Garden: Phase I

Last week, Kara told me she had been thinking it would be fun for us to plant a garden. Now, if you have ever been to visit us, you know that our house is not the ideal location for a garden. The steep slopes, rocks, and clay soil are not necessarily conducive to easy planting or high yields. But, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be a fun project. (She had also mentioned previously that she wanted chickens, so I thought this was a good compromise to scratch our farm itch. Plus our friends recently bought some chickens, so we can live vicariously through them for now.)

The first issue we needed to resolve was location. There is not an ideal spot, but we found our best spot on the east side of the house with plenty of sunlight and limited slope. I wanted the garden to be level and Kara had been researching about raised beds, so our solution was an in-ground-raised bed.

And so the digging began. First, we scalped all of the grass off the top. Then, we began to dig into north side to level out our bed. Next, we assembled our raised beds, which we bought from Lowe's. After getting an idea of what that would look like, I saw we still had a slope issue and continued levelling until we were satisfied and staked the perimeter into the ground.

Now, we have a 4'x8' hole with sides. We are waiting for the rain to come and settle some of the dirt along the sides. Then, we will fill with soil and plant. We are both looking forward to it!

Anticipation

This is our first spring in our home in Cincinnati. Having grown up helping my father with gardening and flowers nearly every weekend we could be outside, I knew that I wanted to try my hand at planting some flowers of my own. So, we bought some tulip bulbs last October and planted them. Having been told several times by my father that "he never had success with tulips", I really wanted ours to come up and bloom this year but didn't have high expectations.

But, in March, I saw several green leaves poking through the ground around our tree. Kara had to put up with my nearly-daily reports on the growth prospects and quantity of our new tulips.

Then, it happened. As I was pulling out of the driveway, it looked like our tulips had been mown over. They were only stubs of their former selves. When I got out of the car, I saw that they had been completely chewed down to a nub. Deer. Our neighbor had warned us, and we had seen their rubbings all over our front trees, but I didn't honestly think they would touch any of our flowers. But they did. Now, we have pretty much given up hope on the chance of any tulip blooms this year, but we are hoping they can put together a recovery  and come back in full swing next year. We won't forget the spray this time.

On the bright side, we were pleasantly surprised with the number of daffodils that are coming up around our house and trees. They are less than a week away from blooming, in my estimation, and we are pumped to have some flowers around our house soon!

 

Winter in Cincinnati

Another exciting first here in Cincinnati, WINTER!

During our first snow before Christmas, we enjoyed a winter wonderland out our back doors.

The barren trees were finally pretty again, all covered in snow.

And of course when we got back home from Christmas at my family's house, Kyler got to put his new snow shovel to use.

Fast forward about a month, and we're getting snow again. I'd say we accumulated at least a couple of inches over the weekend. I think the prettiest sight to see is a bright red cardinal against the white snow.

My mom and dad got Kyler a bird feeder for Christmas, and although we've seen a couple of birds eating from it, it was like all the birds finally found it!

No complaints from me. I love those pretty red birds. And I think it's way cool how we see so many here in Ohio when they're Indiana's state bird. But seeing as how they're Ohio's state bird as well, I guess that makes sense.

And just some cute kitty prints for good measure.

All Accessorized!

After we spent all weekend painting and assembling the backdrop to our new office, we had to go back to work. I mean...somebody has got to fund all of my house projects ;)

I spent all day at work thinking about accessorizing my bookshelves. I'm not sure Kyler knew what I meant when I said I needed to style my shelves. He was so concerned that we didn't have enough books for them.

Here's where we're at so far. I don't have quite enough to fill in all the blanks, but at least I got to have a little bit of fun decorating. Most of the stuff that came from our old office space went behind the cabinet doors. The ugly stuff like pens and envelopes and files. So we had to dig out lots of goodies we had in storage in the other part of the basement.

Here's where all of our not-so-fun office supplies are stashed.

Yes, that is our paper shredder. Kyler cut a hole in the back of the bookcase to accommodate the power outlet to the shredder. My only qualm with the whole thing is that I couldn't get the printer to fit anywhere.

To style the shelves, we dug out boxes from storage, mostly looking for books. Kyler found our set of high school year books, and I included his Lord of the Ring books too.

I love that my favorite Karen Kingsbury books and YoungHouseLove books are teal and green, which is the color scheme I was going for on the shelves. Paired with my green candle holder from Goodwill and teal wire lamp from Hobby Lobby, this set of shelving is my favorite! We also had a bunch of frames and decorative sentiments from wedding gifts that happened to coordinate with my colors too, so I added them here and there as well.

Kyler's Far Side collection.

No decorations are complete without financial textbooks, right?

Kyler's parents were so kind to gift us with their framed profiles for Christmas, and we proudly display them here, and it seemed appropriate to add in the elephants which were also a gift from Kyler's mom from her India trip.

And of course, there's plenty of room to add to the collection whenever I find something fitting. I'm in no rush to fill all the space until I find something I absolutely love.

This picture on the bottom left was a placeholder when I received the frame. In it, my cheeks are all puffy from getting my wisdom teeth out that day, and for whatever reason, I haven't changed it out. Who doesn't want to commemorate their wisdom teeth extraction?

One last detail, I would be remiss to not mention Kyler's lone contribution to the whole unit...

While going through old boxes, Kyler found this gigantic trophy he received in high school. He calls it his Heisman and made a deal with me to keep it up for a week. We're on week two and it's still on display.

