May 2-4 Weekend

This past weekend was a busy one for us. We went down to my Nanny's to help her do some outside things.   She had a long "hunny-do" list for John, which included putting shelves up in her new garage, getting propane for the BBQ, fixing the base of a lighthouse my Poppy had built.  He also found other things, such as trimming back some trees and mowing her lawn, to add to the list.  While he was doing all of that, I worked on her gardens, cleaning up one under a blue spruce in her backyard and then another against the back of her house and planting a couple of plants she had.  My mom goes down and does the majority of her garden as her mother's day gift to her, but since she hadn't gone down yet, I thought that I would get it started, so there wasn't as much for her to do.

We were able to get a lot of things accomplished in a short amount of time, which was really nice. I wish we lived closer so that we could help her out more, especially since my Poppy is gone, but I know that even a weekend like this, she really appreciates.  Plus it is really nice to get to visit with her, and as an added bonus my sister was there and my aunt came over for dinner!

We came back early on Sunday so that we could hit up the stores before they closed, as we did not have a lot of food in the house, plus we needed a few things so that we could continue work on the closet on Monday.  After we got everything and had a bit of a rest, I got John out to help me put some flowers in the garden under the tree.

Let me back up a bit.  Tuesday night I began cleaning up the gardens, as I knew I would be away on the weekend and not have enough time to get everything done.  When I cleaned up under the tree, I discovered that the majority of the flowers we put in the garden under the tree did not survive.  I was a little dumbfounded as we worked it up a lot and put a lot of new soil in (you can read all about it here).  I decided that I would pick up some more plants when I picked up the mulch that night and see if I could get them coming back.  I only picked up three because I wanted to see what would happen, as I really thought it was strange that the other ones did not survive the winter.  Well, when I went to go dig the hole for the first one, I realized why all but three of the original plants had died (and I'm not even sure that two of those three will survive...), the tree roots had taken over and there was hardly any soil!  It was like all the work John and I put into it last year did not even happen!  Needless to say I was not happy.  I was only able to get one of the plants I bought in and decided I would get John to help me.  As I thought I needed my big, strong husband to dig his way through the roots and help me plant the two little plants I had...Turn out the roots won!  Knowing that nothing was going to grow there, we came up with a new plan...put in another garden!

You see, we have this patch of grass which is directly under the tree which would never grow very well and we had been toying with the idea of putting in another garden, well Sunday night we decided that we would do that.  We had some extra bricks in our backyard, so John brought some up, and we roughly placed them where we wanted them.  John also dig up most of the grass and got it ready to make it into a garden.  Monday morning, I hit up the garden center nice and early (it's starting to become a tradition for me) and picked up garden fabric, soil, more mulch, and more plants.  We decided that we would put the spotted nettle plants in the new garden, as we really like them and know that they grow nicely in that general area.  I also needed a few annuals for my garden box in the front, so it was convenient to get it all done.

I spent about 3 hours picking up the stuff and working on the gardens, while John worked a little on the house (until it turned out he bought the wrong sandpaper for his sander and could not get very far with it) and mowed and weed wacked the lawn.  Here are some pictures from our productive Monday!

Beginning of the new garden!

The garden under the tree which has virtually none of the new soil
which we laid down last year.

Trunk full of goodies for the garden!

Part of my work from Tuesday night. Trimmed it back and
put mulch around it.

Put the bleeding hearts in a few weeks ago, as I took
them out for the winter, placed them in pots and put
them in the backyard garden.  They survived the winter. YAY!

Looks a little bare compared to last year, but at least it looks
nicer with the mulch down.

Soil is all in and ready to go!

Garden all finished.  Looks pretty nice.

All the gardens really opens up the entrance way
to the house.

Flower box is done.  The annuals fill in
the empty spaces.

Backyard garden all finished.  Was a little easier this year, as
pretty much everything is perennials, so I don't really have to do any planting!

We're trying out asparagus in the veggie part.  Hoping it will turn out!

The chives came back after sitting on the patio all winter.  They are
some pretty strong chives!!
We're also doing dill again as we went through a lot of them this past
year. 

