In Full Swing

Vacation countdown is now in the single-digits: 9 days until Vegas! I'll really have to hunker down one day this week and take inventory of what travel necessities we have, and what I'll need to run out and get. Don't even ask about packing...sigh. But I'm so ready to get away. It feels like Disney was so long ago already (in fact, on this date 8 months ago, we were in the Magic Kingdom! Crazy!).

I'll be home tomorrow, but it won't be for vacation--Hubby is having his wisdom teeth removed. It doesn't sound like a picnic, and I've never had it done, but I'm sure it's much better now than if he had it done even 10 years ago. He'll be home from work for a few days, but should be back in action by week's end. Which is good because we have fun weekend plans and then vacation! Gotta get those chompers ready!

Despite the heat wave, it has been an extraordinarily productive weekend! Yesterday we went to the Adventure Aquarium for the first time since their New Year's Eve gala, and they done so many improvements! They basically redid the whole upstairs section that previously housed the "Weird or Wonderful" section (where the piranhas were) and the tropical section by the alligator and pretty useless area that was good for family photos and little else. In addition to that, a few other permanent exhibits got refurbished, that big old crocodile (Mike) was given the heave-ho in favor of bringing back the former exhibit with lookdowns and ducks and all, but with the addition of some baby nurse sharks, and (to my utter delight!) a baby bonnethead! The main attraction, however, was Sharkfest 2012, with the star attraction being lots of facts and artifacts of megaladon. It again made use of a normally void area, the rotunda, where a life-size "bone structure" of a megaladon was set up and filled with fossils and pictures and other cool stuff. For pictures of this, take a look at my Facebook--in the "2012" album. Lots of goodies there.

Back at home, I had finally hung our two 11X14 wedding prints in nice frames we got from Kohl's. Yes, please enjoy the AARP commercial on the TV--I was too lazy to grab the remote and shut it off. Below, also enjoy the gallery wall I created in our hallway using more wedding photos and a mish-mosh of frames. Also, the big frame that looks empty is actually a document with my favorite conversation from When Harry Met Sally, which my mom typed up and framed for me.

This morning we set up the new printer we bought in anticipation of having to print boarding passes before any local facility (library) would be open, and also we simply needed one. Our previous model had gone on the fritz and refused to print in color long before the wedding, and then Hammy knocked it over and broke it. So we've been without a home printer for over a year. Now we have a nice little model that runs off the wireless so we didn't even have to tether it to John's desktop, and we were able to place it somewhere Hammy can't really send it to the floor.

We spent the very last of our wedding gift cards at Bed, Bath, and Beyond today and got a nice set of 16 "grown up" drinking glasses. Now we've chucked most of our old plastic cups in favor of the pretty new set. We've saved some plastics, of course, for when we're too lazy to handle breakable pieces, but it'll be nice t have guests and set out simple, elegant, and (matching!) drinkware. But how will we know whose is whose, you ask? My friend gave me these funny little suction cup glass markers a while ago, but now we can really get some use out of  them! One set are little monster-type guys, and the other set are little birdies (you can see the boxes in the pic, but didn't think to put them on the glasses in the pics).

Lastly, since I had to make room for all the new glasses, I took the opportunity to gut the kitchen cabinets and clean and re-organize them. I wound up flip-flopping the contents of so the new glasses can be housed together and without fear of getting knocked into/over by other shelf inhabitants. In doing so, I no longer had a use for the shelf divider in either of the two flip-flopped cabinets. But that inspired me further...much like beneath the sink, my spice cabinet has been in desperate life-saving need of a makeover since...well, since we moved in, dang it. So, voila! The shelf divider finally corralled the bottles of spices, etc., that had taken to falling out on my head every time I needed to grab one. Ahhhh.

I figure just when I get this place all organized and perfect, we'll buy a house and I'll have to start all over again. But with that comes the dream of having actual storage space and less need to do the ridiculous things you have to do while living in a small-but-charming (but still small) apartment.

And so, until next time...

Downpours, and lightning, and hail, oh my!

What a wild ride to work this morning! We were at a near-standstill on 295 as rain came down in sheets, and then, if that wasn't enough, hail started pinging off my windshield. Nothing big enough to do damage, but it was still a bit unnerving. Oh yeh, there was some Hollywood-worthy lightning, too. Sheesh! Got to work safely and without incident, if not a little late. The it was intermittently sunny and cloudy the rest of the day with no more showers. Crazy.

After work today I met a friend for dinner while John took care of some errands of his own. I stopped at Target, too, to get some boring things like Febreze and Tide, but also to get two new lampshades! I inherited a nice table lamp, but its shade was a little too Giddy Up Corral for me, so it had to go. And the shade on the Ikea lamp in the living room was pretty much incapable of holding its shape after some 4 years and 2 moves. And so, the home sprucing continues!

