is no tomorrow. And that smell, just heavenly. Here is a couple of closeup shots. Aren't they the best looking rose you have ever seen?
What a way to start a workday! Now I don't want to work any more. Kidding! I wish I can sneak out and enjoy the sunshine and my lovely Boston! I just LOVE, LOVE Boston!

AK's Orchids

Here is some pictures of AK's orchids in our office. Some of them smells delicious. Enjoy!

PAPH. DELENATII 'DEBBIE' * MOQUETTIANUM 'SEPTEMTER'
Oncidium Rosy Sunset (this one smells like chocolate! :o)
Encyclia Ionophlebium
Vuylstekeara Homespun Sprite

First Heat Wave

It is really really hot these days. We had more than 90F degree for the weekend, and it suppose to last till Tuesday! I don't really mind that much about the heat as long as there is wind, but I really hate the humidity! Our yard is really open, no house in front or right behind us, so normally, it's not that bad if I open all the windows and doors. I am so glad that I installed the two screen doors, the front door and the kitchen door. Now the wind goes through my house freely, and we don't need to use the AC very often. We are trying to go green and save on energy, so I sun dry my laundry in summer, and we stopped using any chemical in our yard. I grow some vegetable in the garden organically, so I don't want the chemicals anywhere near them. And remember, whatever we put in our lawn can not all be absorbed by the grass or flowers, some will end up in our underground water, and might come back to us someday. And those chemical fertilizers can make your grass look very nice, but not as strong. And who are we to decide what grass are good and the others are weed? We got lots of clovers this year, they spread over from our neighbor's yard. I don't care what other people say, both DH and I think they are pretty. They provide different shade of green, and give you those lovely little white flowers. And they took over some bare spots, and I think because they blocked the light, I haven't seen any crabgrass this year. I have been fighting them for the last 3 years, and was losing the battle. I love any other kind of grass/weed, just absolutely hate the crabgrass.

My strawberry plants are doing great, still lots of white flowers, but have lots of berries set already. I picked our first strawberry yesterday, and let me tell you, the tasted of the fully ripen strawberry just picked from the garden is just heavenly. And I can be sure there is not even a drop of chemical in them. To those people want to start a home veggie garden, try grow some strawberry and cherry tomato. I guarantee you won't want to buy them from the stores any more. They are that good! Oh, don't forget the green beans, they grow like wild, don't need much care, and they add more nutrition to the soil.

I made a cute apron from my friend H. Her name means 'red leaves', so red is her favorite color. I got a piece of fabric the other day which is super cute, and decided to use it for aprons and shopping bags. The fabric has lots of squares, each one has some cartoon girls and some hilarious words. The one I chose for H is "Chocolate Cures Everything". Funny, huh? My absolute favorite is the "I Live For Weekend" and "Girls Just Wanna Have Funds" (The girl in the picture is holding tons of shopping bags!) Wait till you see the picture.

Oh, I have to show you a picture of my blooming Phal later tonight. Remember I told you that the first flower opened about a couple of weeks ago, and lost a petal to my 'flowing curtain'? The second flower opened this weekend, and it is SO WEIRD! The top 3 petals are fine, normal looking, but instead two more petals and red lip for the lower half, this one only have one more white petal! What happened there? Is my Phal mutated? Have to wait to see the other flowers. And I guess the 'flowing curtain' not only ripped off a petal from the first flower, it also damaged some small buds, and some of them turned yellow and dropped. Sad! But I learned my lesson! Update: here is a picture of the weird 4-petal flower. Notice the new flower on its left, it has all the petals, and looks gorgeous! OK, my Phal is not mutated entirely, just this one flower.

Early Summer Flowers

It is so hot and sticky today, and we just had a summer like heavy rain, you know those that starts all of a sudden and stops after about 5 minutes. Now the sun is out again, and loving that smell of rain, so refreshing. They said the air quality is really poor these 3 days, guess this can help a little bit. At least my plants will appreciate it. Here are some pictures I took right before the rain, literally, I was still holding the camera on the deck when the rain came down. So far, I have 3 different colored columbines, rich burgundy, common but still beautiful purple, and the purest soft white. Stunning! These are my Bachelor's Buttons. I have tons of them along the driveway for the past two summers, and they looked great as a group, and absolutely gorgeous individually! To my surprise, this year I got 3 different shade of that blue flower. The majority is still the typical light blue, and some navy blue ones and very pale blue ones, which is not in this pictures. This never happened before, but I think it adds more depth and interest to the group. And here is my trust-worthy marigold! I bought a hanging basket with this beautiful fire colored marigold, and has been saving its seeds and regrowing them for 3 years now. I think they look much more interesting than the solid yellow or orange ones. Forgot this one's name, but still think it's lovely. I bought some of these in yellow and red, as seedlings, from Lowe's. Love the texture of the flowers. But need to do more research on them later. Update: Lovely Mary just told me the name of it is Celosia. Thanks, Mary.

