Deconstructing Christmas in the Kitchen - Decorating Kitchen for Winter to Spring

Hola!  It's that time of year again.  New Year's has come and gone and the Christmas decor, which has been up since early December, is being packed up and taken down to the shelves in the basement to rest for another year.

The big tree in the living room will remain up until Three Kings' Day on January 6th.  Yeah, I'm a sappy sentimental type of gal :)  The first Three Kings' Day I celebrated was with my Mr. Don in Madrid, Spain on January 6, 2012.  To see the large parade, we stood for hours to hold a place on the Paseo del Prado, a lovely large boulevard upon which the Prado Museum and many other revered museums and organizations are located. That trip had been scheduled to celebrate about 10 years since our first trip to Madrid in October 2002.  One of my all time favorite pictures of us as a couple is this one (taken during that 2002 Madrid trip, on a side-trip to see the ancient city of Toledo - this was taken before we walked over the St. Martin's Bridge seen behind us and a river far far below to get to the ancient city built on a high place).  It sits on my bookcase/storage unit in the kitchen, where I see it many times every day:

He was serenading me as an obliging lady from our tour bus snapped our photo, LOL!  Sadly, our January 2012 trip back to visit Madrid was the last trip we would share together, as Mr. Don passed away in October 2012, but I will always remember our two trips to Spain and the wonderful fun-and-adventure-filled years we spent together travelling, exploring shops, museums, restaurants, playing chess and writing our blogs.

Deprived of all it's Christmas dressing, the kitchen looks rather barren to me now, LOL.  Isn't that always the case when the Christmas decor comes down and things aren't bright, festive and shining with lights, ornaments and glitter everywhere, sigh.  Still, I can definitely notice now that it is staying light longer in the evening and getting light outside a little bit earlier than a week ago, so I won't complain too loudly.  This is how the kitchen looks now, mid-redo:

From the entrance into the dinette area from living room.

From one corner of the kitchen looking at the dinette and kitchen driveway entrance,
patio door, and my breakfast bar area.

These are dried out hydrangeas that I clipped from the side garden along the driveway.
Amazingly, they held up under 60 plus mph winds, pounding rain storms,
several freezes, snow, and more winds, winds, winds!  I wanted to put something
on the table as the lantern I had on it during the fall leading up to Christmas is
currently on the mantle in the living room.  The bouquet is wintry, and also reminds me
that spring will be here in 3 months - well, at least astronomical spring.

This is the bookcase/storage unit I bought and put together to cover the
side of the fridge and provide a convenient place to remove stuff from the
countertops and for my cookbooks, more storage behind the uneven doors.
I have tried several times to get those doors to hang evenly, and have failed
miserably.  I also have to open them rather gingerly, as they have a tendency
to fall off, LOL!  Good thing there is no one else living here, especially kids!  

You may remember the inspiration photos for adding this bookcase/storage unit to my own kitchen design:

Way fancier than mine, as it was framed in complete with crown
molding and there are cabinets above the fridge.  My goal was
similar though, covering up the side of the fridge open to the dinette
with something functional and attractive.

Same idea as first inspiration photo, different color (love the grey!)

I chose a white modern/clean look for my bookcase because the cabinets will eventually be painted white. I chose a unit with enclosed storage space to stash
the large supply of nuts I feed to all the city's squirrel population, or so it seems
sometimes!

I swapped out the cardinal Christmas greeting card collage for this
lovely horse print from my 2017 calendar.  Horse art doesn't have to be expensive :)
The colors work perfectly in the room and it will be there until covered up
next Christmas season by the cardinal card collage.  

Last photo: the kitchen entrance off the driveway.  I hung up a pair of curtains
that normally go on the patio door this time of year, to replace the single panel
with a different curtain (that I had used the year before in my Shezebo screening)
to better coordinate the colors.  I like how these look so much they'll be staying,
so after I took down the autumnal/Thanksgiving gold brocade curtains I put up
the spring/summer curtains.  They let maximum light into the room during the
day, which is important this time of year, and if it gets too bright I can tweak the
built-in blinds in the patio doors to regulate the light flow.  

Still to be done - an extensive list to finish the kitchen re-do:

New countertops.  I have to get myself to Home Depot and get something ordered, but first I have to come up with a drawing and measurements.  How come they make it look so easy on those home improvement shows?  This isn't easy at all!

