Z Good Life

goodbye playhouse

Erich built a sweet little playhouse for Summer when she was about 3 years old. All of the children enjoyed it for many years, and so did their friends. A few years ago, we noticed the floor getting saggy. The window was broken. Now that the children (and their friends) are older, the playhouse wasn't getting much use anymore. Well, other than storing bikes, wagons, scooters, and my fountain!

Erich wanted to take down the playhouse last year, but Lily still played in it sometimes. I talked him into letting it stand for one more year. On a sunny weekend, down it came! This is all that remains:

It's a little bittersweet -- another sign that our kids are growing up. Soon it will be time for the old rusted swingset to go! Maybe I can talk Erich into waiting one more year... ;o)

may day surprise

We spent May 1st puttering around the yard and house. I felt a little sad that I was not prepared for May Day. It would have been fun to make little baskets and surprise our neighbors. In the middle of the afternoon, Erich opened the front door to find this:

Someone left us a May Day Basket! What a way to brighten someone's day!

april snow

On April 14th, I got up early because I had to go to work. I happened to glance sleepily out the window in our bathroom, and I nearly threw my neck out doing a double-take.

How CRAZY to wake up to snow in mid-April!

quick and dirty room makeover

Jay was getting a little tired of his nautical-themed bedroom. (Click here to see it.) No prob. Thanks to Target, I found some really inexpensive vinyl wall decals! Jay planned out where he wanted each decal, and we helped him stick them all on. It was WAY easier than we thought it would be!

We  moved his furniture around to make more wall space.

You can see that he still wants to keep his stuffed monkey collection!

The strings dangling from the ceiling are from his dragon kite. He's got 2 colorful dragon kites suspended from the ceiling. He wanted to keep those, too.

He loves his wall art, and has been calling all of his friends to come see his "cool new room!"

crock pot crisis

Since I knew in advance about my 7-day teaching stint, I bought ingredients for crock pot meals and other easy to prepare meals. I tried a brand new recipe for orange glazed chicken breasts. This is what I came home to:

 

Jay was at a pizza party and Erich was working late. I didn't even hesitate to take the girls out to our favorite teriyaki restaurant!

A couple of days later, we used the crock pot to roast a bone-in turkey breast. It was done in just 4 hours, so obviously there is something wrong with this crazy crock pot! Even after being kept on the "keep warm" setting, the turkey continued to cook. It was dry and tough. *sigh* Time for a new crock pot.

pear-fect

Our little grafted pear tree is producing a little more fruit this year. We have about 5 Asian pears (3 or 4 varieties) and 2 Bartlett pears.

 

See that little green plant next to the tree in the planter? I saw a peanut half buried in the soil, and as I picked it up the shell came off. Lo and behold, there was a peanut plant growing! (Thank you, neighborhood squirrels.) We are letting it grow to see what happens. Has anyone ever grown a peanut plant before?!

Here's a photo of one of the Asian pears:

 

It's fun and satisfying to grow fruit. Well, as long as no one steals it. I put a little sign at the base of our peach tree again this year, pleading with passers-by to not pilfer our peaches. It's working! We are already enjoying some of our tree-ripened peaches. YUM!   

sun

I'm listening to the sound of a gentle Summer rain. The windows are open. It sounds lovely. It smells even better! And it feels like a nap.

 


Here's a picture of my new wrought iron sun -- a Mother's Day present from Erich's mom and dad. Erich wasn't thrilled about drilling through our HardiPlank siding and the stucco beneath, but he finally did it. It's perfect above the wrought iron cart!

So, there you have it. A little sunshine in your rainy Summer day.

p.s. The newest batch of convict fry slowly disappeared over the past week until they were all gone. We're not sure what happened to them, but we figure we have fewer mouths to feed this way. *wink*

i give up

Erich and his parents gave me a lemon tree for my birthday a few years ago. Even though it has blossomed regularly and even produced a few lemons (delicious ones!), the tree itself just started looking worse and worse. Even with fertilizer and special citrus tree potting soil, it wouldn't put forth any new growth. Plus, it was infected with some kind of fungus in the soil. I took it out of the soil, shook the roots completely clean, scrubbed the pot with bleach, and repotted it. The fungus came back. Exasperating.