New England Weather

Recently, the weather has been changing dramatically, it's basically all over the place. We had 80+F last week, and heavy rain and chilly 60+F for the past several days, and it's going to be over 90+ this coming weekend. AND I heard on the news this morning that next Monday is going to be 100F!!! WHAT?! This is just crazy! Guess I have to check my AC tonight and make sure it still working!

I bought some super cute fabric from Fabric Place yesterday. Wait till you see them! I was so excited, so I washed and ironed them last night. They are ready to be sewed into all kinds of fun stuffs. I have some ideas in my mind already, I will show you the fabric first and then show you what I come up with later. I am going to buy more today or over the weekend. Since I got several of those $5 off $25 coupons, and so many stuffs I need to buy, I am really going to be their frequent shopper at that lovely store! I saw some other great fabric yesterday, but didn't want to spend much more than $25 yesterday, so had to leave them there. Just hoping nobody else touched them. Have my fingers crossed now.

Oh, forgot to show you my yard sale finds from last weekend. The fabric I got from my neighbor's yard sale was gorgeous! I made a nursing cover out of a small piece last night, and LOVING IT! I will upload the pictures tonight.

My best customer is back!

Yes! Chris is back. This time she bought two items from my store. Ever since I was sick in March, I have been focusing on recovering. So, I kind of ignored my store for a very long time. I think this is the sign that I should start taking care of my store again. I actually have more than two dozen items ready to be uploaded and also going to introduce new line of products by the end of this month. Recently, I started sewing again. I have been making baby shower gifts for several of my pregnant friends, and one of my co-worker loved them so much and bought a set from me! She encouraged me to sell them as well. So, wait till you see my new line of baby items. They are so cute and practical, I think every mom needs them.

Update:

I just got a surprise phone call from a friend of M, my friend who bougth my baby gift set a couple of weeks ago. Apperantly M showed her my stuffs, and she loved it. She just placed two orders, one purple set and another set in bright color for a girl. Woooooo! I am in business again. Love it!!!

As Promised, Here they are

My re-organized bathrooms. We have two and a half bath, the half bath on the first floor, which is very convenient for both our friends and us. The other two are on the second floor, one guest bath and one master bath. But actually all three of them are exactly the same size, not terribly small, but not big either. Just enough for now. And here are their pictures. Since there is no windows, thanks to the brilliant achitect and contractors, it's super hard to take good quality pictures. I tried my best with photoshop, the colors are still off. The actual colors are much more lovely. The first two are the half bath on the first floor. The two in the second row are the guest bath, and our master bath. And this morning, DH surprised me by taking me out to a mall in NH the very next day after his arrival. He came back last night really late from his business trip and it was a very long flight. Base on the fact that DH absolutely hates flight, I thought he will be in bed today or hanging around the house. But NO, he woke up around 4am, and very energetic. It was such a beautiful day, and I was very happy that I brought my camera along. And after a very nice lunch at the mall food court, DH told me the reason for the trip, my biggest surprise of a whole year. We came here to pick up a brand new plasma TV! He didn't even discuss it with me before he bought it online. We did talked about it for a while, but I had absolutely no idea that he bought it this morning.

Some Pictures of My Flowers

Took some pictures of my flowers yesterday, and cannot wait to show them off.

My baby columbine. I started them last year from seeds, didn't know what color they will be. Here it is, beautiful burgundy/wine color. I saw some other flower buds are very pale green color, it will be interesting to see their true color later, maybe this weekend.
These are my strawberry plants. I planted 6 last year, and they shot out so many babies, so I have lots of them this year. They are all loaded with flowers, so yummy yummy homegrown strawberries are on their way. Cannot wait. They tasted so good last year.
Here is two of my phalaenopsis in bloom. The one with the orange/red lip started shoting out flower spike a couple month ago, and it just opened the first flower. Very pretty! But unfortunately, it was windy on Monday, and the heavy curtain was blown its way and dragged off one of the petals. But it's ok, it still looks very nice. I will show you more of it when it's in full bloom. The other one I got it from AK last summer, with 3 flower spikes loaded with flowers. Then after those flowers faded, a couple of new branches came out, and gave me even more flowers. Amazing! It has been in bloom for at least 8 months.

Oh, this is what's waiting for me when I got home yesterday. This little guy and his family live somewhere in our neighborhood, and come visit us very often. Sorry about the quality of the picture, I forgot some setting on the camera. And I cannot get any closer without scaring him. He is just adorable, with that little cotton ball like tail. So far he hasn't destroyed any of my flower or vegetable, so he is still cute to me. We will see.

