Randomness: The Verbal Diarrhea Edition

- Aren't these gladiolus in my front yard just ridiculously gorgeous? Things keep popping up in our yard that we have no idea are there... I continue to be amazed one year on! Good job, Nature! And the previous owners...

- The summer weather has been weird. Sometimes steaming hot and muggy, sometimes cool-ish but somewhat humid, and sometimes it's just so bloody hot you pray for sweet, sweet death. And no matter the weather, all I want to do is eat ice-cream or froyo. Which I've done a great job of not doing despite my reputation for having no self-control. But the struggle is real.

- Recent things I've shouted to the hubs from the shower include, "That wasn't me! It was the conditioner bottle!". Classy.

- I'm trying to figure out what to do with the Cotton + Steel fabrics because I need it in my house! On my bed, on my sofa, EVERYWHERE. Too damn good.

- But I did make one as a sample for work... pictures to come!

- 25 Husbands who must be stopped... They require patience and a sense of humour, don't they?

- We had something living in our backyard, and we think it's gone now. The hubs found parts of a bunny, and most of a bird, and then spotted the culprit one morning. He initially thought it was a fox (because he failed science apparently) but upon looking at pictures, I determined it to be a damn fisher cat. In other news, I'm never going outside again. I'll keep an eye on the baby bunnies and chipmunks from the safety of my house.

- I feel awful for these 11 doggies who ate bees (and I hope they're alright!) but I couldn't help but laugh hehe!

- I now have a blog post with 'diarrhea' in the title. I win everything.

It Only Took A Year

We got art on the wall, ya'll! It only took an entire year! Yay! High five!

I don't know why we kept putting it off... I think after we moved in, we kind of couldn't be stuffed anymore and eventually forgot about the decorating part. So that's the wall in our living room... a bit of love for NYC / Brooklyn, Lisa Congdon, The Black Apple, Marc Johns, a hilarious Batman / Joy Division (Ian Curtis) mash-up, and one my sis gave me that I've absolutely no clue who it's by. She also gave me the Marc Johns one because that's what our tattoos are based on :)

I've thrown a quilt over the sofa because it is cooler than sitting on microsuede in the summer. Gah is it September yet?! Although, mercifully, the weather has been lovely the last few days!

It also took an entire year to finally change out the hideous light fixture in the dining room. And only because the stupid rotary dimmer decided to get stuck in the on position. It was original to the house, so we've now had it changed out and join modern times, so we thought we'd get the light fixture swopped out at the same time. 

By the way, if I'm being honest, it took about nine months for us to decide on dining chairs. We finally used the dining table for its intended purpose this week. I have no excuse. Moving on...

This one's in our bedroom, taken on the day we actually got married. 11am on a Wednesday in his parents' living room. Romantic.

This print is also in our bedroom :) I'm very aware of the grammatical horror of this print, but I really don't care. It's awesome and I like it. And now we get to stare at it from our bed for... like... ever. 

The library overfloweth. We need another shelf ALREADY. It's a sickness. This is the view the hubs has from his desk. I think it's a pretty lovely view, especially when I appear in the hallway, inexplicably dancing or making faces.

I don't know if you can see it, but there's an orange book on the top left corner, on the shelf. We went to a rare and used bookshop and the hubs found this phone directory from 1961 that had his grandparents' contact info marked. What are the odds?! So of course he had to come home with it hehe 

And yes, those are my Mr Potato Heads on top of the shelf. Spud Trooper, Darth Tater, Artoo Potatoo and Opti-Mash Prime. Oh, and Lenore, Mr Gosh and Ragamuffin. I'm classy, what can I say?

The 'Get Our Art On The Walls Already!' project started last weekend when we dragged everything we had up from the basement. I even found some prints I'd ordered and had never framed, so we took a trip to the shop to get some frames. The hubs has decided that he detests frame shopping more than anything in the history of the world. Wah wah. 

There are some prints that still need to go on the wall but I can't decide where they should go, and if I still like the frames. I've got a couple of cross-stitch pieces I did (American Pastoral and Starry, Starry Night) and I honestly don't know where to put them. So rather than slap things on the wall just to get it done, I'm going to place them here in the corner of the living room while I walk around with the frames to see what rooms / hallways I like them in. I might need psychiatric help fairly soon.