Home Reno 3.2

It's been two weeks since I last posted an update on our front entry closet and numerous family members have been pointing that out to me.  Sorry that I have been a bit behind, I have been very busy and, while John did work on it last weekend, the cabinets didn't really change a whole lot, so I thought that I would wait until there was more obvious progress, which happened this weekend! :)

I'll begin with what happened last weekend.  Last Saturday we got up, did some measuring and went to Home Depot to get some supplies for the day (not unlike the two weekends before this...we tend to live at Home Depot while working on projects).  We got all the facing boards and the veneer and hardware for the doors.  When we got back, John got to work getting the facing boards up.  While it may be an obvious difference to most people, the facing and really hidden a lot of the screws and nails and has just made it look more finished overall.  We also decided to get some crown molding for the top of the cabinet, which gives it that "grandeur" feeling.  Here is the outcome of that weekend...

The bottom is on, making it look a lot closer to be complete!  

Crown molding is up.

Facing board on the bottom.  It covered up
a lot of the screws and nails John used to
put the whole thing together.

John also completed one of the doors last weekend, which I veneered, but I did not get a picture of it, mainly because I was tired and forgot.  But it does look pretty nice.  I will be a pro at veneering at the end of this!

This weekend we made more progress.  Friday night while John was at his softball game, I veneered the front of the shelves in the cabinets.  It turned out pretty well.  

My veneering job.

This morning, John got to work on another door and cleaning out the cabinet so that I could stain.  I got to work staining while he was going to finish the doors.  Only thing we had not thought about was how he needed to measure the doors against the opening and how I was staining those openings and making them wet.  John quickly decided that he was going to need to work on the doors later!  Instead he helped get the staining completed.  We had the staining by lunchtime and after supper we put one coat of varathane on, as we decided that we only needed one coat of stain.  They are really starting to take shape now!

Adding some trim to make the bottom look a little bit nicer.

That's it for this weekend.  We're hoping to get another coat of varathane on this week and then John will work on the doors and move onto the coat rod and the shoe rack.  Seems like the work is never done!  

Cake Decorating Class #4

Last Tuesday was my final cake decorating class.  I have been so busy since then that I haven't had time to be able to get another blog out about it!  Finally I have decided I just need to sit down and do it or else I won't get to it until next weekend!

This class we were decorating a cake, which we needed to have filled and iced before the class.  I did this Monday night and then found out that because I made a double layer cake, it would not fit in my rectangle Wilton cake carrier...well it fit but the top of the cake was smushed up against the top. :(  So the first thing I did when I got the Micheal's on Tuesday was drop everything off in the class room and then go and buy a round Wilton cake carrier.  It was the easiest solution I could come up with, when I thought about how I was going to bring my fully decorated cake home! 

The class began with us mixing colours.  I didn't really have any ideas of what colours I wanted so this meant I took a little longer because I had to decide as I mixed.  I came up with a pink, purple, yellow combination, which was nice.  The only thing we learned this class was how to make a ribbon rose.  All I can say is that it is NOT easy!  I had trouble getting the icing to come out of the bag consistently because I wasn't applying consistent pressure, plus I think my icing was a bit too stiff.  That and having to spin my flower holder at the right speed proved to be a challenge.  My friend said that they looked a bit more like carnations because the petals weren't smooth, but was bumpy.  Here are pictures of how they turned out.

My first ribbon rose.

Was starting to figure out how to make the petals open by the end.

After making the four, I was starting to rethink my cake idea for the evening, as I was going to have to make another 8 roses for it!  In the end I just made them because I couldn't think of another idea.  Here are how all the roses turned out.

 

My hand hurt so much by the end of making all of these!  I can tell you that I do not want to make any more any time soon.  Our teacher told us that class 2 focused on making more of these ribbon type flowers, that made me decide that I needed to take a break before signing up for another class!

Once the flowers were done, I started attaching them to my cake and adding the rest of the decorations.  Here are pictures of the progress and the final creation!

In the background you will see the certificates we received for
completing the course.  Yay!

I made the cake to take to work as our articling student was finished her articles this past Friday.  I took it early because she would never had waited that long for the cake!  She has been bugging me all month since I started the course to bring in what I made!  I think she was quite pleased with it in the end.  

Now that I'm done, I plan on practicing what I've learned over the summer and then maybe signing up for another class in the fall!  Stay tuned!