My 'New' Kitchen/Dining Room

Today's topic is my newly painted kitchen/dining room. It's one big south-facing room, and very sunny thanks to the big sliding door and a smaller window over the sink. We bought the dining set and the kitchen island right after we moved in. Originally, I wanted some darker color furniture, which looks more modern, but all the cabinets in the kitchen are honey pine color. And since it's one big room, it will be awkward to have two totally different styles. So, everything in light pine color. Do you know how hard to find the perfect color to match those furniture? Not easy at all. I went through tons of interior design magazine and websites, finally focused on green. Then which shade of green? I taped the paint cards on the wall for a whole year to see which one I like better in different light condition and different season. This is the end result. (View from our living room.)(View from our kitchen.)I LOVE IT! Cannot wait to show DH when he comes back this weekend. My dining room looks very different in summer and winter because I have to take all my indoor plants back inside for the winter. I have total about 60 indoor plants, some are huge, like my Norfolk Pine and Palm. And most of my jasmine, gardenia, and some of my orchids love full sun, so I bought a metal shelving unit for them. The unit can be assembled as two 3ft tall units, one with casters and one without. I put the portable one right in front of the sliding door and arrange my jasmines and orchids according to height. And I put the other half shelf in the small bedroom upstairs, which is empty now. I have all my succulents on that shelf. I don't want to damage the carpet, and I don't need to water the succulents very often. It's a perfect combination. I will look for some winter picture to show you tonight. Just realized that I posted some pictures before, click here to see them.

I did lots of work in the kitchen since we moved in. We tiled the backsplash, so it's easy to clean. You know, chinese cooking can get very greasy sometimes. And I installed the under-the-sink water filter system, with a small faucet at the corner of the sink. I didn't want to lose the spray head, so instead using that hole, I had to drill a new one in that stainless steel sink. Let me tell you, it's not easy. I am a strong girl, but it still took me forever to drill through. DH is more powerful, but he is not good with powertools at all. And whatelse? Oh, I installed the track lights about the island. I hated the original light the builder left there, I guess it was teh cheapest one they can find. And it's so close to the stove, leaving half of the kitchen very dark. DH and I did some research, looking for light that is good-looking and easy to install. I am not a licensed electrician after all. We loved this track light system, the track can go far away from the base, and can be bend to any shape, and it's so easy to hang the lights. There are several options for the lights, you can get the really long ones in 3 or 4 different color, or get some tiny ones which attach to the track closely. Original we wanted the blue shades to match the blue accent tiles above the stove, but Lowe's had only one blue light. Then we bought the white ones, but they were super bright, you cannot even open your eyes kind of bright. So, we went back to lowe's and got these orange ones instead. They were newer design and fancier than the solid color ones. The best part is they were on sale, so the cost was about the same. See, we sticked to our budget, firmly! To our surprise, the orange one looks better than all the others. The shades have those interesting mixture of colors, and it's very soft to the eye, and it looks so sophisticated shining above the island's granite countertop. Now the kitchen is done. But wait, who can cook without some great music? I installed a CD player/radio underneath the upper closet next to the stove. Now it's done.

OK, tomorrow we are going to talk about my 2 and a half bathrooms. They are not huge, but big enough for now.

Finally,Clean House!

I finally finished the DEEP DEEP spring cleaning! I mean I not only cleaned the living spaces, I decluttered most of the rooms, I also reorganized everything, including all closets, attic and basement. I finished painting the kitchen/dining room. Yes, after talking about for 2 years and staring at the paint cards on the wall for a whole year, I finally chose the color and painted it. Now the only unpainted room is the master bedroom, oh, and the second floor hallway. I can do it! I can finished all that in 2 days. The only place I cannot paint alone is the stairway. It's too high, and too dangerous for me to climb up there by myself. I need my strong DH to hold the ladder for me, and maybe collecting some paint drops on his head. HaHa! I am in such good mood, DH is coming back this weekend. I can show off my handy work to him soon. How exciting! There are such sayings in Chinese that matching my feelings right now. "Distance will generate new sparks in the relationship" or "Reunion after short term separation is better than honeymoon". I really miss him, I even smell his pillow sometimes. Silly, huh?