Tear out old and install new backsplash.  My new backsplash has been in my possession for some time.  I ordered this gorgeous porcelain ceramic tile Carrera marble look subway tile that comes in 12 x 12 sheets, in a smaller size "brick", given the smallish proportions of the kitchen and the limited amount of backsplash that will be covered, I didn't want to go with a larger size.  Once the countertops are in, I can get my "guy" in to tear out the old tile (hopefully it doesn't destroy the drywall underneath!) and put up the new tile and grout.  Yes, I've seen this done many times on HGTV and DIY network shows online, but I guess I'm adverse to risk and hard labor these days.  Plus I don't have the necessary tools and don't want to spend the $$$ to buy it!  I mean, how often will I ever use a tile cutter again?  NEVER.  I could rent what I need (maybe), but how would I get it home?  I don't drive - I mean, literally, I have never been behind the wheel of a car in my life and I have no clue how to drive although I do know all the rules of the road that nobody obeys anyway these days so what difference does it make, heh?  LOL! 

All the rest of the jazz. 
Painting cabinets first, but will probably be last to be done. Originally I was going to do white uppers and black lowers, then maybe dark grey lowers, but then I decided to just stick with white for uppers and lowers.  Now I only have to decide upon a white out of about 10 million shades and make up my ever-changing mind to do it myself or hire someone to do it.  Geez Louise!

Painting trim, that will be black and include the window frames, door frames and baseboards.  I have no idea what color I'm going to paint (or maybe stain) the transition piece from the dinette into the carpeted living room. I want to remove the carpet in the living room, but with the massive furniture pieces that are permanently in place in the living room that I cannot and will not even attempt to move by myself, there is no way.  Period, end of story.  So it's one of those up-in-the-air thingies that drive me nuts.

New light fixtures.  The boob fixture above the sink makes me cringe every time I look at it.  I try not to, believe me!  Same for the boob light in the hallway to the bedrooms and bathroom and the side hall to the kitchen entrance/basement stairs.  I know they were bought at Menard's because Menard's constantly runs specials on three boob lights for like $13 - for all three.  LOL! 

The problem is design paralysis when it comes to making a decision about which direction to go with the lighting.  I like far too many things, but like many others dreaming of new kitchen and dinette spaces that are all magically beautifully coordinated, I have champagne taste on a cheap boxed pink wine budget.  Every time I think I've made a decision, I find myself hours later veering off in an entirely different direction.  So I guess I just don't want to spend anything, but I hate the lights/fixtures that are over the dining table, in the center of the kitchen and over the sink.  HATE HATE HATE, the Trifecta of Hate. 

I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff - but I got the new smaller sized table and chairs that better fit the smaller space of this Maison Newton dinette, a new area rug for the dinette, and the white bookcase/storage unit - key purchases.

I'm trying to do all of this on a miniscule budget of a few thousand dollars.  Yeah, rutsa ruck, heh?  The BIG thing that was done already was to open up the wall all the way between the living room and dinette so now it's all one big flowing space.  It meant losing a partial wall in the living room that I used to be able to put furniture against. But it also meant closing up the separate door into the kitchen off of the bedroom/bathroom hallway - which I hated, and enabled me to slide the fridge from the dinette side of the room of that damn door into the kitchen proper where that door used to be, hooray!  That was a huge improvement, the fridge was moved to where it rightfully belonged and I had a dinette not infringed upon by the fridge. Can you imagine designing a kitchen and not leaving room for your refrigerator?  I mean - WHO DOES THAT?  And you should have seen the monstrous black wonder fridge that was shown with the house when I viewed it the first time - I swear it looked like it would eat you as you were sitting at the bar table they had in place of a civilized dining table.  How on earth did they feed two small kids at a bar table, I ask you??? (I was not so rude as to ask them). 

Okay, enough ranting and raving like a mad woman with dirty hair because a new season of Project Runway Allstars is starting in a few minutes, hooray!

Revised Mantle

Hola!

After three tries, I settled upon a Christmas arrangement for the mantle.  I'm still not as happy with it as I'd like to be, but I like it better than what came before.

You'll recall this is what I started with:

The balance was off; I felt that the clock didn't balance the "bulk" and height of the three candle holders on the other end of the mantle.

