Halloween-proud.

The Fall season is upon us, my favorite time of year.  Yes, I confess, I'm one of those weirdos whose favorite holiday isn't Christmas... it isn't Thanksgiving or Easter or even the 4th of July (this one's second though).  My favorite holiday is Halloween.  I love the crisp air, the crackling leaves, the slightly creepy mood created by the ghost and spiderweb decorations. 

Last year, we kind of missed the whole season, thanks to that grand event called The Wedding.  I didn't even decorate!  And then my husband and I went to Wicked on Halloween.  I wouldn't have traded that experience for anything because it was truly fantastic.  But some part of me was still disappointed that I couldn't be home to answer the door for trick-or-treaters, gorge myself on candy and fall asleep on the couch to a scary movie marathon. 

So this year I am very much looking forward to really enjoying the season.  Last weekend I already put up our limited collection of Halloween decorations.  I really need to fill this supply out!  Of course, I still need to add in pumpkins and candles, but our decorations are really quite pathetic.  Nothing even for the yard!  Only a few window coverings and clings.  Sad.  I will probably wait until after this year to stock up on things during the sales for next year.  For now there are a few things that I'm looking forward to doing with items I already have on hand.



I have a ton of silk flowers from a wedding centerpiece idea that got scrapped.  I'm thinking about using faux pumpkins for this so they are even more re-usable.  Even better, these can stay out until Thanksgiving!



Aren't these guys cute?  The noses are carrots.  Again, could use faux pumpkins for this as well!  Or go with the real thing, we'll see.



Love this idea for trick-or-treaters.  But how cute would it be at a party too?  Or as a centerpiece?



Shrunken heads (apples)!  Creepy decor to line the driveway!  These can supposedly last years if dried thoroughly--great for indoor decorations.  Or be made yearly for outdoor use. 


All of these projects are from marthastewart.

Maybe I'll spend some more time on this stuff this weekend.  And visit Michael's and T.J. Maxx in search of more inspiration.  I need to make my house Halloween-proud.  :)

Lita: Training Report - Week 4

I meant to start updating on Lita training right away, but, somehow, a month has already come and gone since we adopted her!

When we first brought our girl home she was very timid.  I wouldn't say she was scared, but a bit shy--to be expected in a new house.  Very well-mannered -- didn't jump on any of the furniture, didn't steal things off of counters or out of the garbage.  I gave her a bath right away and while she certainly didn't LOVE it, she tolerated it just fine.  Walks were... interesting.  She pulled quite a bit.  On top of that, encounters with neighborhood dogs didn't go too well.  Just passing by dogs or even dogs in yards along the route resulted in pulling and even lunging.  No growling, no noise at all really.  Unfortunately, none of the neighborhood dogs seem to be well-mannered themselves.  Most of them ran towards us or barked and I'm not sure if that's what set her off.  But I know that lunging can either be defensive (i.e. she is frightened of the barking dogs) or aggression (i.e. she wants to eat the barking dogs) and we're just not sure which it is.. I'm certainly not going to take the chance with a stranger's dog.  The few quiet dogs that we have encountered she has been keenly observant of (a little too keenly for my taste)...  but, again, this can either be play or aggression.  I am no expert so I'm not quite sure how to interpret.

We don't know a lot about her history.  What we DO know is that she has had puppies, has since been through an apparent incomplete spay (that's a whole 'nother story), and has some scars that could be a result of fighting.  We were also told by the shelter that she gets along well with other dogs and even had a kennelmate while there.  But the lunging and stare-downs have me worried.

Anyway, since we have brought her home she has been getting twice daily walks.  Walks are going MUCH better although they are FAR from perfect.  Morning walks are typically better than the evening ones.  She still pulls initially, but seems to settle after awhile.  In the evening it takes her A LOT longer to settle.  I usually end up getting frustrated, which I know is awful.  We are still avoiding any direct confrontations with other dogs.  And when we see one on the other side of the street that she is staring down, I typically will put her in a sit, get her to ignore and then treat.  I have no idea if this is "right" or not.  I've been reading quite a bit, but, again, my knowledge is limited.

The good side of things is that in a short time, we have been able to get her to sit and wait for her food.  I am able to put the bowl down and she will wait until I release her.  We've also been working on eliminating her possessiveness of chew toys.  Now, instead of pulling on the toy when I try to take it away, she gives it up easily.  She has also started bringing her Kong toy inside and outside when told.  Yay for small victories!

Also, the parasites, ear infections and skin infections that she arrived with are all cleared up.  Minus the blisters on her feet that are apparently due to seasonal allergies (of course our dog has allergies!  We both do, why wouldn't she?!).

We have now reached the point that we are ready to start professional training.  I have started looking for trainers in the area and, hopefully, within the next month we can get started.  I'm excited!

I know that training methods are quite a controversial topic.  I would LOVE to start implementing some more serious positive reinforcement training, which is fantastic for obedience training.  I really want to teach her to "look," which means to make eye contact with me.  I think this will be incredibly useful on our walks. 

All in all, we've got a long way to go, but we've definitely made some major steps already.  Having a dog is like one big science project.  :)

Decisions, decisions.

I am a huge fan of etsy.  A number of wedding-related purchases came from etsy; including my garter, maid of honor gifts, my flowers (these deserve a separate post!), a brooch, and some gifted jewelry.  Love, love, love etsy. 

Here are some of my recent favorites that I carefully selected to join my birthday wishlist.  Alas, my birthday has come and gone and I did not receive any of these lovelies.  Perhaps I will just have to gift myself.

My house still uses paper towels.  Eek!  I would love a supply of these to cut down on that.




From etsy seller AthenaCreates

If you're looking for unique jewelry, etsy has you covered.  Look at these handmade rings.  Gorgeous!



From etsy seller Luster

My latest obsession is moss terrariums.  I'm going to try making some myself, but this li'l guy is super cute.



From etsy seller weegreenspot

What about hair accessories?  Etsy has you covered.  Whatever your taste, you'll find something you love.  And I am loving this beaded vintage-inspired headband.



From etsy seller thesleepyalbatross

Right now though, this is the favorite that I am considering the most.  A lovely little necklace.  So adorable.



From etsy seller luxedeluxe, who happens to have a wealth of tempting jewelry in stock.

Decisions, decisions.

Namaste. :)

I took an entire class worth of beginning yoga about 3 years ago.  I loved it, but after moving,, I had no idea where to go for classes.  When I received a flyer for the local community classes in the mail a while back, I was thrilled to discover that they offered yoga.  On top of being thrilled, I was *shocked* when my husband expressed interest in joining me at class.   Should be interesting...  Honestly, while I knew it would do him some good, I also thought he would flat out hate it.  It would be too corny, too slow-moving, too "getting in tune with your body" for him. 

On Wednesday last week, we attended our first class.  On the way there (it's close enough that we walked) I was asked if the rumors were true--do people actually fart in class?  I said that I was sure it did happen, but had never experienced it myself.

Our first day ended up being a lot more chatting than I would have liked.  We went around the room and did introductions and such.  By the time we got into it we only have about 40 minutes left.  Some of the poses I remember doing are half moon, cobra, child's pose, cat, table, downward-facing dog, staff, tree, simple twists, and others that I'm either forgetting or don't know the name of.  It was a good first class, but I'm looking forward to more of a challenge.  I can't wait to see the husband try to do some warrior poses. 

Of course, there were various times in class when I couldn't resist glancing over at my husband to see how he was doing.  I even had a couple giggle fits when I saw him looking confused at some of the poses.  Thankfully, I managed to control myself and NOT make eye contact when we both experienced our first in-class farter.  And no, it wasn't him.  :)

After class I felt terrific.  Very relaxed, definitely ready to climb into bed and sink into the mattress.  The husband also commented on how great his back felt and that he was surprised how relaxing it was... even if it was a bit cheesy.