Bedside lamp, before:

Bedside lamp, after: breezy and light.

Living room lamp, after (cuz I forgot to take a before apparently).

In backlog sprucing news, I have tackled the problem under the sink! There are two small repairs that are needed--the hot water knob is really wonky; and the pipe sometimes leaks. So there's still an old throwaway bake pan under there to catch drips until we get them repaired. I do love me some organizational helpers!

It came from beneath the kitchen sink...

But then its neatnick cousin visited and we have this...

Next project, new shoe storage. Still searching for something I like to corral the kicks.

And lastly, my once-drowned caladiums (in the front yellow pots) are making an extreme comeback! This is what they looked like a few weeks ago, and below is what the look like now!

Hubby and I spent Saturday at our beloved Ocean City, NJ. We left early, grabbed some Wawa for the cooler, and were on the sand by 9:30. Ahhhh. The air was warm, and so was the water, even if we had to trek through about three feet of broken shards of shells that had washed up in Friday night's storms. We spent hours riding swells, floating around, and laying in the sand.We stumbled upon a wedding--literally. We walked out of a shop on the boardwalk to find OCBP had blocked boardwalk traffic so the bride and her dad could process across and down onto the beach where about 50 guests, a photographer, and her groom were waiting. It was awesome and beautiful. John and I John and I watched for a while, then continued on our way. We even had a delicious and romantic dinner at a restaurant right on the boardwalk.It was my perfect day. We paid a bit in the end, though...as it was our first outing, our pale flesh burned in the relentless sun. But we were strict in reapplying sunblock, so it wasn't too bad, and nothing we can't nurse with nice, cool, from-the-fridge aloe. No pics to share, though, since I had a completely unplugged day. I didn't turn my phone on at all, didn't even take it with me. And likewise left my camera home. I even left my purse, grabbing only the few bare essentials I'd need. Perfect, glorious, blissful. More, please.

Summa, summa, summa time!

Heat wave is dominating New Jersey, and our air conditioners are doing their darndest to churn out cold air. Did a little more summerizing around here, and am happy to see my once-drowned but now-rehabilitated caladiums popping back up and opening their leaves. Will post some pics of them soon--just wanna give them some more time to grow tall.

In the meantime, I'm white-knuckling it until Saturday, when John and I will depart for a day at our beloved Ocean City (New Jersey, not Maryland). Gosh I miss my beach. So looking forward to a day in the sand and surf because it's the one time and place I can completely unplug from all worry and ties to real life back on the mainland. Ahhh.

Went to tea with some girlfriends after work today, which was a much-needed disconnect from work. Sipped a delicious ginger peach iced tea, and we split a Mediterranean platter with pita, hummus, babagonoush, and tebolah. Yes, I likely misspelled them, and yes, I'm too lazy to search the proper spelling. Then I stopped off at Target to pick up some last-minute beach essentials (new floppy hat and flops), and also to scope the cute strapless knit dresses that were in the ad for this week. Well, seems I waited too long and all the cute ones in my size got snapped up. Tried one on a size too large and it looked nice, but was juuuust big enough that it didn't fit right. I may cave and order the one I like in the size I need online. Thinking that over. Then...the adventure with the maxi dress.

The maxi dress, folks, is supposed to be the breeziest piece in a woman's summer wardrobe, yes? Throw it on and dash to the grocery store, dockside drinks, twilight dunes...I could feel the breeze in my air as I closed the fitting room door. Then, I realized I might actually be too stupid to navigate one. The spaghetti straps for the slip were attached to the overlay so they'd stay together while in the store. This bamboozled me because the dress could not be shimmied up over my hips, so I had to put it on over my head. Because the straps were attached, I kept getting both arms through both straps, and the overlay was choking me. This happened in varying maddening degrees long past when I should have given up. But finally, I flipped the overlay inside-out, pulled the slip on (arms in the proper holes) and then flipped the overlay over my head and into place. Badda bing! Had I stepped out of the fitting room, everyone would have though I just woke up looking fabulous, never knowing I was struggling like a mofo behind closed doors.

Will post pics of the new stuff later on, but for now, summer in my dining room:

More Improvements on the Homefront

Subtle though they may be. I've got the bug...the I-wish-it-was-summer-now bug. Not because I'm aching for the heat and humidity we're currently experiencing to stay for good, but because it will mean the annual calm-down at work, vacations galore, BBQs, and lazy hazy days spent at the beach or lake.

I initially intended to wait to start busting out the summer decor until next weekend, as a celebration of post-commencement happiness. But alas, after a feverish afternoon of shopping for fun things like fans and vacuums, I couldn't help myself. I assembled said fan and vacuum as soon as we got home, then got down to changing up the bedding, arranging a new dining room centerpiece, swapping out the shower curtain, and putting said new vacuum to use. Oh, yeh, baby!