I added a second string of lights, and I added the third deer that had been hiding out admiring the Christmas Star from underneath the Norfolk pine on the coffee table.  I tried switching around the tall candle holders, then I added a lantern that I have on the built-in bookshelf.  It's a burnished bronze color.  The clock was removed.  While the lantern looked okay, I thought I still needed some more heft and height on that side of the mantle.

I came up with this as Option 3.  Option 2 didn't last long, and I didn't take any photos of it.  I put the tall candle holders back where they were originally and added a larger lantern on the other end of the mantle, along with the third deer.

So, decorating for 2017 is officially done.  Whew!

Christmas 2017 Tree and Mantle

It's finished!

Hola!  Finished at last (yesterday).  I need to shovel - we got 2 inches of fresh snow overnight:

Looking out from the front door.

Here's the mantle!  You can see the snow blowing outside the window and one of
two pine trees along the driveway.  I am going to add another string of LED lights, and maybe
some ribbon; it's just looking a little bare to me right now.  Maybe I'll remove the clock and
put something else there, too.  The balance is off.  The candles and votives are all lit at night.

The deer are looking up toward the Shining Star.  There's another one hiding underneath
the Norfolk pine on the coffee table, also looking up at the star (not shown).

This was taken the day before yesterday, before I decorated the mantle.

Here's the same shot angle taken this morning, the now decorated
mantle is in the background.  I also added a few extra gold pine cones
here and there and tweaked the French ribbon a bit although it doesn't look like it.

I kept it simple again this year (but not as simple as last year).  I used the French ribbon and decorations I haven't used in several years, along with a collection of hand-blown crystal ornaments purchased at the "Egyptian" store at Southridge Mall on Christmas Eve day in 2008.  Inexpensive gold pine cones, a dozen white frosted "tear drops" (from Oriental Trading Company online), and a dozen silver glitter snowflakes were also used to fill in some gaps (all purchased in past years). The topper is a concoction of five beaded picks, two ancient feather sprays at least forty years old, one each gold glittered "wheat" and "floral" picks and two gold painted pinecones on long picks, purchased in years past from Pick 'n Save supermarket's floral department.

I took my time decorating over two days and tweaked yesterday, enjoying the process while listening to jazzy Christmas classics on Radio Tunes online.

You can probably tell that my "theme" was gold and silver in the living room.  The kitchen and dinette, pictured in previous posts, were done in red, black, gold and green, to accompany my beloved two-foot tall countertop tree decorated with cardinals and my collected cardinal decor.

The rest of the photos are close-ups of the tree.  Warning: I'm not a good photographer and my 5 pixel camera is now 12 years old :)

Christmas 2017 Kitchen and Dining Area Pics

Still have not attempted to lug the tree up those 11 go on forever basement steps, but I have targeted tomorrow to do it, as soon as it's light enough outside.  I had to be out and about today, in balmy temperatures (I believe it got up to 60 degrees F) but also near gale-force winds, whew!  I was tuckered out by the time I got back home.  Lost my ambition to tackle the tree today :)

Here are the second set of pics that I was having trouble posting yesterday - I never figure out what I'm doing wrong, or if blogger just doesn't like me very much at times.  C'est la vie.

A close-up of my favorite cardinal plate, another TJ Maxx find from several years ago.

Cardinal greeting card collage on one side of the patio door.
There's a cardinal sitting on one corner of the back of the
bench in the bottom scene - see him - a little red smear.

A close-up of the cardinal tree.

That's the pretty pine-scented candle in its lovely plaid glass container at TJ Maxx.  Will
light it as it gets closer to Christmas.

One of two framed cardinal greeting cards on the other side of the patio door.

Another cardinal greeting card.  Can you tell I have a thing for cardinals?

Here's the back door (side door opens to driveway) decoration.  One
of my handy-dandy creations.  Yeah, the bottom ribbon sucks, but
I'm proud of my effort, har :)  The platter is metal purchased at
my neighborhood Pick 'n Save some years ago.  The pretty bow on top was added this
year, I found it stashed in one of the boxes from the basement loaded
with Christmas decorations, I have no idea where it came from.

This is the wreath that I used to hang on the back door here, but it got
squished every year and wasn't showing well.  So this year I removed a clock
and put it up overlooking the dining table.  I added the cardinals.

Another cardinal plate, also a TJ Maxx purchase before I retired in 2015.
You can also see my year-round cardinal perched up on the window sill.