We're pretty happy with our faux built-in storage. Now we're just on the hunt for a nice desk. I think it's time to get rid of Kyler's college desk that he got for free at a garage sale at the Middletown Park.

Happy New Year!!

Wow! I know it's been a while since I've blogged, but it became so much more apparent when I typed in blooger.com instead of blogger.

Let me get caught up real fast.
Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year.
Happy MLK Jr. Day.
Happy Groundhog's Day.
Happy Birthday to our nephew Kaden.

I think that covers it!

As I was uploading our pictures, which I haven't done since Christmas, I realize that I have a lot of pictures that seem a bit dated now. So I'll start with the good stuff, but I'm warning you now, eventually the Christmas tree will make an appearance on the blog.

I'll start with the most exciting first. We decided to move our office down to the basement. This was kind of always the long-term plan, so I thought, why not just go for it. I'd seen some pretty awesome Ikea hacks (when you take their cheap furnishings and turn it into luxury-looking furniture) involving their Billy Bookcase, specifically this one and this one. So after a bit of convincing on Kyler's end, I had a game plan. And I was the sweet daughter who invited my parents to come visit, and they were so kind to help us complete our project!!

Let's start at the beginning. Our desired bookcases were 80" tall. And my husband told me to take the car and pick them up myself while he was playing church basketball. HA! We ended up having to borrow a friend's Tahoe, and the long bookcases barely fit in there. We had to move the passenger seat all the way up, meaning I was chauffeured home in the back seat.

There was a bit of drama involving the bookcases. The night before we had planned for my parents to come to Cincinnati, we checked the online inventory, only to find that there were 2 in stock when we needed 3. So we told my parents not to come until we found out if the project was even a 'go'. Lo and behold, they had only 3 of what we needed, and we were there at opening to snatch them up. I was one happy lady!!

The men set to assembling.

The ladies got to painting.

Sidenote(s): 1. I hadn't changed the setting on my camera to get that yellow color out of all photos. 2. my shirt matched the paint color. 3. I told Kyler I wanted to paint this wall a light blue/almost white, and then I came home with pea green paint. 4. I'm not sure why my mother was dangling painter's tape above my head.

Anyways, the men built bookcases, and the women painted.

One coat on the wall.

One bookshelf done.

Always looking our best in our painting outfits.

As many of you know, this room is huge!! We decided to only paint the wall the bookcases would be on, and decide what to do with the rest of the room at another time.

Dad having a pensive moment?

After the ladies finished the wall and clean-up, I moved on to help with some assembly. This is the part where my parents sat back and laughed at the two of us working together. Two head-strong workers right there.

The men had all the shelves assembled, only needing to attach the doors. So Mom and I went to pick up pizza. We thought when we came back that all the doors would be on. Nope, they were on the exact same door as when we'd left. Apparently there was a large learning curve because after they successfully got this door level on its hinges, we were off and running.

I worked on getting the doors ready for the men.

And at the end of the night, we had four free-standing bookcases. On Sunday, we added some trim to the top of the bookcases and down the seams to make it look like one cohesive unit. And at the end of the weekend, this is what we were left with.

On Monday, I was so giddy to get home from work and start styling my shelves. And that is enough content for another post. Hope you can handle the suspense!

Visiting Bloomington

A really long time ago, probably the beginning of November, my boss offered me two tickets to an IU basketball game. We all know how that game ended because we HAVEN'T LOST A GAME!!

But while in Bloomington, I got to meet up with my sister and her roommate :)

I came straight from work, and knowing that I'd have to wear my work clothes to the game, I picked something casual enough to wear in public. What I did not know was that the other team's color was green. So they're showing their dislike for my pants.

Our seats happened to be sitting right across from my sister and her friends. I found them in the zoom lens. Yeah, call me a creeper.

Ok. Now I think I'm all up-to-date, albeit a little late. I'm fully prepared for Christmas and New Year's updates now!!

Photo/Story Dump

Alternate Post Titles: The Humpty Dump. Dump Day on Hump Day.

Anyways...

We took a trip to the Cincinnati Zoo last Monday for their annual Festival of Lights. Unfortunately I take horrible photos at night, but I tried to document it anyways. And then...the camera died and I didn't even get to take many awful night photos.

They seriously had every tree, walkway, and building covered in all sorts of lights. This tree was at the entrance with dangly lights that simulated dripping icicles.

We did capture this less than desirable photo of the Nativity. I love that they had this set up in a world taking Christ out of Christmas.

And then we hit up the candy cane forest where the camera died.

Moving right along....

Our little kitty is cleaning things up around the house. Outside of the house to be clear. Last week I saw her chasing a bird before I left for work. And when I came home...

Tiny little gray feathers everywhere. Ok, maybe she's not cleaning up around the house. But she's making sure all the mice, moles, and other pests are taken care of.

And for my last story, I have no pictures.

Friday night, Kyler and I were headed out to the movies. We always take my car, so as I was hopping into the passenger seat, I realized it was full of gloves and the following conversation occurred:

Me: Holy moly! So many gloves! Who needs this many gloves in one place?
Kyler: I don't know. It's not even cold enough for gloves.
Me: Yes it is! Guess how many gloves are in my seat!
Kyler: I don't know.
Me: Five! How ridiculous that I have five gloves over here?
Kyler: How ridiculous that there are only five and not six.
Me:....silence.

Off to find my missing glove! Have a great Wednesday!!