Getting Ready for Warm Weather

The weather here has been simply amazing!  Warm days, chill nights, and we even had a thunderstorm last night!

Miss Fana approves of both the extra bird feeder outside the window and of the warm weather.

 With this warm weather has come a bee that found it's way into my bonnet.  My house must be perfect now!  (well not really perfect but clean and tidy).  There nothing to chase away the winter blues than to rearrange furniture and tidy things up a bit.  So, my little family has been working both inside and outside to get things ready for the hosting (because we host quite a bit during the summer) that is soon to come!

The fire ring we put in outside is very nice!

As far as the outside goes, we've put in the feeders (squirrel/bird/and a humming bird one new this year) and filled them.  We also have started to move the patio furniture out.  I've got my sitting spot for pictures early in the morning :)  Below are the first fruits of my morning picture taking :D

My first squirrel friend.

My first bird friend.

A word of advise, if you are having problems with squirrels in your bird feeders, try hanging the bird feeder up on one of those smooth hook poles.  I watched, in dismay, as the one I had was too high for Mr. Squirrel and his climbing attempts led to him sliding down the pole multiple times.  (I feel bad because he was trying to get into the squirrel swing).

My husband standing in front of the pruned stick pile.

The biggest thing of work we've been doing (well the boys have been doing) is trimming trees.  See, our back yard was lined with junk/dead trees that kept pretty much all light out.  What little "grass" there is out there is mostly mold and moss.  In preparation for my garden though, these sweet boys have been thinning and cutting down some of these trees (with the landlord's permission of course!)  Turns out that fire pit is going to get used a lot!

The spring wreath I made to replace the fall one.

I finally made a new wreath for my door.  I think it turned out amazing!  If anyone is interested, maybe I'll do a wreath tutorial some time :)  I think they are a lot of fun to make and the one above cost $10.00 when I had finished buying all the supplies (versus the $50 I've seen nice big ones go for).

The painting I bought as a kid at a garage sale.

Inside, we've started room by room with the spring cleaning.  This started with my bedroom (which is in the very front of the house creepily enough).  I finally got around to hanging wall art up on the walls.  In the process of this, I realized how blank they still look so I guess I'm going to have to get more prints up in there.

A view from the bedroom door.

 

The plant stand in the corner of the room.

The view from in front of the plant stand.  I'm hoping to put a real nightstand there.

As you can see, I moved my plant stand (that poor fellow moves all the time..and to think I garbage picked him!) into the room so I could have plants in there.  I also rotated my bed so our feet are facing the window instead of one of our sides.  I think I like the new layout and flipping the mattress made it feel springy again (since the arrangement is still so new it feels slightly like a hotel room).  All in all, I think we'll be really happy with these changes.

The door way and beginning of the living room.

The next room we've perfected has been the living room.  We put my magazine holder by the couch (previously another of my "floater" furniture pieces) and I think it really fits there nicely.

The end of one of the couches.

The end of the other couch.

Kyokin and Harclave each have to have opposite ends of the couch.














The Sailor Moon posters were birthday presents from
my Sailor Moon themed birthday party!

The table in front of and the tv.

Not too much has changed in the living room overall.  It was really more of a straightening and moving some stuff down stairs (I am not looking forward to getting to there with the cleaning).  The animals seem to like the new layouts quite a bit though.  I also finally remembered that I was given Easter decorations a few years back!  This is the first year since I was given them that they have made their way out and about the house!

The plants are doing well (I'm planning on updating about them on Friday so they have the chance to grow a bit more!).  I can see the beginnings of flowers peeking up in the lilies.  I also discovered that the front garden bed has a bit of a mystery plant peeking up.  I feel like my weekend was very productive!  I hope everyone else had a good (and warm) weekend :)  I'll see you folks again soon with my plant baby updates (and some pictures of coasters too!).

Spring is coming!

And I can feel it.  I am sooo ready for the nice warm weather (and to get my garden back up and running!)  I think I really miss the greens around me when winter's here.  Snow can be amazingly beautiful, but this winter has stunk in that regard :(   It's felt like just mud and cold :(

Our indoor "garden center"  so far we're just using the top two shelves of this shelf for plants, but we hope to have two shelves full of plants growing soon!

In anticipation of the wonderful weather that I'm excited for, we've started seedlings (and potted plants) indoors!  We took our extra room (that doubles as a sewing/craft room for me) and have started setting up shelves (well one shelf but now that we know it will work well, there will be more in there) in front of the window and are growing our own baby plants!  I think this weekend we'll be adding another plant tray to the group of plants in front of the window.

Our seed starters!  We have baby plants starting to come up.

A close up of some of the baby seedlings.

This year will be exciting because not only are we doing raised bed gardens, but I'll be teaching T.  He's really excited to learn about gardening and to help me :)  (no more weeding by myself!).  I think it's going to be run.  Our big obstacle right now, minus building the raised beds, is figuring out where and actually doing the pruning of the trees.  I'll post before and (hopefully soon) after pictures of the backyard.  It's HUGE, but it does need a lot of work as far as being pretty goes.  I'm excited because in addition to increasing our garden size this year, we're planning on two flower beds!  One in the front of the house and one in the back.  I LOVE flowers (well truth be told I really love all plants). 

The lily plants I felt sorry for at Meijer.

When we were at Meijer, I (like always) had to browse the garden stuff.  I found some blue berry bushes that looked just amazing.  I had to buy one.  I just had to have one.  My addiction to blue berries doesn't play into this at all *shifts eyes from side to side*.  Right next to them (yes a picture of the blue berry bush will be in the post soon...just wait will ya ;) ) were some bags full of lily bulbs.  These poor bulbs were trying their hardest to grow.  Look at how curved they are from growing in that little bag :( .  I had to liberate them.  My husband is a very understanding and very doting man.  He let me buy them, the blueberry bush, two pots, and potting soil!  (Of course, it was all around 20 bucks...big spender me ;) )  So these pretty babies are going to grow in my bedroom and brighten it up more!  One of the coolest things about our new house are the windows (they stink in winter though).  They are everywhere! 

My baby blue berry bush.  See I told you I had a picture!

Well, now that I'm starting to garden again, I WILL (I'm not allowing myself to flake out anymore) be more regular with my posts.  Also, BzzAgent presented an opportunity for me to test out the new Science Diet dog food, so I'm sure I'll be sharing those stories/feelings/findings with you all soon as well.  I'm excited for spring.  I think maybe this weekend I'll get my squirrel feeder (I haven't set it up since we moved) and bird feeder (if I can find a reasonably priced one I like) up and filled.  See you soon folks!