I've been busy...

(Click on any photo to view a larger image.)

It seems as though I was looking forward to summer barbecues just weeks ago and now it's the middle of September. Where has the time gone? I've been so busy this summer that time has flown by and I've barely posted anything on this blog. Where to begin?

My son and daughter each graduated from their respective community colleges this year and are deep in the throes of job hunting. They have a couple of prospects lined up so fingers and toes are crossed. My daughter came back home after graduation so we're all getting adjusted to having a full house again. My husband and I enjoyed a great second honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico in August and I was thrilled to return home to find that my children had not let my garden die of thirst in my absence nor had they trashed the house. Obviously they have either been well trained or feared for their lives upon my return. Either way, I liked the results.

As in every summer, I spent a lot of time in my garden but this year it was a mixed bag of results. Some things did very well, others did poorly. I tried my hand at growing some new things this year and was rewarded with some potatoes, one huge zucchini, broccoli, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes that are still coming in, carrots and peppers. I'm torn about planting next year. I'm thinking perhaps I should amend the garden and allow it to rest at least one year. At least it sounds good but I know I will miss the thrill of eating my own vegetables. Maybe I'll limit myself to containers next year so the garden can rest and rejuvenate. Perhaps.

I've also been doing some small home improvements and am still in the midst of them. During my week in Mexico my son painted his bedroom and did a pretty fair job considering he really didn't much experience at it. My daughter has also finally finished painting her room.  I foolishly suggested we try a gradient technique I saw on Pinterest. Silly me. Needless to say it was a lot more difficult than in appeared in the online tutorials. It took two weeks and enough paint to cover the Brooklyn Bridge to paint this tiny little room but I suppose that was due more in part to the fact that neither she nor her boyfriend really know what they were doing and because they spent as much time goofing around with each other as they did slapping paint on the walls.

I started stripping a small chest of drawers that a friend of mine gave me when she bought herself some new furniture. I got as far as taking off the old finish when my husband suggested that as long as I was stripping one thing, I might as well strip something else as well, whereupon he promptly brought me the bathroom radiator enclosure. Oh no! I'll leave the details of this project for another post. Still more stripping, painting and fixing up to be done around here. I haven't had much time to be creative but I'm hoping to take care of that very soon when I get around to refinishing the chest of drawers. I'm looking forward to it.

Oh, I almost forgot. My daughter decided to paint over her radiator to match the gradient wall. It's one of the prettiest parts of the room.
<----Looks pretty good, don'tcha think?

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva