Look How My Garden Grows!

One of Ryan and my ultimate goals is to grow 100% of our own produce from our backyard. This year we decided to start with one garden bed, and were given all of our plants from friends and family. We recieved so many seedlings, that we actually ended up digging out 2 garden beds. I have to say, I'm actually shocked by how well our garden grew! I was told to expect the worst, because the first year of a garden doesn't produce much, but we have been pleasantly surprised by our harvest!

Here is our garden the day we planted it:

Ryan and I hand dug this first bed, and the second bed I dug myself. All of the rocks that are outlining the beds we found in the ground while digging! We decided that this first year we would experiment and see what grew, what didn't, how much we needed to water (very little, actually) and how much we ate.















So with a little help from some great lobster compost we found and mother nature, here are our gardens now:

Our cherry tomato plant decided to spread out instead of up, but we have been getting a pretty constant stream of tomatoes from it!

                   Our bell peppers are just starting to form...they must be a later-in-the-season thing?

We have more chocolate mint than we know what to do with! I think I'm just going to throw a bunch of it into a pitcher of water this weekend and see what happens! I've been really happy with the amount of basil we've gotten: enough for a couple of pestos and a LOT of tomato and mozzarella salad! Next year we are going to plant an entire bed of just herbs, because we use them so much, and there's nothing like fresh, organic herbs!

These are the tomato plants from the second garden bed. They have literally taken over and need bigger cages, because they keep falling over! Next year we are going to do a bed of just tomatoes as well, because we eat a lot of them and they take over everything!

The Ugly Tomatoes are absolutely blowing me away this year: they're huge! They're already bigger than my fist and not even turning red yet. So excited to eat these!

This was my harvest this afternoon! Our beets are finally done growing and I can't wait to eat them! In the middle are purple green beans. I'd never had them before this summer, but they are delicious!

I'm sad that the raspberries are coming to the end of their crop. Most of the perimeter of our property is covered in wild raspberry bushes that we enjoyed very much! And towards the end of them we noticed some black raspberries! They're so yummy!

I'm so glad we did a garden this year! It was a lot of work at first, but once it got established, it took off and needed little maintenance! After we composted, we threw hay over the dirt in the beds to control the weeds, which really did help! I haven't watered it with the hose in over 2 months; the rain is taking care of all of the watering. Next year, we are going to dig out 3 more beds for a total of 5, and I can't wait to eat even more yummy vegetables! We're also considering planting some fruit trees! :-)

Night Driving

I love to drive at night. There’s something amazing about driving past a stranger’s home, a yellow-orange glow coming from the windows, and a scene is captured. As you drive by a single moment is there, but for most it happens to quickly to notice. But it is a moment that will never happen in the same way again, and you are the only witness. Everything in that moment, from the outside looking in, is perfect. All is in harmony and all is well. They are home, in their element. No guarded walls or social fronts are put forth, and they are relaxed and pure. Sometimes you see a family gathered around the dinner table, or playing a game, or cleaning up from their meal. Sometimes you see a husband and wife, the years of their life visible on their faces, reading in their favorite chairs in their library. Or sometimes you see a woman lovingly playing with her dog. When I hear a car drive by, I wonder what moment they are seeing from my home, and if they paused to appreciate it. Whatever is depicted in these moments, it’s perfect. There can be no conflict, no tension, and no hardship in that one single scene.

Don't Judge a Paint Color by Its First Coat

My next project in the house was to paint the dining room. Ryan and I are both earth signs (Taurus and Capricorn) so we tend to pick a lot of earthy things for the house: furniture, paint colors, etc. And when you have too many earth things in your house (as I learned from a feng shui book I read a while ago) the energy in the house starts to feel very heavy, making it hard to get motivated and be productive. So, I decided that I would add a little fire element to our home by painting the dining room a deep red. For those of you painting a dramatic color, like red, here is what I learned. Read this before you decide anything and I hope you will be better prepared!

We went to Home Depot and picked out the color. A nice, deep red. They mixed a gallon of it for us, and then he opened the lid for us to see the color: it was fuschia! I about had a heart attack! He then explained that with red paint, the color, when it's wet, is much different than when it dries, and it will be much darker when it's on the wall. He dried a sample for us, and I felt a little more at ease, but still really nervous. I knew that if it was a disaster, it would take a lot of work (and money!) to get it back to the way it was.

The next day, I painted the first coat onto the walls. And again, was horrified. I was using a brush, not a roller, to paint, and it looked like I had murdered a large animal. The color was blood red. When Ryan got home, he calmed me down and told me to paint another coat the next day. He said it would deepen with the next coat. I decided to trust his judgment, because there was no turning back at this point!

 So, the next day I held my breath (figuratively, of course) as I painted the second coat. And much to my surprise, Ryan was right. It did deepen with the second coat. It ended up needing three coats in all to get a smooth finish, but now I'm really happy with the results and grateful that I trusted my partners decision. :-) I also learned a very valuable lesson: don't judge a paint color by its first coat!

Stuff I Love

About a year a half ago, Ryan and I made a commitment to cut down our use of plastics. Plastics actually break down into your food/water and you then ingest the chemicals - yuck! So, we decided to get rid of all of our plastic tupperware and replace it with glass Pyrex, and to replace our water bottles. We tried the metal water bottles, but didn't like the metallic taste it left behind, so I began on my search for a glass water bottle. We tried the Aquasana ones, which served their purpose, but were too big. They didn't fit comfortably into a bag, were very heavy, hard to clean with their small opening and broke easily if dropped.

One day, I ventured into a local health food store and found the LifeFactory Glass water bottles. I immediately bought a few of them and put them to use. They have become our go-to bottles, because they fit easily in the car cup holders and into a bag, are easy to hold with their outside grip, dishwasher safe, and have a wide opening (easy to clean!). I definitely recommend this over any other that we've tried if you are looking for a good, portable glass water bottle. They also come in a lot of cute colors! :-) And, the same company makes baby bottles which is really neat! Check it out and let me know what you think!

Lessons My Puppy Taught Me

Today my Goldendoodle puppy, Kiowa, is 6 months old, and I thought I would celebrate with a little tribute to him. Here is what he has taught me:

1.)    Your quirks and obsessions are what make you unique.

2.)    There’s nothing wrong with sleeping all day.

3.)    Butterflies are fascinating and fun to chase.

4.)    There’s so much joy to be had in a fresh, cold bowl of water.

5.)    Wood floors are slippery.

6.)    Sometimes you just need to be in solitude and have your own space.

7.)    The best part of the bed is right in someone else’s spot.

8.)    Receipts aren’t necessary and must be torn up.

9.)    Fetching is overrated.

10.)     We all instinctively know what is good for us and what isn’t.

11.)     Intuition knows best.

12.)     Cars, crates and barking dogs are scary.

13.)     Living in the moment is the only way to be.

14.)     Favorite spots are hard to give up.

15.)     Outsmarting humans is precisely the meaning of life.

16.)     Grass is best for rolling in and eating.

17.)     Happiness is always wagging your tail, even while you are sleeping.

18.)     Sometimes not listening to what you’re told is totally worth the punishment later.

19.)     Rain. Is. Awesome.

20.)     Everyone must be greeted equally.

 
 

Fireplace Makeover

When Ryan and I moved into our new house in March, the house was in such great shape that we unpacked and left it at that. We didn't want to attempt any projects while we were still commuting into Boston every day. Well now that I am no longer doing that commute, the itch to paint has been slowly creeping in. I am now at a point where I feel like we are settled, and it's time to personalize the space to really make it our own. Because we just purchased and installed a new wood stove (to be discussed further on another post ;-)), I felt like the fireplace was the best thing to tackle first.

