Frost is Coming, Are You Ready?

last harvest of 2009

Well, it's officially fall: gloomy, rainy and chilly. And now that the first frost is coming tomorrow night, I can no longer deny that it's the end of a another garden season as well.

If you're a noob like me, I'd like to offer some words of wisdom I learned the hard way: don't take the first frost too lightly. It doesn't take much to turn those green tomatoes, veggies and flowers to mush, so if a frost is coming to your area get ready to cover up your delicates or pick them early.

Picking the almost-ripe produce is a no brainer, but what if frost is headed your way and like me your garden is bursting with green tomatoes or other unripe produce? Don't despair, those green tomatoes need not go to waste. Just pick them and either fry them and enjoy, or wrap them in newspaper and place in a cool, dark spot and they'll still ripen. I haven't tried ripening green tomatoes indoors yet because last year I thought the first frost wouldn't hurt and I lost a LOT of tomatoes, but I'll let you know how it goes this year. I've already got some green lovelies tucked in the basement and waiting, just in case, even though the frost won't hit tonight.

Don't forget about annuals or other flowers either. If you want to cover them go ahead, but if not, cut em and bring em inside to enjoy for a little while longer. Afterall winter is coming and it will be a while before we enjoy them again.

What a Difference a Rearrange Makes!

It always bothered me that there was no room in my kitchen for my cookbooks, because afterall, what better place for cookbooks to live than in the kitchen? But with no pantry, my cabinet space was filled with food, dinnerware and other necessities.

Then, thanks to some online inspiration and a quick rearrange, I found a way to squeeze my cookbooks into the kitchenNow the corner cabinet is more than just display space, it's functional too.

The Garden's Not Done Yet

This hasn't been a good summer for blogging, too much to do too little time, but it's been a great summer for my garden! I didn't want to miss yet another Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, so here's a better-late-than-never trip through my September garden.


Pic details: 1) zinnias*, 2) zinnias*, 3) roses, 4) poppies*, 5) snapdragons* 6) globe amarath* 7) lavender 8) Irish-Eyed Rudbeckia* and 9) nasturiums*.

I especially love that most of these flowers were winter-sown (everything marked with an asterisk). Winter-sowing is a super-easy way to get loads of interesting and cheap plants without having to babysit seedlings.

Want to see more blooms? Visit May Dreams Gardens every month on the 15th to see what's blooming in gardens around the world.

Note to Self, You Can Compost a Lot More!

Thanks to Apartment Therapy's link to this handy list of 75 Things You Can Compost, But Thought You Couldn't on Planet Green, I can start diverting a lot more stuff from the trash to the compost pile. Which is great, because despite composting and recycling, we still produce way, way too much trash. I blame the cats (because I can).

I routinely compost coffee and coffee filters, tea bags, veggie scraps, egg shells and non-weed plant material. But I'm not sure why I never added expired grains, cereal and bread. Also, until the leaves fall I'm low on browns, a need which cardboard can fill nicely. However, I'm not too sure about composting cat food, it's full of meat so I'm afraid it would attract rodents; or used paper towels and tissues, besides being gross what about the bleach and chemicals?

But stuff in the compost, means more nutrient rich brown gold for my garden and more flowers for me, like those yummy Zinnias pictured above. It's a win, win.

It's Time to Simplify: 365 Days of Decluttering Challenge

Even the good stuff can be overwhelming when there is too much

My years-long obsession with home and decor blogs seems to be waning a bit. Instead, I've been spending more time at blogs that deal with simple living. Blogs like Small Notebook, Simpler Living and Simple Savvy.

Don't get me wrong, I still visit upteen home and decor blogs, but I'm really interested in feeling less like a hamster on a wheel that's moving way too fast. Up until now though, I've just been looking, but min hus has been feeling more and more crowded. Most of the clutter is hidden, but it's impossible to find anything in many drawers and closets around here. But after looking at the 365 days of decluttering challenge, I thought, even I can do that one.

So here's the deal, I want to get rid of at least one thing a day for the next 365 days. I'll probably be doing this on the weekends, rather than daily, but I'm going to keep a list here. I'm not sure how often I'll post about this, it's got to be fairly boring (for all three of my readers), but we'll see.

I was actually so excited I got started last night and filled a couple grocery sacks full of trash, several things went to recycling and I filled one shopping bag with clothes and things to donate. The boy unwittingly participated yesterday too while he was cleaning the garage and got rid of four tires and rims, seven (yes, SEVEN) bucket-size kitty litter containers, an old plastic table. He put it all out on the curb and it was gone within an hour. Even all seven kitty litter containers, I'm still amazed someone wanted those.