This current Maison Newton was built in 1956 and has typical 1950's
features, including three rounded shelves at the end of the cabinet runs
on either side of the corner windows above the angled-in-the-corner
sink (which I hate, it's impossible to reach the windows to open them
unless I'm on a ladder).  My mini-collection of squirrels, including
the winter-dressed squirrel with acorn on the second shelf.  The top
shelf, not shown, has a furry critter with a red wool scarf around his neck.

I will post pics of the tree when it's done.  It always takes way longer to decorate it than to undress it!  But first I have to get it up those stairs and dragged into place and then upright.  I should have Popeye muscles by the time I'm finished.

Wait - Where Did Summer Go? Where Did Autumn Go? Holy Hathor!

Hola everyone!  I am in some kind of time-warp evidently, whew!  Here it is, December 3.  No - I didn't die, I'm still here, TA DA!

So far behind on everything - but I have been busy.  Still, somehow summer seemed to not want to end and then it got COLD all at once, hardly any autumn at all.  The trees were caught totally surprised - most of them here had not even begun to turn color yet.  I don't remember an autumn like this, it was truly strange and rather scary.  We got a series of hard freezes and even a nasty storm of sleet/snow one day with 40-50 mph winds:

That's my backyard.  Fortunately, I did catch a few breaks in the weather before this storm hit to get everything out back put away for the winter.  Wowsers.  This storm happened toward the beginning of November.

So, I turned my sights inward - specifically, toward Christmas decorating.  One of the ways I manage to survive the stretch of the march of ever-shortening days toward the Winter Solstice (December 21 this year) is to surround myself with candles galore and lots of fires in my gel-fuel fireplace.  That has been such a great investment.  It burns absolutely clean, no air pollution and no need to vent it outside.  When I use 3 cans of gel fuel to make a fire (I usually only use 1 or 2), it generates 4500 BTUs of heat.  I do that during the coldest days of the year, when even with the heat on and the furnace seeming to kick in every 20 minutes I still feel COLD inside the house.  And I do that as it gets closer to Christmas.

So, this year, instead of moving the sofa into the only spot that logically makes sense to put it (with its back toward the entry way into the dinette, looking toward the large picture window where the tree will be centered, I decided to try a different arrangement.  It took me a good week to decide it was okay enough to leave it.  A few shots of the new arrangement for Christmas season:

I'll have to scootch the wing chair over and angle it closer to the fireplace, which will be just fine with moi, to make enough room for the tree in front of the picture window.

This year, I also took down all my previous curtain arrangements and put up those 92" long sheers that are budget-saving Ikea.  They used to hang as backdrop curtains in my bedroom, where I have two long narrow "ranch" windows that meet in a corner of the room.  I replaced them earlier this year with inexpensive sheets from Ikea that I added a hem to to thread the curtain rod through.  Easy peasy with iron-on hemming tape.  They added a little more opaqueness behind the front layer of curtains, also from Ikea. 

Those sheers now in the living room let in a ton of light and it has made a tremendous different in the light level in the house.  I am loving it.  I only put one curtain on either side of the fireplace because the window is narrow and tall and people cannot see much of the room when passing by that side of the house other than the upper walls and ceiling.  I also like the poofy effect of the excess material on the floor (which you can't see in any of the photos, drat).

The picture window, however, is ginormous and for me, privacy is a problem and a must-have.  One can see the entire living room all the way back through the patio doors into the back yard from the front sidewalk.  I could probably add a few more panels for some extra privacy from the eyes of passers-by, but I don't light up the room at night with lamps, only candles and the occasional fire, and sometimes I have the TV on.  I've done the privacy test from the outside and you really can't see a whole lot.  It's not like I run around naked anyway, har :)  During Christmas season, once the tree is up and decorated the curtains will be drawn back but the tree blocks the view into the room, creating plenty of privacy. 

This new temporary furniture arrangement focuses on the fireplace:

It gives me plenty of cozying up in a wing chair with a good book when I have a fire going while still enjoying the tree, and the sofa to stretch out on (it is used only for my naps when I am not entertaining).  So, the living room is ready - to be decorated.  The sofa table normally sits in front of the picture window behind the sofa, which is centered on the picture window wall when it's not Christmas. 