Here is our fireplace before:

It's a great space, and we were very fortunate to even have a fire place in our first house. The built-ins in this house is one of the things I love the most, because I think it adds a lot of character. However, there's so much going on around the fireplace that I feel as if it gets a little lost in the shuffle. We also wanted to better highlight the gorgeous glass bowl above the mantel that my brother made for us. We debated about the color and where exactly to put it for a while, and finally came up with a lightened version of Behr's "toffee crunch". I thought for a long time about whether or not I should paint the built-ins around the fireplace, but in the end we decided it would be too much color. We stuck to the middle section, painting the white parts and keeping the yellow/beige. The insert around the opening to the fireplace had to go so that we could install the stove (thank goodness! The brass and black were just not doing it for me). After days of taping, painting and installations here is what we have now:

I would also like to mention that this entire makeover cost us $5! (not including the stove and installation of course!) I started with a color sample of the paint to see what it would look like and realized that there was a lot more paint in that little jar than I thought! I did two coats of the paint and only used two of the samples, and still have a little left over for future touch ups. If you're only painting a small area, the samples are the way to go! They're only $2.50 and you get a decent amount! :-)

I'm still undecided about what to do with the built-ins and thinking about maybe painting them in the future. Anyone have any great suggestions? I would love to hear them! In the meantime, on to the dining room!

Stuff I Love

I've decided to add a new bi-weekly segment to my blog in which I post a book or a thing that I love. I love when people recommend great books to me, or when I am debating over a product purchase, I like talk to someone who has actually used it and can tell me their honest experience with it. I am not paid for any of these reviews, but just thought it would be a good way to share what I love. I would also love to hear your suggestions of things you love and use on a daily basis or a great book that you just finished! :-) I will also provide a link to the book or product below, in case you'd like to read more reviews about it or purchase it! So, enjoy!

I'm going to kick off this segment with a book that has become one of my favorites. It's called The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I know I have already mentioned this book to a few people individually, but it's definitely worth a more public mention. I read this book about a month before my boyfriend and I got a puppy, and oddly enough it gave me a really incredible viewpoint into his thoughts (my puppy's not my boyfriend's :-)). The book is told completely from a family's dog's point of view, and gives a very unique perspective on all of the strange things that humans do. What I love most about this book is that as you're reading it, the fact that you're reading a human's writing doesn't even cross your mind. I was completely engrossed in it being told by a dog and actually had to stop and think about the fact that a human wrote it! The writer did a fabulous job of really putting himself into the mind of his dog and observing things as his dog would. It's a great book and I highly recommend it as a lighthearted, fun read that will change the way you look at your pet.

A Bee's Tale

This morning when I opened the windows in my house, I learned something very profound. In our house, we have the kind of windows that you crank open and the glass opens away from the house. At night, when we close them, sometimes, because it’s too dark to see, a flying insect of some kind gets trapped in between the glass and the screen, and must wait until morning to be freed.

Well, this morning I opened one of the windows in the dining room, and realized that a bee had gotten caught in it the night before. It was flying everywhere it could along the glass the find an opening, but as I opened the window so that it could be free, it still fought against the glass. I figured it needed a minute to realize it was free, so I continued opening the rest of the windows. When I was done, I came back to that first window, and there was the bee, still pushing against the glass even though the window was open and it was already free.

 I thought about this for a while, because there’s a lot of truth in what I just witnessed. Many times, people (myself included) don’t know how much freedom we really have. We push against our circumstances thinking it’s the only way out, when in fact, there’s freedom within our grasp, if we’d just change our direction slightly. Call it a waking dream, or call it an epiphany, or call it a person reading way too much into an insect’s reality; either way, I encourage you to consider the event and how it relates to your life. What circumstance are you giving in to, because you feel like there’s just no other way? What’s stopping you from a life worth living?
 

But where do you keep your TV?

            This is definitely the single most common question my boyfriend, Ryan, and I receive when someone new comes to visit our house. They take the tour of our house and inevitably ask “So where do you hide your TV?” And my answer is always received by shock, “We don’t have one.”

            You can tell a lot about a person, by their reaction to our answer. Some don’t challenge it, but you can tell they think we’re strange. Some think we’re kidding. Some think maybe we just don’t have a full cable package (just the basics), and keep our television hidden in some fancy hidden compartment in a piece of our furniture or in a room that wasn’t on the tour. To some, the idea has never occurred to them. And to the rare few, some think it’s a great idea.