 

We finally decided to throw the crazy tree outside. If it lives, it lives. If it dies, it dies. Period! It was too ugly to keep in the house any longer. Well, lo and behold. Even in its existing pot (and fungus infestation), the crazy thing is absolutely THRIVING on the sunny side of our house! Look at all the new growth on the end of the branch. See that lemon? There are about 10 more!

 

See how bare the branch is in the background? They're all like that in the middle, but the tips of the branches are producing blossoms and fruit. Obviously, it's a citrus tree and it's loving our warm, dry Summer. We'll probably cover it with a little greenhouse-type thing in Winter and see if it survives. I'm surprised it's not dead, and even more surprised at how much fruit it's producing!

unpopular poplar

**Completely  off-topic: Last night we discovered a whole new batch of convict fry in the big aquarium!**

Our neighbor has a giant poplar in his yard. By giant, I mean the base of the trunk is approximately 5 feet in diameter and the tree itself is about 80 feet tall.

Jay and Erich were doing some repairs on our fence (it's now 9 years old), and discovered that the roots of the poplar are causing our new exposed aggregate sidewalk to buckle. Bummer! Erich paid Jay to expose the roots so we can sever them, hopefully preventing any further damage to the sidewalk.

 

The roots are 18 inches thick in some places! If we sever those huge roots, what's going to anchor the tree on the south side? Not much, we fear.

This tree is gigantic. When it was planted, our entire neighborhood was probably one huge farm. It's too big, it's diseased, it's messy -- it drops branches like crazy in the wind! Don't even get me started on how many leaves it drops in the Fall. AUGH! If it's buckling our sidewalk, what other damage might it be doing underground?

Poplars are also notoriously brittle. What are the chances that part of the tree will break off and hit our house in a windstorm? (If it's windy outside, I RUN to the car. Seriously.) We'll document what we've found with the roots, but now we're left with a decision. Should we talk to the landlord of the rental next door about having it removed? Erich and I have discussed it for a long time. Ten years ago, we had a friend give us a guesstimate on how much it would cost. He said $1500-$2000. *wince* And that was ten years ago!

old becomes like new

I've had an old baker's rack on the deck ever since we added on to our house. Before we did our addition, the baker's rack was part of the storage in our kitchen. The wrought iron parts were hunter green, and the shelves were natural colored wicker. In the kitchen it held all sorts of things that didn't fit into our less-than-adequate storage space. On the deck, it held seashells, beach glass, pretty rocks, flowerpots, old watering cans, and old bird houses.

Well, after sitting out in the weather for nearly 7 years (24/7/365), it was looking really shabby. I thought maybe I should sell it at our garage sale! Even the little items on the shelves looked less than garage sale worthy. I decided to spray paint it black to give it a new life, and I bought colorful flowerpots that remind me of my beloved Fiestaware.

 


How cute is that?! It's so bright and cheerful! I'm very pleased with the end result. My mom loved it, and suggested I do the same thing to an old wrought iron and glass tea cart that belonged to my great aunt. (And to think I was just going to get rid of that, too!) Too bad I don't have any "before" pictures, but check it out!

The wrought iron was creamy white and all rusty. Not anymore! It looks great with our black wrought iron (er, I mean aluminum) deck furniture and the black baker's rack! Erich's mom bought a darling black wrought iron sunshine to mount on the wall above the tea cart. (A perfect Mother's Day present!) We have Hardiplank siding, so Erich hasn't been too keen on the idea of drilling a hole into the side of our house -- just to mount wall art! I hope he does it soon, though. I promise I'll post a picture. :o)