Ocean of Flowers

Maybe not that dramatic, but good enough for me. My little garden might not be even close to the professional landscaped gardens, but it provide me different colors and scents throughout the seasons, and lots of delicious vegetables.

My lilies.

My nicotiana.

My flower beds and vegetable bed.

Nursery Update

Finally installed all the floating shelves for the nursery. The room is so small, there is basically no space for any bookshelf or dresser. Plus I have always loved floating shelves, I decided to make some myself, so they will be the perfect size for the room. Mom helped me painting them white, since I should not touch any chemical now. I think they look great! What do you think?

And what do you think about the comforters my mom and I made for my baby girl? I made the blue and green one, and my mom made the pink one. Check out the fabric, very special. The dragon, phoenix, butterfly, and peony are all very meaningful Chinese symbols. Dragon and phoenix are traditional animals symbolic of auspiciousness, and along with the lin and the tortoise, they were known as the "Four Supernatural Spirits." The butterfly represents love and longevity, and peonies embody romance and prosperity and are regarded as an omen of good fortune and a happy marriage. See why I chose this fabric for my baby? All these will protect and bless my baby girl, and she will grow up happy and healthy.

My Closet Office Updates

Remember how my closet office area looked like? One word, messy. Finally got enough energy to fix the shelves, and put everything back inside. Didn't want to spend tons of money on this tiny closet, so I used the stuffs I 'collected' over the years, some from yard sales, some from the curb, and the rest were bought on sale. Nothing fancy here, only the practical ones. With a baby on the way, I cannot 'waste' money on those fancy organizers I wanted now. And this way, I can be creative and frugal at the same time.

Bought the spice organizer 9 years ago at a church thrift store in NH. Painted it warm white, and the bottles and drawers will hold some tiny scrapbooking materials. Got the display shelf free at a yard sale 3 years ago. Painted it the same white, and it's holding my stamps and the metal jars.

Don't have a place or special organizer to hold my scrapbook paper and albums. So they are sitting on top of a yard sale side table, underneath the desk. I think it's a good way to use a dead space, and it also holds some of my plastic paper/file holders.

Found these office magazine holders in recycle bin outside my office one day. Great, free organizers! After some scrapbook paper and tape, they look good enough for my small office. Now they are holding my BHG magazines.

Need some organizers to hold my color pens, brushes, and other small tools. So, I went to the basement, and found some metal cans I saved a while ago. Just tape some leftover scrapbook paper on and here they are.

Something Smells Really Good

in my yard, that is. It's my oriental lilies and nicotiana flowers. I planted some oriental lilies last year, and they are even stronger and bigger this time. Interestingly, there are some light pink ones I don't remember planting! What happened there? Where did they come from? And I thought I planted the white ones at the front, but they are hiding in the back now. Hmm!? Guess I cannot trust my memory. Better start writing some gardening diary.

And here are my nicotiana flowers. They look simple yet elegant, smell lovely, and most importantly, they attract cucumber beetles. How wonderful! Perfect decoy! Now my favorite Chinese cucumber plants are much safer.

Celtuce Harvest

Mom harvested 5 big celtuces this morning. We had two of them a couple of days ago, they were SOOOO delicious! Celtuce is cool weather vegetable, when the temperature gets high, it will bolt, which make the whole thing bitter. Although we love looking at them in the garden, and want to let them grow a little bit thicker, it's about time! I wanted to take some pictures of them still in the garden, but it started pouring. Will do that later today. Here are some pictures of the ones my mom already cleaned. The stems are about 2" thick, and more than 16" long! And each of them had tons of leaves. My fridge is filled with fresh celtuce, cucumber and purple beans now! How wonderful! Love summer and tasty home grown veggies! Cannot wait for my cherry tomatoes to ripe! Yummy!

Meet My New Neighbors

Mom saw these two little guys early this morning. Apparently they like the clover in my yard. We tried to go organic for two years, so we got more and more clovers. We know that our next door neighbor doesn't like them, but DH and I just love them. Now we know someone else are appreciating them too. =) These two little buys are still very young, as you can see, they still have some soft baby fur on their back and head. They are small and not very fat, do you see how big their eyes are? They are also a little bit camera shy, always kept their distance from me. Wish I could get closer, and get some better pictures. But at least they enjoyed our clovers and our yard, and we enjoyed the company.

Orchid Updates

Most of my orchids are loving the weather we have been having recently, they are growing lots of babies. And Some of them are blooming right now, two Phals and my Hawaii. Just want to share these beauties with you guys.

My Cucumbers

So far, we had 4 of these delicious cucumbers already. They look exactly like the ones from my hometown, dark green skin, with lots of tiny thorns, and still have the dried up flower at the end. Because we had more than 3 weeks rain, they taste different. We are just hoping the newer ones will taste better.

Summer Flowers

More pictures from my garden.
And can anyone identify this one? It came out of my compost pile, has these tiny blue flowers, and small berries grew after the flowers. The berries are still small green ball shape, cannot really tell what they are. Should I pull it or not?

Garden Updates

After several days of sunshine and warm weather, my vegetable are finally growing. I started late this year, plus the more than 3 weeks rain, they looked so sad. Now look at my cucumbers and celtuce! We have been enjoying the celtuce leaves as lettuce, and had a fresh cucumber already. There are 3 more growing nicely, and ready for picking later this week. I will remember to take some pictures of them.

And since I fixed the chicken wire fence early spring, I am able to keep all 16 of my celtuce plants. Last year, after first pick of their tasty leaves, some animal, maybe bunny, dug through my fence and finished them all. I was so mad! Hope these babies can survive the whole summer, so we can finally taste the sweet celtuce! Oh, BTW, my mom is here helping me out. That's one of the reason the vegetable is doing much better.