            I actually had a very amusing encounter when I called to set up our internet a few months ago: When I called the company, the man ended our conversation by saying, “We also offer cable, and can probably save you some money on what you’re paying now. Who are you using for your cable currently?” When I told him that we don’t have a TV, I was met with silence. I could tell he was scanning his script for a rebuttal, but there was nothing written for that.  Once he had gathered himself he said, “But it’s good to have even just basic cable with us anyway, because we can save you money on what you’re currently paying.” No matter how much I explained, I just could not get it through this guy’s head that we did not have a TV. He had never heard of it, and had, obviously, never thought it a possibility. This just goes to show how reliant our population is on the screen in their living room that showcases another’s life. Why are we so fascinated with drama happening elsewhere to people we don’t even know?

            Our decision to throw out our TV happened about a year and a half ago. At the time, we didn’t have cable (because who needs another bill?), but were still able to get a few channels through the antennae. Growing up in a family where TV is the most common past time, and one of the few times when everyone can stand being in a room together, it had become something that was a part of me. Ryan, on the other hand, grew up without a lot of TV, so when he discovered it later on, it was a total novelty. So, combine these two backgrounds, and you have two people who love to waste time in front of the television screen. After about six months of having regular shows to watch, and sometimes just having it on for background noise, we looked at each other one day and said, “Why are we fighting so much lately?” The answer: we aren’t spending any fun time together, because we just don’t have enough time. And why don’t we have enough time? Because we are spending all of our free time at home, watching these shows about which we have no idea why we care. So, the decision seemed easy: throw out the TV!

            At first, it was actually painful. I wanted to know what happened during the rest of the season on my favorite shows, because I was invested in the plots and the characters and others’ journeys. And I wanted to watch my favorite morning talk shows and news while I got ready for work. But then, something amazing happened: I had more time to do what I wanted to do! Instead of watching someone else take risks and live their life, I actually I had time to do that for myself. How many times have you found yourself saying, “I just don’t have time to do that”? Well, how much time would you need to do that thing you don’t have time to do? And how much time do you spend watching TV during the day or after you get home from work? Do those two seem to match up at all?

 A long time ago, I heard the saying “If you want time, you must make it.” And it’s true! There is always plenty of time; it’s just a matter of how you’re using it. So instead of watching TV, we started playing cards, eating dinner at the table, talking, painting, reading, exercising: all things that gave us down time, but also that gave us enjoyment, time together and fulfillment of experience.

            So I challenge you to find one thing that you’ve always wanted to do. Figure out how much time a day you would need to do it, and then cut that amount of time out of your television watching. Trust me, it works!

Here Goes Something...

     I have thought about starting a blog for a long time. I read blogs regularly: some by people I know, and others I have just happened to come across. It's something that I've been considering for a couple of years now, but I could never decide what would be my overall topic. A friend of mine suggested writing down a list of things that I love and am knowledgeable about. I took her advice, made my list, and soon realized I have many things that I am passionate about, but no overwhelming interest. I have held jobs in a broad range of fields, tried out many different hobbies and I feel as if I have a moderate interest and skill in them all. So, I then decided that I could combine all of this and write whatever happened to come up that day. It could be a project I am working on, something I am researching about or any other topic that pops up.
     But then I needed a theme that could tie all of those things together. And that's when I realized that all of these things that I have an interest in or that I have tried or researched, are all involved in creating the life that I have always wanted and imagined. Every step I take, I am manifesting my reality. I choose to focus on the positive or the negative, the fear or the love, the dream of what can be or the reality of what is. This is my passion. There is so much empowerment and liberation that comes in creating WHATEVER YOU WANT.
     So come along with me on my journey through establishing not only my life, but also finding out who I am and my place in this world. I will share advice, mistakes and amusing events that happen along the way: from growing a garden, raising a water-obsessed puppy who thinks he's a cat, preparing our home to live sustainably, and making organic and wholesome choices, to designing our space in which we live, organizing the junk, living in the middle of nowhere, painting and art, losing weight, finding health, and thinking and acting consciously.
     I hope to share what I have learned or what I am learning, and to receive advice and comments from those reading this who have been through or are going through something similar. So, let's jump in, have some fun and learn a thing or two!