And that mirror... well... here's the thing. If I hang it, the hubs can only see his chest. If the hubs hangs it, I'll see maybe three hairs from the top of my head (humidity and frizz... what a bastard). I'm thinking perhaps it should go on the wall along the stairs so I can stand on the stair and use it while the hubs can use binoculars and use it in the hallway. The trials and tribulations of being 14" shorter than your husband...

And just to prove that I sometimes go outside, here are some things my front yard grew! This is some purple stuff!

And this is some white stuff!

The white stuff attracts many fat bumble bees!

There's also tiger lilies (I mean orange stuff!) but one of the bees looked like it was trying to plot my demise, so I decided to retreat.

OH! And there are more itty bitty baby birds! Man, they're ugly right now.

Summer Has Landed

Not being a huge fan of summer, I have to concentrate on the good bits. Like fresh strawberries picked by friends and gifted to us the very same day. This thing should have smell-a-vision, because holy hell, they smell glorious. 

I thought I'd killed the petunias because I'm horrendous with plants. What had happened was all the blooms decided to go byebye at once, so I assumed I'll done something wrong and they were dead. But then here they are, blooming and being all pretty :) Sigh.

Perhaps I should've planted more... but that's for next summer. I'm done planting. Touching soil once a year is more than enough for this chick. 

The marigolds are blooming too :) Although I'm very upset at the bird who decided to shit on them. Thanks bird. Thanks a lot.

Mmmm salvia :) Love the purple against the green! 

The bestest thing was finding more eggs in the little nest!!! All the baby birds had flown away a couple of weeks ago, and we just popped our heads in to see if it was indeed still empty, only to find FOUR little eggs in there!!! Does anyone know if it's the same mama bird or has this become a rental property? Hehe Either way, we have more baby birds to look forward to! They'd better not shit on my flowers...

And Then There Was Rain

And lots of it!

New England weather will baffle me for as long as I live here. It's slight crazy, always amusing and definitely confusing. It was boiling hot the last few days bur this afternoon, the sky split open and poured a tonne of rain on us. It has cooled everything down but I hate driving when it's so wet and rainy. People get extremely stupid on the roads and I'm afraid they'll plough into me or the hubs. Clearly, I'm still not over getting hit in last year's accident! 

On the bright side, I don't have to water the plants today. Although I'm hoping they'll be alright in the downpour. The tomato plant in the blue pot has gone rogue and there's branches everywhere. They grew so quickly I didn't manage to get a couple of them into the cage! I'm sure Mr Gnome will look after them for me though :)

All the pictures were taken through my windows and screens so you can have a look at how dirty I like to keep them. I'm awesome.

I Am Boiling

It's only the very beginning of summer and it's a ghastly 94°F / 34.5°C today. I went outside to fetch the mail and I almost started weeping. I'm quite ready for summer to be over already, thank you. 

I'm so uncomfortable every time I have to leave the house, and I become somewhat of a vampire doing all my shopping and running errands at night LOL! When I lived in Australia, I knew where all the underground parking in the city were so those were the only places I'd go (most places shut at 5pm over there). And in Singapore, most things were underground / covered, and you don't have to go outside if you don't want to. 

We put our aircons in last night (we really waited till the very last second!) so I'm doing well until I have to venture outside. All three aircons are new so we're really putting them to the test today. The one in our bedroom is a portable one, so we're hoping it'll work as well as the usual window ones. If it doesn't, I suspect the hubs will start stabbing it. I'll be sure to take photos, don't you worry.

The cats don't seem to realise it's summer, and mummy doesn't need a warm body stuck to her, so I've got the aircon blasting. I'm currently (well, currently I'm at the computer...) sitting on the sofa sewing hexies for a bib a friend wants to gift a mutual friend's baby. I'd made the little boy the duckie quilt last year, so the scraps from that project are being used for the bib. I love scraps muchly. 

I hope everyone's keeping cool, and if you have to go outside... SUNSCREEN!!! Carry it with you. Put it in your purse, your car, your husband's car, the baby bag etc. I'll stop nagging now. 

Farmer's Market

This morning, Shannon and I went to the farmer's market in the town I live in to see what we could see. We figured it was quite early in the season, so there wasn't a whole lot for sale, but it was cool to check things out. 

I took this picture of the plaque without knowing Steve's late uncle's name is on there. It's the very, very last name :)

Shannon got some kale and honey cream, and I got chocolate milk for the hubs. I'd planned to get him unhomogenised milk but they didn't have any with them today. Boo. But the chocolate milk was delicious, so all's forgiven! 

Steve said the guy in the red shirt standing by the flowers looks like Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's. I kind of agree lol!