What's that you say?  Oh yeah, no tree yet.  I am working up to dragging it up from the basement.  Eleven steep, narrow steps.  Eleven steps that seem to stretch from China to here.  Every year for the past 3 years, it seems to get a bit harder to get the heavy tree up those stairs.  Hmmmm, wonder why that is.  The tree hasn't grown any larger ...

That said, I DO have the kitchen and dinette done!  Last year I did pretty minimalist decorating and did not even put out my beloved cardinal tree.  This year, I decorated in the dinette and even the kitchen more than ever, and I didn't even pull up the rich red and black traditional wool rug and hang the teal and red floral curtains on the patio door this year!  I felt it looked great just as it was. 

Pics:  Lots of cardinals everywhere.

 

Looking toward the back hall.  I open that door up when the Sun is shining to let in the
light and lots of solar gain.  That's the beginnings of a Christmas card tree on the far wall.
You can see a wreath complemented with a few cardinals, and also a cardinal camping out
(year round) inside the built-in display case.  The wreath replaced a pendulum clock.

Cardinal tapestry runner - a steal from Family Dollar a few years ago.  The deer are
composite finished to look like burnished wood, purchased at Walgreens on clearance
a few years ago.  They came with janky wreaths around their necks which I cut off.
The candlesticks are at least 30 years old, brass, I don't remember where I got them from,
I suspect it may have been Home Interiors.  The candles are battery-operated.

Okay, Blogger is acting all sort of wonky on me right now, so I'll try to put the rest of the pics in another post and see how that works.

Views from the Shezebo 2017

Hola!

It was gorgeous today, so the grass out front didn't get cut after all.  I hoofed it to the Pick 'n Save and then back home, got all my rays for the day, wow.  I spent hours in my Shezebo, reading and just relaxing and snoozing (I confess).  Here are some photos from the inside looking out.  This is what I see:

My feet say "Hellooooo!!!"

This is my view looking directly across from mt seat (I removed my feet).  The yellow table was the one I created last year from an old TV stand purchased in the early 1970s.  I spray painted it the sunny yellow and added the wheels for easy mobility.  More about that chair (and its twin, the one I'm sitting in) tomorrow, OY!

Pan to the right (you can see peeking out my enshrouded poor roll of sod - see yesterday's post...)  In the background is the back of the yard, it faces east and is anchored on the left by several clustered arborvitae and three large hostas, and the raised garden bed that runs most of the length of the east fence line.

And panning to the left of the second photo, a matching chair.  They're old, they take a ton of scrubbing even to make half-way presentable, and one of these years, I'll get around to spray painting them with plastic paint :)  In the background you can see one end of the north garden bed that contains a massive multi-trunk arborvitae and the concrete birdbath.  That's the new fence that was installed last November.  Because of the cost, I could only afford to do that one side.  The east fence line will wait until next year.

Here's my seat in the shade.  Across the south side of the Shezebo behind is a queen size white sheet, and on either side turning the corners are two curtain panels I purchased last year.  As soon as I can find reasonably priced yellow flat sheets that don't come in a set I will hang them instead.  This time of year, the Sun beats in from that south side and even though the Shezebo DOES provide much needed shade, it's not 100% shade all the time, depending upon the angle of the Sun.  The perfection, though, is the bug-free environment, especially since yours truly is a MOSQUITO MAGNET!  No problemo while I'm inside my Shezebo, aaaaaaahhhhhhh!

There's the view toward the southeast corner of my lot.  You may notice a roof-like structure running from the garage to the top of the fence along the east fence line.  That's my extra storage area and it's HUGE!  It's at least 10 feet wide and the length of the 2.5 car garage, all poured concrete.  Thanks to the prior owner who installed it, the rain and snow don't get in and it's a good space to store the Weber grill, the patio table and chairs, miscellaneous things that can withstand the cold and damp and assorted tools (there are hanging racks installed - thanks, prior owner!) and also to grill under, with the double doors that open wide to the back yard open if it's raining out.  It also allows me to rent out half of my garage for car storage, since I don't drive and do not own a car myself.  The space would otherwise pretty much go to waste.  Always nice to get that extra $100 a month.

The final pic of the day, a rather blurry close-up of the hooky thingy at the top of my Shezebo (inside).  As you can see, it is NOT CENTERED!  Now what woman, I ask you, would ever design something with a hook meant to hold a chain that holds something else not perfectly centered in the space?  I therefore know my Shezebo was designed by a man, for a woman would NEVAH do such a silly thing!