I'm very much looking forward to this week's class.
Namaste.  :)

Happy Birthday to me.

Today is my birthday.  I am 29 years young.  People have been asking me all day how I feel about that.  Acting like it's the end of the world that next year I will transition to the next set of tens.  Right now I feel fine about it.  Ask me again next year. 

Birthdays are always a good time to reflect.  To think about where you are, where you've come from.  This year I am thankful.  I have been thinking about the accomplishments I've made in the last 3 years.  The list is definitely something to be proud of.

~Made it through Graduate School on my own dime (mostly) and my own merit (entirely).
~Received my M.S.
~Authored or co-authored 3 publications (and the first even made the journal cover!).
~Paid off my car (with lots of help from my parents, the only "help" I received during grad school).
~Got my first "real" job.
~Worked there 2 years so far and still enjoy it--most days.
~Bought a house.
~Planned a wedding.
~Got married.
~Gone on 2 international getaways--Antigua and England.
~Became a Godmother.
~Presented a poster at an international conference.
~Went through the new car buying experience without any parental support--eeek!
~Adopted a dog.

There's some major milestones in there!  I've come a long way, baby.

Here's hoping the next 3 years are just as good. 
Happy Birthday to me.

Lovely, lovely, English Garden

What is an English Garden anyway?

I know I like them. I know they're gorgeous. But what makes a garden "English?"

From Wikipedia:
The European "English garden" is characteristically on a smaller scale and more filled with "eye-catchers" than most English landscape gardens: grottoes, temples, tea-houses, belvederes, pavilions, sham ruins, bridges and statues, though the main ingredients of the English garden in England are sweeps of gently rolling ground and water, against a woodland background with clumps of trees and outlier groves.The name— not used in the United Kingdom, where "landscape garden" serves— differentiates it from the formal baroque design of the Garden à la française . One of the best-known English gardens in Europe is the Englischer Garten in Munich.

The dominant style was revised in the early nineteenth century to include more "gardenesque"[17] features, including shrubberies with gravelled walks, tree plantations to satisfy botanical curiosity, and, most notably, the return of flowers, in skirts of sweeping planted beds. This is the version of the landscape garden most imitated in Europe in the nineteenth century. The outer areas of the "home park" of English country houses retain their naturalistic shaping. English gardening since the 1840s has been on a more restricted scale, closer and more allied to the residence.


Sweeping planted beds. Attainable. Lots of flowers. Check. Gravelled walks. Probably not in the backyard, no. Shrubberies. Mm-hmm... Eye-catchers? Does an old red wagon count? A gnome? A little bench? I'll work on it. We don't even have a bird-feeder since the last one I bought, just like the one before it, broke.

Lots to do. But I have spent some more time planning and have discovered the perfect spot to transplant the pathetic looking raspberry bushes. The current inhabitants can then be moved to the other side of the yard.

Until then, some inspiration...

Doesn't this look like a hobbit house?  I absolutely love it.


I guess this counts as an eye-catcher.


Those flowers are trying to escape the bed. I love this look.  So full!


I would LOVE to have a brick wall in our yard. It looks so perfect to have the plants growing down the hill like that.
Lovely, lovely, English Garden.   *sigh*

Meet Lita.

My husband and I have discussed adopting a dog for, oh, pretty much EVER.  When you've been together for over 10 years, you have plenty of time to talk about hypotheticals, but we knew that one day this one would come true.  The problem was when?

When I finished graduate school, I moved back home with my parents for several months in the hopes of quickly finding a job.  Getting another dog in their already multi-dog household was not an option.  Several months later, with the job prospects looking bleak, and a sparkly new engagement ring on my hand, we decided to move in together.  This meant moving into a small one bedroom condo.  Again, not ideal for a dog.  After getting a job and working there for several more months, we decided to upgrade that condo to our very first home.  Yay!  But, we were also in the middle of planning a wedding and honeymoon, bringing lots of chaos into our lives already.  Certainly a dog would not help the situation.