Why am I so freakishly excited about a new vacuum? Our old one functioned rather well despite its age (John got it as a hand-me-down when he started college--I'll let you do the math). But it was a Bissel, and those suckers (haha) are built to last. It was starting to wear out, however, and I really wanted one with the attachment to inhale the mounds of cat hair that are piling up. And holy crap is it amazing! Revolutionary! Life-changing! I don't know if Hammy hasn't yet realized that this is a whole new monster (he was, of course, terrified of the older model), or mybe this one isn't as loud/audibly upsetting to him, but he remained in the room while I vacuumed, simply starting at the thing as if he wasn't quite sure whether or not to trust it.

The tower fan for the kitchen was a long-overdue necessity. As the kitchen is the only room in the house without a cross-breeze, when you couple that fact with the fact that the back of the house bakes in the sun pretty much from 1:00 onward, it gets rather sweltering in there. Doing dishes, cooking...forget it. You better hit the showers afterward. We meant to get one last year, but just never got around to it. This year it was at the top of the to-do list.

The last new and exciting piece was a towel rack for the bathroom door. Our current one had been with us since our first apartment, and performed admirably until the bottom rung broke and I kludged it back together with duct tape. Except that it recently reached a point where I could kludge no more. So we happened upon a great replacement at Target today, and we took it on home. It even has an awesome little shelf that's handy for solving another ongoing problem: lack of storage. We can now keep extra hand and face towels right there. Ahhh.

Here are some pics, cuz I know you're dying to see and be as excited as I am! Happy almost-summer, everyone! Make sure you toast our veterans and military personnel this weekend. I have a handful in my own life I'm thankful for.

 Oh, hey there, good-lookin. You must be the new kid.

Behold, my new cleaning obsession:

Ahh, this truly makes such a difference.

Goodbye, old busted towel rack.

Hello new multi-tasking genius!

My mom made the napkin rings--they look like life savers and say S.S. Riggi on them.

Garden: Check!

Well, it's as complete as it's going to be. My caladiums flooded and the bulb rotted, but I repotted and mixed in new, dry soil so maybe they're dry out and bounce back. I'm not giving up on them yet. : )

Here are some shots of what things currently look like now that the complex's landscapers have re-edged the flower beds and put down fresh mulch. Now the plants pop against the black background instead of blending in with the brown dirt. Just posting the before and afters. If you want to compare the whole process, read down one post.

Full garden, before:

Full garden, after:

Section one, before:

Section one, after:

Section two, before:

Section two, after:

End garden, before:

End garden, after:

And here is my Shepard's hook, finally completed with bird feeder and lantern:

I've also recently gutted and reorganized and cleaned the hallway coat closet, but forgot to take pics. But boy does it make me smile every time I go in there. Versus the anxiety-inducing cringing that used to happen. Next up: It Came from Beneath the Kitchen Sink! That is the other black hole...I hope to also take that from nightmare to dream. Stay tuned.

And eventually I'll pop back on with some pictures of recent baking adventures. Hello, muchstaches. 

For now, off to enjoy the balmy day with the bestie.

...and make our garden grow...

I've gotten a lot of work done on my garden! I still feel like it's kinda bare--it's hard because it'll take until long after we've moved away for it to fully fill in. BUT I'm very happy with the progress of in-ground perennials. I think I just need to pot up some brighter (but obviously still shade-loving) annuals to add some peeks of color. I've been trying to select plants (and planters) that pop against the dark brick of the building, and this also means they'll show up nicely when they're in shadow.

I'm limited not only by the few shade (and clay soil) loving plants available, but also by the simple fact that we rent, and some of the scrubby ugly bushes we inherited we will just have to work around. If this were our own house, I'd rip all those hideous shrubs out of there and replace them with some nice ground cover, add in taller plants in the back, perhaps plant a small dwarf-type tree (one that reaches about 6 feet or so fully grown), and the go nuts with hostas and the other purple-leaved plants you'll see below. But since I can't rip it all out and start over, there's a healthy dose of "Just deal with it" here. Tis a tough pill to swallow, though.

Anyway. I'm happy with the progress, but not ready to call it done yet. Below are some pics of where things started this spring (the two hostas I put down last year are back but still filling in and opening up). And the sad wispy green leaves you see in the "before" of the end garden shot is a failed tulip bulb. Poor thing just doesn't get enough light to do anything more than sprout leaves and then feebly flop over.

Here you go:

This year's new additions:

 

Full garden view, before:

Full garden view, as it is now:

Section one, before:

Section one, at present:

Section two, before:

Section two, at present:

End garden, before (see that sad little green clump?):

 End garden, at present (this is my favorite transformation, as it's the most changed):

 And finally, this little guy is the centerpiece on our dining room table!

More to come, but I hope you can appreciate the difference. Look how nice the soil looks in the "afters." I tilled it all up before I put down the new plantings. Ahhh.