Hydrangea

I've been enjoying the beauty of two hydrangea plants this year. It's pretty amazing because I've tried unsuccessfully for YEARS to grow a hydrangea plant. So this year, when the plants were priced at half off and they looked at least half dead, I decided to buy two plants. I brought them home and went about replanting them in some old urns that I had sitting around. I was doing this in the garage and I happened to remember that when I put in my lavender that I was told that it needed good drainage and they sold me some stuff that looked like kitty litter. So I saw an old bag of kitty litter sitting there in the garage and decided to put some of that in the bottom of the pots. Then I sat the pots under the deck on the back of our house so they wouldn't get much sun. FINALLY the plants started blooming and they are looking very nice. Much to my surprise there are at least 3 different colors of blooms on the same plant. Here are a few pictures:

For my sunflower lovin' friends

I can't stop looking out the back windows of our house. The sunflowers around our house are now blooming and it's just so darn pretty. So here are a few pictures I took while standing on our back deck.

Of course, just looking at the sunflowers from the back deck wasn't good enough. After all, the flowers were facing east and I was viewing their back side. So I put on my muck books, yes, with my shorts.... quite the fashion statement.... and I headed out to the field. Well, I couldn't just cut straight across the field through the sunflowers, so I had to walk around the long way and stay in the water ways. Thank goodness we don't have many close neighbors who might see me in my fashion attire! But after much walking, I did get some more sunflower pictures that I'd like to share with you.

You can see the side of our house in this last picture. In addition to seeing the beautiful scenery, I learned a lesson. Don't wear muck boots without socks, you'll get blsiters... which I did.

Yes, Toto, we are in Kansas and loving it!

I went out early this morning to get some good light to shoot some pictures of one of our fields of sunflowers. Yes, I live in Kansas, but this is the first year that we've ever planted sunflowers. Due to the drought and early heat, the wheat was harvested early and we double cropped. Planted the sunflowers right between the rows of wheat stubble.

I enjoyed my early morning jaunt. As you can see there are still plants that have not opened yet. Did you know that sunflowers are phototropic. Before the flower blooms, they will track the sun, moving their "heads" from east to west following the sun. But once the bloom is full on the plants they will stay facing east.

First One, Now Two

Well, I think I'm hooked!!! I really like using that Kreg Jig and building things. I certainly don't need another hobby but I think I have one now. The first planter box I built took me about 2 hours and I made several mistakes along the way. The second planter box only took 45 minutes. Horray! This is becoming fun. Now, I only have 6 more to build!

Pocket Holes

I bought myself a new tool, and I couldn't be happier with the way it works. Have you ever heard of a Kreg Jig? If you are a DIYer then perhaps you have. I'd strongly recommend it. I wanted to make some planter boxes for my daughter's upcoming wedding which means joining a lot of boards. These pocket holes work great for that. I got a planter box pattern from Ana White's website. If you haven't checked out her website, you should!

Here's what the Kreg Jig looks like.

Here's the planter box that I just built. It will be painted in the wedding colors and I have a golden privet bush to put in it. Now I just need to build 7 more. Oh, and I'm not a woodworker at all. If I can build this, then so can you!

Back to School Time

I can hardly believe it's been 10 days since my last blog post. What have I been doing with my time? Well, since I'm a high school teacher, I've been trying to get things done around my house so I can go back to school with a clear mind. I spent 3 days cleaning our mess of a basement. Since I redo furniture and other items for a booth where I sell vintage items, I am constantly working in our basement and it had become a REAL mess. Yes, I took before and after pictures but I just don't have the heart to post that for all the world to see... well, ok, for any of my 3 readers to see. LOL I've also been working in the yard, repotting plants, working at our church bazaar, and going to inservices for two different schools. Today was our first official day back at school even though I went down last week to get an early start. Mostly meetings today and tomorrow we get to work in our classrooms. Maybe I'll post a picture of my room at the end of the day tomorrow. :)

Bathroom spruce up

Last week when I was update a bedroom, I also updated the dressing room off the bedroom and the connected bathroom. A few posts ago I shared the bedroom make over but I haven't shown the bathroom make over yet. I feel a little silly showing a bathroom but hey, that's what this blog world is for... right? To share?

Here's what I started with. Blue walls and a yellow ducky theme.

A full view of the shower curtain. I gathered up all the ducky themed items that I was finished with, advertised them on a local for sale site and sold them within hours. I had the curtain, towels to match, waste paper basket. Some little kid will be thrilled to have these in their bathroom. I know my daughter was when I put them up for her!

I painted the walls the same gray as I used in the bedroom. I used all white accessories just like I did in the bedroom too. Kind of a shabby chic flair. This looks so much more grown up than the ducks. LOL

You know I love to use these vintage children's chairs in my decor. This one is holding a towel as it is sitting on a long counter.

This is a vintage print that I just love, the colors were just right for this room. I have it hanging in the dressing room area. The dressing room is just a very small space... it has the sink, and counter plus a door that leads to the walk in closet. Thanks for taking a look!

A Few Pictures from the Arctic

Recently I was honored to be selected as one of 14 teachers from across the United States as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow. This is a fellowship sponsored by Google, Oracle, Lindblad, and National Geographic. As a part of the professional development opportunity that accompanies this fellowship we traveled to the Arctic. Arctic Svalbard to be more specific. I was just asked to share a few of my photos with the other Grosvenor Teacher Fellows, so since I created a Picasa album anyway, I figured I'd share these here on my blog too. I hope you enjoy a few of the 3600 pictures I took on this fabulous trip. I just want to say that I LOVE the Arctic and this was one fabulous experience that I will never forget. I hope to blog more about the trip at a later time. But for now I'm just busy sharing my photos and stories with a variety of local groups. Click on the picture to scroll through and to see the captions explaining the photos a little.