I haven't attempted to hang anything form the hooky thingy (like a battery-operated lantern) because I know it would drive me bonkers seeing it off center.  Arrrrrgggghhhhh!

Tomorrow, the sad saga of the put-together-backwards chairs.  Yes, it's true.

Endless Puttering Around the Garden

Hola everyone!  I'm still here and kicking, although not quite as 20 years ago, sigh.

It seems that yard work around here is never-ending.  It's funny, I do not seem to remember having this much to do in the yard all the time when I was at my bigger house with the much bigger yard.  Why on earth is that, and how can that possibly be???

I have several items that still need to be transplanted, including a volunteer (probably from bird poop) of a honeysuckle shrub that has sprung up on the right side of the concrete bird bath:

I also want to move over the purple shrub against the back of the fence on the left side of the bird bath (you can just barely see it, about 3 branches peeking up), as it's too close to the Japanese maple. I want to move it to the spot I'm vacating by moving the honeysuckle, which was never intended to be there.  That honeysuckle will get very large if I let it, and I don't feel like constantly pruning it to keep it a small size for the north garden bed.  It seems every time I turn around, I have some new surprise popping up in my garden beds.

The nice 6 foot tall privacy fence that went in early last November looks great; it hasn't started to "silver" yet, but it will, eventually.  The plants seem to like having the taller fence there, I think it may be creating a warmer micro-climate, especially along that north lot line.

I bought a roll of sod to finally fill in a few depressions in the backyard that have been driving me nuts for the past few years.  I keep filling them in with top soil and the squirrels promptly dig out all the dirt in record time, so the depressions are deeper than ever because the dug-out dirt builds up around the edges, sigh.  Well, I bought that sod on May 26th and it's still rolled up in a sheet.  Oops.   As of today, the poor sod is probably dead; I wet it down when I remember to do that and it hasn't rained (we've had a LOT of rain here lately).  I'm afraid to open up the sheet and unroll the sod (yes, I'm a coward that way).  Oh well.

I have more to write about, but I just got off a Skype call with a friend of mine, and once I get her on I can't get her off, 1.5 hours poof - gone!  It was supposed to be a test to see if her Skype still worked.  So, here are a few photos of plants and/or successful transplants I moved into the south garden along the edge of the driveway last year, I'll have to come back and post again, there's some to catch up on!

This is one of two shasta daisies I planted new last year in the driveway garden bed.  One did not make it over the winter but this one popped right up and as you can see, is loving the hot sunny location.

The hydrangea was transplanted from the backyard north lot line last year, in preparation for having the new fence put in.  It was a little droopy in this photo; I watered it afterwards and in less than an hour it perked right back up.  There are two pine trees on that side of the lot bordering the driveway (south lot line area) and they shed tons of needles and pine cones, keeping the soil very acidic.  The hydrangea loves it.  When it was in the backyard, I had to give it lemon juice to get that color on the blooms.  This year, it came up with the flowers already those lovely lavender and lavender-pink colors!  This is a "mini" shrub, it will get wider as it matures but not much taller.

On the left side of the hydrangea is a columbine I put in last year, which seeded plentifully and I now have columbines popping up throughout the south garden bed, which is fine with me; on the right is a faded bleeding heart.  The blooms on both are gone, although the deep purple blossoms on the columbine only just stopped, they were gorgeous this year!  The spring got warm early and then we turned hot and dry and the bleeding heart didn't like it this year, it faded early and the greenery is already dying out; usually it lasts until the end of August but not this year.

And in the background to the left of the hydrangea, you can see the only survivor of three artimesias I planted in the north bed a couple of years ago.  It is much happier in this hot and sunny spot than in the north lot line; the other two just faded away and did not reappear last year.  On the right is a hybrid double mini-day lily that is a luscious peach-pink color; the last of the blooms fell a few weeks ago.  I am hoping it will survive the winter and give me a good crop of blooms next season.

And what Milwaukee garden would be complete without the common old-fashioned day lily:

This is a shot from the east garden bed; you can see a Rose of Sharon to the left and some volunteer Queen Anne's Lace peeking up.  The day lilies are just nutso blossoming this year!

More coming - promise!  I want to show you what progress I've made in the kitchen, as well as visiting my Shezebo and its current accoutrements :)