When IS a good time to get a dog?  I don't think there ever is a perfect time.  Just like having kids.  Of course, I haven't HAD kids, so this is just my blissfully-ignorant opinion, but I imagine that with dogs, just like with kids, you become ready when you NEED to be ready.

We needed to fix the fence.
We needed to think about our schedules.
We needed to buy gates/crates/bowls/leashes/beds/toys/etc./etc./etc.  (getting a dog is not cheap, people!)

Three weeks ago we made necessary repairs to the fence.  Anything else, we reasoned, was not quite as imperative.

Two weeks ago we jumped in the car and drove to the shelter.  We convinced ourselves that we were mostly going to look.  To meet some of the faces we had glanced at via the website.  To see how the shelter was set-up.  To find out if any of the pooches we thought were the cutest would fit into our family.  We said that we wouldn't come home with a dog automatically, but only if we could find one that was "just right."  We said all these things, but we knew deep down that there was not a chance in hell that we would come away without a leash in hand. 

We went in with a list.  A list of 7 dogs.  The shelter staff eliminated 5 based on personality alone (we wanted a dog that was known to get along well with children--I have a nephew--and other dogs), leaving us with 2 options.

Sadie was a 2 year old American Bulldog/Boxer mix.  Sounded right up our alley as we are lovers of all ugly dogs.  My heart aches at the site of English Bulldogs, Chinese Shar-Pei, French Bulldogs, Boston Terriers--anything a little bit ugly and a lot cute.  My husbands just LOVES Bull Terriers with their odd football-shaped heads.  We met this ugly dog and, as expected, thought she was super cute.  We took her for a walk.  She was very calm.  Very mild-mannered.  I secretly wondered if she would have enough energy for my husband's tastes.

Goldie was a 1 year old AmStaff mix.  She was adorable.  Very friendly, very playful.  But then a Beagle puppy strolled by and Goldie became uncontrollable--lunging and barking.  This was the same puppy that she had just been playing with and it certainly did not seem like she was playing now.  Hmmm...

We went back and asked to see Sadie again.  She was so sweet.  And mellow.  Certainly she would warm up once she was given a chance???

Yes, we took her home.  I handed over my credit card to pay the adoption fee and we brought her out to the car for our hour-long drive home.  After a quick conversation on a name change, since she didn't seem to be responding to Sadie anyway, she promptly fell asleep.

We got her home and I gave her a bath to get the shelter stink off of her.  She didn't fuss at all.  That night we went for a nice walk and she slept on her new bed right next to ours.

My husband commented the next day that I should not be offended, but that our house now felt more like a home.  I agreed.

Here's our new girl--Meet Lita.


(You didn't really like the name Sadie anyway, did you?)


(Snoozing on the car ride home--a girl after my own heart.)


(Waiting with my husband and observing other pups in the Petsmart parking lot while I grab a few necessities.)

A little piece of the countryside in my own backyard.

My garden needs an overhaul.  I am delighted to say that I was lucky enough to move into a house that already had designated flower beds and a ton of plantings.  Unfortunately, since I've moved in, the garden has spent most of its days in varying stages of neglect.  I blamed planning a wedding the first year.  And this year?  Well, there was about a month worth of vacation out of the country or state that found me just battling to keep up with the weeds.  I lost.  Big time.  

There's a lot going on in that garden.  Most of it's good!  But there are a few negatives... like plants growing on top of one another.  And giant evergreen bushes that are taking over one of the main beds, suffocating the ferns.  Also, there are two very hardy, very invasive types of flowers--wildflowers?--that I have not yet identified and I must try to get under control.  They are lovely, they just spread way too much.  I also hate, HATE, that the largest bed, along the fence line, runs in a simple straight line.  It just looks so unnatural to me.  :(  That's easily remedied, though I'm not sure how my husband will feel about me cutting into his lawn.  Ha!  

Let's look at the positives, shall we?