The dearly decluttered:

1. Green plastic patio table
2. White shower curtain that shrunk
3. White O-N dress shirt (too big)
4. Black sandals
5. Red, white and blue knit shirt
6. Red pj pants
7. Blue plaid pj pants (week 1, August 23-29)
   
8. white t-shirt
9. white t-shirt
10. Old space heater (only half-works)
11. Old vacuum
12. Green bag
13. black tote bag
14. linen drawstring bag (week 2, August 30-Sept. 5)
15. black purse
16. Brown sweater
17. Pink sweater
18. Cyndi Lauer tape (it's time to let the casettes go)
19. Smashing Pumpkins tape
20. Toad the Wet Sprocket tape
    
21. Girl's diary (week 3, Sept. 6-12)
22. Unopened pine candle
23. Blue tealight holder
24. Small plastic water bottle
25. Dental tape
26. Martha Stewart Living - June 2009
27. Martha Stewart Living - September 2009
28. Green flower plate (week 4, Sept. 13-20 )
29. Kitty foot massager (lame)
30. Cloth napkins (4)
31. Partylite candleholder
32. Plastic tablecloth
33. Red mug
34. yellow mug
35. blue mug (week 5, Sept. 21-27 )
36. green mug
37. glass candy dish
38. pink plastic cup
39. Book: Smart mobs
40. Book: Knowing Knowledge
41. Book: The Three Theban Plays, Sophocles
42. Votive candles (week 6, Sept. 28-Oct. 4 )
43. Strawberry candle
44. Red bead tealight holder
45. Votive candles
46. IKEA mail holder
47. Cinnamon candle
48. Votive candle holder
49. Precious moments plate (week 7, Oct. 5-11 )
50. New black bra
51. New white bra
52. Unmentionables
53. Unmentionables
54. Brown and black purse (donate)
55. Blue cloth napkins (donate)
56. red shirt (week 8, Oct. 12-18 )
57. blue flowered shirt (donate)
58. orange t-shirt (donate)
59. purple clock (donate)
60. Organic garden magazines (10)
61. headband (trash)
62. round brush I never used (trash)
63. lotion (trash) (week 9, Oct. 19-25)
64. tan capris (donate)
65. Navy blue slacks (donate)
66. Merona black velvet dress (donate)
67. Jessica Howard dress (donate)
68. NYC tan linen slacks (donate)
69. Nine west gray slacks (donate)
70. Apt. 9 white capris (donate) (week 9, Oct. 25 - Nov. 1)
71. White short-sleeve sweater (donate)
72. White sweater (donate)
73. Old navy flower shirt (donate)
74. bottle of nail polish (trash)
75. bottle of nail polish (trash)
    
76. Book: Les Miserables (Half-Price Books)
77. Book: Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination (Half-Price Books) (week 10, Nov. 2 - Nov. 8)
78. Black ODCE bookbag (donate)
79. Coaster (trash)
80. Spatula (donate)
81. Sunglasses (trash)
82. IKEA 2009 catalog (recycle)
83. Pink Eddie Bauer sweater (gave away)
84. Black Eddie Bauer Sweater (gave away) (week 11, Nov. 9 - Nov. 15)
85. Navy blue Eddie Bauer Sweater (gave away)
86. 
    

Fixing the Leaks: How I Got My Living Room Back

During my first two weeks off I spent the vast majority of my time doing projects around the house, mainly a lot of scraping, paint preparation and a little painting. Most of the results wouldn't stand out to the average min hus visitor, but they do make the place look a little brighter and cleaner.

One fix does make a pretty big difference however, and it's the project that pushed me into project overload: fixing the leak damage in the living room. Long story short, the living room has had a moisture problem for, oh, way too long. It was an extremely slow leak, but over time it did some ugly damage.

So why did it take me so friggin' long to fix the leak? Well, it was way above my knowledge level so I turned to family, friends and finally a roofer for help. Multiple quick fixes were tried and failed. Many inspections and estimates were obtained and finally, I hired a roofing company to redo the chimney flashing (in two spots). I'm still shocked they didn't say I need a new roof, let's hear it for honest roofers.

And while I'm still not convinced the roof leak is 100% fixed (call me pessimistic, but if it's not fixed, I'm pretty sure I know the cause and a fix is already planned), I couldn't stand looking at the damage any longer. Really, I can't even guess how much time I've spent glaring, cursing and crying because of that wall. Oi.

So on Wednesday I finally started scraping all the loose paint and whatnot off. The area under the window, which had cracked paint, was the worst. The layers of paint came off pieces so large that I literally got nauseous. Fortunately, feeling nauseous is a common occurrence for me during projects, and it's only since I've survived it several times that I was able to not cry, freak out and call for reinforcements. The damage was so bad in fact that even the boy thought I'd gotten in a little over my head when he came home and saw with the first coat of patching compoun applied.

After a lot of scraping, and a little panicking, I patched the wall, sanded, patched, sanded and finally painted. This took two and a half days (lots of drying time is required of course) and brought me to the end of my project patience, but in the end it was worth it. Yesterday I celebrated by deep cleaning the room and house, doing some small rearrangements and then calling an end to all projects for the rest of the weekend. Aaah!

My patch job isn't perfect, but I'll worry about that after I know that the leak is completely banished. For now I can once again sit in the living room and relax.

Even the scary patch under the window looks good again!

My Little Ponies

Last weekend I went to North Carolina to visit family. While there, we went hiking at Grayson Highlands State park in Virginia (the Web site doesn't do it justice). I was ambivalent about going because it was a 45 minute drive and I was sick of being in the car, but once I got there I changed my tune entirely. I can sum up the awesomeness of this park in two words: wild ponies. Yes, you heard me, wild ponies. Once you enter the gate, you never know where the ponies may show up.

Most of the ponies we met were pretty friendly too. This little guy followed us for awhile, probably hoping for handouts. Seriously, how cool is it to hang out with wild ponies?

The hiking wasn't bad either, but bring a jacket and decent shoes. It gets chilly quick and the trails are rocky.

This place must be a big hit with kids (and kids at heart); it would have been my dream destination in my pony-lovin' youth.