I didn't have time to take too many pictures on Monday, so, instead of a grant tour of my house, I will do a series on this, showing you one room a day. Here is my living room. I painted it about 6 months ago. It faces north, and kind of dark because of the porch and oak tree outside. So, I chose the very bright yellow to bring the sunshine in. I think it worked, it looks much brighter than before. I still have most of the winter stuffs on. The slipcover for the ottaman is the summer version. I will make a white slipcover for the sectional sofa, make some blue and green covers for the pillow, and change the curtain as well. Oh, I am also going to change the painting on the wall to some bright color modern arts, and bring out the summer area rug. Still lots of work need to be done here. And DH is researching for a great LCD TV, so we will get new TV stand and shelving unit for that corner. The door in the first picture is our front door, I installed the storm door for it right after we moved in. It has screen for summer and double pane glass for winter, and works great for us. The doorway in the second picture leads to the dining room. BTW, all the curtains were made by me, with the chinese curtain fabric my mom brought me two years ago. I only did it for the living room and dining room, still have to make more for the bedrooms.

That's all for today's living room tour. I will show you the newly painted kitchen/dining room tomorrow.

Spring Cleaning - Week3 summary

Finally, my house is clean and organized up and down, inside and out. Even my attic and basement are so neat now. I finished everything yesterday morning, right before my guests came in. Talk about good timing! Actually I invited them a while ago, and they are actually my motivation for this deep spring cleaning. Our friend's parents are visiting here, and they are my parents' neighbors back in China. This is their first time in my new house, (actually 3-year-old house, but new to them) and the aunty really into interior design stuffs, so I had to make my house very presentable and up to her standards. I was not really doing all that for her, I wanted to do these for the past 3 years, just never had the motivation like this. Anyway, she was very much impressed. Mission accomplished! I got to show off all my handy works, very happy about that. I will show you some pictures of my clean house later.

Now that my house is clean, I can mess it up again! ;) I have to! I have to finish 2 more sets of baby gifts, and a birthday gift. And I promised DH to make him some neat organizing stuffs for our cars. And I kind of abandoned my Etsy shop for a while, now will be a good time to work on it again. Still feels like so many things to do, but so little time. Oh, almost forgot this. I have to finish painting the master bedroom before DH comes back.

I lost my babies!

This morning I came downstairs and saw through the window that the robin nest on its side. I thought it was because of the strong wind last night. So, I went out to help and thinking about looking for the babies and put them back. I really thought they must be on my porch floor around the nest. What I saw was like a CSI scene. There were blood stains all around, and two tiny feet sadly lying there, maybe some other tiny pieces of my robin babies! I was totally not prepared for that, so I jumped backward and screamed. A cat or other animal must found the babies and ate them all during the night. I didn't even hear anything, otherwise, I would have came out and help the babies. Their mother trust me so much to build their nest on my porch, I feel like I let them down. I should have put the nest in a hanging basket and kept it off the floor. I feel somewhat responsible for their death. I know this is the reality, that I should let the nature take its own course. But I have been watching them from day 1, and they are my babies! I feel so sad, and so sorry for the mama#2. She must be so scared and angry and heartbroken. I cannot get that bloody scene out of my mind, every time I close my eyes, even just blinking, I can still see those tiny feet lying there, hopelessly in the dried blood pool. I did take some crime scene pictures, but they are just too brutal to show online, I am affraid they will give other bird lovers nightmares as well. Let's just remember them as they were in the pictures from yesterday's post. I couldn't believe that was their last day. Not only I cannot stop thinking about that scene, I have to go home to that, and I have to bury the tiny feet and wash off the blood stain. What am I supposed to do with my English Ivy? It still looks alive underneath the nest, I could carefully remove the nest and rescue the ivy, but it will be a very painful reminder to me. I guess I just have to throw the whole thing away, so I can at least try to forget it and move on. I need to mentally block the bad memories and cherish the good and happy ones, the ones when the babies were still alive and healthy, and they would lift their heads and open their mouths to beg for food everytime I whistle. At least their eyes were still closed, so they didn't see their predator, and hope they didn't suffer much either. Goodbye, my babies! I will stop eatting chicken for at least a week to honor your death. That's the least I can do.

I will put a couple hanging baskets up for the mama#2 to build her second nest, and have more babies. Hope she is not injuried, and not too scared to come back to my yard. I am so sorry for you, mama#2!

Eyes Still Closed

Here are the baby robins at 8am. Can you see that their tiny wings are forming quite fast. I think the one in the middle is the oldest, and the one at the lower right corner is the youngest, judging by their size. Just hope mama can bring home enough food for everyone, so even the smallest one can grow up. Here they are at 7pm. They start to look like their parents. The other thing I read online about robins is dad helps out with feeding, but he will never sit in the nest. That's good to know. Maybe that is why these babies are growing so fast.
Here are some seedings I bought yesterday for the hanging baskets and the window boxes. I also started some marigold and nasturtium from seed. I want to try something different this year, so I am going to use marigold, sweet potato vine, and spider plants in the hanging baskets, and hope that I don't have to fight pests in summer. I will pot them up this weekend. The other flower seedlings are for my yard. I will show you some pictures when I am done with them.