Lots of room.  Full sun in most areas means I can grow a large variety of plants.  Speaking of variety: there's already a large variety of perennials (lamb's ear, hydrangea, peony, daylilies, clematis, sedum, black-eyed susans, purple coneflowers) and bulbs (iris, daffodils, hyacinth, hosta) and even some lilac bushes, rose of sharon bushes AND a magnolia tree.  Lovely!

Starting soon, I plan on preparing for the coming winter by trimming everything back and doing a thorough cleanup.  I'd also like to add a swoop into that dang straight bed because I just can't stand the look of it.  Maybe that'd be a good spot for a bench!

I am or may not get around to planting some more bulbs this season.  The one thing I'd really like to focus on is tulips.  They are my absolute favorites and I don't think I'll ever have enough.




Favorite!

I also have some plants in mind for NEXT season already!  I'm imagining an English-styled garden in my very own backyard.  We spent 12 days in England this summer and saw an awful lot of gardens.  I think I appreciated them much more than my husband, but that's okay!  I would love for my backyard to be an ideal place for an afternoon tea.  A haven for great photo ops!  One that attracts all sorts of wildlife.  Of course, with the addition of our own wildlife to the family (her name is Lita and she has 4 abnormally large feet), I may need to think about fencing off those beds.  This would not be a bad thing as not only would it keep her out of my flower beds, it would also prevent her from meeting up at the fenceline with the black lab that lives behind us.  They aren't very good friends just yet.

Anyway, plants!  For next season....


Hellebores for shadier areas.

Hollyhocks.

Frilly and feminine poppies.

The hydrangea I currently have is white so I'd love to add a bit of color.

To compliment the existing purple coneflowers.

Butterfly bushes to attract little friends.
All flower images from source: www.waysidegardens.com
 

Can't you just see it now--A little piece of the countryside in my own backyard.

A Fresh Start.

Confession: I have a Livejournal.  Yes.  Yes, I do.  Double confession: it's a paid account.  And there's about 8 years worth of babble in there.  Some of it's good, memorable stuff.  Some of it's pointless nonsense.  But I'm having a hard time letting go of it regardless.  At the same time, I have an aversion to logging in to that account right now that I can't explain.

When I first started that "blog," a lot of my friends were on LJ too.  We kept up with each other there, it was fun!  More recently, they have all shifted away from blogs entirely to the more concise social environments of twitter and Facebook.   While I have "met" a few other LJ users that I still read, for the most part I am out of touch with that whole community.  The whole site is aimed at a younger audience (and really always was!) and I'm finally recognizing that I don't. quite. belong.  

Over the last two years, I've become obsessed with my google reader.  I've been reading all sorts of blogs!  For the first year, a major portion of that reading came from wedding blogs and, to be more specific, weddingbee.  What a lovely community!  I still read regularly even though my wedding was almost a year ago.  Here's the thing though, since my wedding (and the wedding of many other bees), I've started following a number of their personal blogs.  And why not?!  We're all newlyweds, trying to establish our homes and new lives with our husbands.  But see... reading all those blogs (and many others) has given me the itch again.  So many of the women I read are going through similar situations (or completely opposite situations!) and they are so honest and open and I just admire them so much and yes, I do like run-on sentences.  They have given me the itch to write.  I'm not a great writer, I know this.  But I don't care.  It helps with thoughts and plans and life.  I need to purge the brain once in awhile and livejournal just isn't the answer anymore.  :(

So, here I am.  Shiny new blog at hand.  I don't know for sure that I'll ever have any readers, but that's part of the fun too, isn't it?!  To shout out into the void and see if a voice echoes back.

At this point, I'm planning to use this blog as an outlet for random thoughts, random photos, random decorating ideas, random family tidbits or life lessons.  Basically, I'm expecting randomness.  And you, whoever *you* are, should too.

I also need to figure out a way to safely file away my livejournal entries because I just can't let go of stuff like that.  I graduated college with that journal (undergrad and graduate school).  Got my first "real" job, bought a house, and got married with that journal.  I just can't let go of those memories.  But I am very much looking forward to A Fresh Start.