Last year was my first attempt at a vegetable and herb garden. Hubs helped me by building a raised planter bed, which has held up well. I put what I thought was great soil in it. I even put in my own compost. I was so excited about all the nutrient rich goodness I was putting in there that I thought there was no way this garden wouldn’t THRIVE. However, my garden did not fare well. My tomatoes were small. I planted 6 pepper plants and had TWO peppers all summer! TWO! My cantaloupes died before they produced anything. My onions never grew. My garlic never grew. My lettuce bolted. So, basically it was an expensive lesson in preparation and planning.

Garden 2010

This year will be different!

This year I plan to do a soil test to make sure the soil pH is in the optimal veggie growing range and that I have the proper nutrients in the soil as well. This will give me the opportunity to fix any problems before I start planting.

Last year I also got a pretty good idea of what I don’t need to be planting in the middle of a hot Alabama summer. Things like lettuce…duh! Now that I know what I DON’T want to plant, I have come up with a plan of what I DO want to plant. It’s a novel concept, I know.

Each of the smallest squares represents one square foot.  The whole bed is 4′ x 8′ for a total of 48 square feet.  I’m trying really hard not to overcrowd the garden.  I think that may have been an issue last year too.  (I was a bit over ambitious.)

I am praying that this year’s garden will yield the results that I am hoping for.

I have been meaning to do something with our guest bedroom for a long time.  It has been nothing but a catchall that people happen to stay in when they visit.  Well, in an attempt to start checking things off the list of goals I got to work doing something about the spare bedroom. (I actually did this a while ago, but I’m a bad blogger.)

Here’s a picture of what it looked like after we painted but before anything else. This is actually a little embarrassing…

First things first, we painted the room a really pretty light blue. It immediately made the space better.  It now looks brighter, cleaner, larger, and is better smelling. (The previous owners had two nasty cats, but we won’t go there.)  And the color looks really great next to the bright white trim.

It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to arrange the furniture.  Not only does this space serve as the guest room but also as the office.  We’ve turned the previous office into a workout room.

Once I figured out where I wanted to place the furniture I set to decorating and organizing.  I started by finally going through all the few leftover boxes of randomness from the move and all the junk that had been thrown in there. Once everything was put away or set aside to donate, I started decorating.

I decided to keep the gold bedding and curtains.  I think gold looks really good with the blue wall color, and it was free. Also, I made a covered headboard. The headboard was actually very simple to make. I also chose to go with the tufted look by making covered buttons. I chose to cover it in a pretty floral that picked up the blue from the wall and the gold from the bedding. The fabric also brings in green as another accent color. And, side note, I made some extra covered buttons and tufted some cheap pillows that I got from Wal-Mart a while ago. It makes them a little fancier, I think.

For the office area of this room hubs and I built a desk. Yes, BUILT a desk! It really wasn’t too difficult to do either. The most time consuming part of the project was actually painting. We found some plans at www.instructables.com and modified them so the desk would fit our space and our needs. Psst… Instead of making a top we just painted a cheap hollow door from Home Depot. Now that all is said and done it looks great. We hung a couple shelves above for storage and to display art and other dust-gathering-what-nots.

There are a few more things I would like to do in this room.  I’m thinking about painting the other furniture in the room white. However, I’d prefer to do it outside so it will have to wait until some warmer weather comes around. Also, there are still some random things hiding in the closet that I need to go through and get rid of. And as is evident from the pictures, I have yet to paint the doors. I hate, I mean HATE, painting doors. I might paint them at some point…

Other than those last few loose ends, I’m pleased with how the room turned out.  And hopefully I’ll be able to check those (maybe the doors too) off my to-do list soon.

Fall is by far my favorite season.  The weather is wonderful.  The landscape is beautiful.  The clothes are perfectly cozy.  And the food is simply the best.  I have been so anxious for fall to get here that I decided to get a jump on things and mix up some yummy pumpkin muffins.  I used this recipe, which definitely did not disappoint.  These muffins were simple and delicious.  They turned out light and moist with the perfect amount of that spicy fall flavor I’ve been craving.  Not to mention, they made my house smell awesome!

With summer coming to an end I thought I’d serve up one of my favorite hot weather dishes.  This is, by far, my favorite summer pasta. It is so light and fresh, and just completely delicious. This dish is super simple and very quick and easy to make. It is perfect for a simple mid-week meal.  Serve it with garlic bread and a crisp white wine, and you are good to go.

Ingredients:

1. 2 fist-fulls of linguine or spaghetti
2. 3 cups of fresh baby spinach
3. 1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
4. 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
5. 4 Tbs butter
6. 1 Tbs garlic, minced
7. 2 tsp red pepper flakes
8. 2 tsp creole seasoning

Directions:
Combine shrimp with red pepper and creole seasoning, set aside.
Toast pine nuts over medium heat, making sure not to burn them, then set aside.
Cook the pasta to al dente. Do not drain until you’re ready to plate.
While pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Then add garlic and saute, about 1 minute. Add shrimp and cook until opaque.
To plate, drain the pasta and put on a large platter or in a large bowl. Add fresh spinach, toasted pine nuts, and shrimp. Pour the butter and seasoning over the top. Mix everything together and let it sit for a couple of minutes. This allows the spinach to wilt a little bit and become really tender.

I have finished my chair! It turned out to be a bit of an undertaking, but I followed this simple tutorial from creative maven and it turned out great. The cushion was tough, but I made it work.  It is definitely not perfect, it’s actually a bit puckery.  But oh well, it holds your ass.  I want to paint the legs at some point.  I probably should have done that first…oops.

I chose an avocado green chenille for the fabric. I think it goes really well with the other furniture in our living room, which is where it lives now.  It actually serves the very noble purpose of hiding our rediculously oversized subwoofer.  It is successfully doing the job of not letting our living room look like an electronics lover’s paradise.

I feel like the corner needs something else to round it out and make it look put together and finished.  However, that’s another project for another day though.