Passionflower blooming

On a whim I bought us a passionflower late this summer. My parents have had one for more than a year, and I'd always thought they were pretty so when I saw one on sale I scooped it up.

Unfortunately I hadn't brought it inside until a couple of weeks ago, and it was damaged by the cool temperatures at night. It was also badly in need of being re-potted, which I finally did last night. Lucky for me it seems fairly resilient and has lots of new growth, including a flower that just burst today.

They're so unique looking I though I'd share. The second picture is closer to the real colour - it's hard to take good shots at night indoors and I'm still playing with my camera settings.

Fall lawn cutting

If it doesn't stop raining long enough for us to cut the grass really soon I'm pretty sure our back yard will start growing a camaro, just as our neighbours' did. It really just needs one more cut before spring (hah! Take that you nice-weather-year round people! I finally found an advantage to living in the deep freeze! While you're sipping drinks on the beach at Christmas WE won't have to be cutting our lawns!)

(Hmm on second thought maybe it's not much of an advantage. Anyway, moving on.)

Our lawnmower is a hand-me-down from my parents. They bought it at a yard sale about 10 years ago, and it still works. It's an electric mower because they didn't want the fumes from a gas powered mower and they're much quieter.

About two weeks before our wedding it died just as Dave was finishing the back yard. We weren't sure why but didn't look into it too much because, well, we had a few other things on our mind. To be honest we don't care if we piss off our neighbours to the south, and since we moved here more than a year ago we've seen the neighbour to the north under 10 times. No word of a lie. It's very odd.

Of course after the wedding, we went straight to our honeymoon, my friend's Wedding, work, then another work/shower and family visiting weekend leaving lawn maintenance at the bottom of the list.

Dave finally cut the grass mid-September after trying a new power cord. It worked again, but now it's been raining so much I'm not sure when it will dry out enough to cut it. Luckily the front lawn is shaded by a big maple so it's not too bad, but the back yard is getting rather jungle-like.

Blooms!

I came home tonight to find the first bloom on our orchid has burst!

I also bought some sweet william* seeds for the garden (my favourite flowers - they should be making sweet william perfume instead of play dough perfume), along with hollyhocks and some poppies. I think I'll start them in the front window tomorrow night.

I also donated blood today, which, if you haven't done is totally easy. The need for blood always spikes around long weekends so now's as good a time as any. I hate needles and if you just tell the nurses that they're happy to warn you in advance so you don't see it (that's if you're as big a wimp as I am).

Plus, you get free crystal drink juice at the end and cookies. What more could you ask for? I skipped the cookies and headed to the grocery store instead because I prefer gummi sharks to cookies. Somehow in my head having donated blood gives me free reign in the candy aisle. I'm happy with my delusions.

*not only is sweet william fragrant, it's pretty too!

Jodi & Andrew's Tulips

Have bloomed! Friends of mine who got married this past fall had the fabulous idea of giving out tulips as a wedding favour. I planted them on an cold rainy day in late October. I was convinced a squirrel had eaten them until this morning when the blooms finally turned white! They're gorgeous!

Here's the other tulips and the little grape hyacinths I planted along with them.

Mini daffodils!

In our garden! Even though these are crappy pictures they're totally cute, they sprung out of nowhere, and were worth getting soaked in late October freezing rain and chill to plant them.

Weekend Recap

• Frankencouch's days are officially numbered. Next Saturday the new couch is being delivered, probably some time between when the sun comes up and it goes down. I'm guessing the likelihood that they'll narrow the delivery time down any more than that is slim, but I'm still excited.
  

• With the new couch coming I'd really like to un-beige our living room walls but I'm at a loss for what colour to paint them, and I'm a bit of a "have a complete vision" kid before I get started (at least when it comes to decorating; nothing else, oddly enough). So, we did what broke people do when they wanna re-decorate and spent Friday wandering through Chapters looking for ideas in books. Still haven't made any decisions though. I'm not sure if I'm bold enough to paint the walls a warm bluey greeney colour when the couch is chocolate brown... or go with a more neutral tan colour on the walls with red accents... any suggestions? All I decided is that I want to have Debbie Travis come and re-do our whole freaking house cause it's hard to decorate tiny spaces on a tiny budget. The living room's small and we spend most waking hours in it so it's gotta be calming and not too crazy. I'd like to do some feng shui but I have no idea where to start. If there are any budding designers out there send ideas our way!
  

• Is there anything better for a cold than tom yum soup from a Thai restaurant? There's something about the sweet-salty-hot-sour combination that's perfect for sick people.
  

• After Friday's excitement I almost entirely slept through April Fool's Day, but when I saw the score for the Leafs game on the CBC Saturday night I thought it was a late April Fool's joke. The Leafs, who have stunk (pretty much) the whole season and blew a playoff berth last weekend won 7-0, now that a playoff berth is way out of reach.
  

• Saturday I tortured Dave by bringing him curtain shopping. To TWO places. I think he only went along with it because he was afraid I'd either get too whacky and the curtains would look like something out of an acid trip or I'd pass out in a coughing fit in a fabric aisle, never to be heard from again. What we found were curtains that were either hideous thick floral prints or not anything we (read I) liked so we're (I'm) still looking. It wasn't a total loss, though, I did manage to find a nice camel coloured chenille throw for the new couch that's so soft it makes silk feel like sandpaper. I'm looking forward to curling up on the new chair with a book and the new throw on a rainy day.
  

• We have a wedding photographer! Another thing to check off our wedding list is done (and less than 5 months before the day!)
  

• We went for a walk with the dogs and my parents at a park in Cobourg and the dogs loved the chance to run in a big open space and seemed to have a blast. They panted the whole ride home and we've hardly heard a peep from them the rest of the night.
  

• Finally all my whining that the neighbours have bulbs peeking through the soil and we don't has paid off! I planted a ton of bulbs late last fall and finally I'm starting to see leaves peeking from the soil that I swear weren't there when I (neurotically) checked Thursday. I can't wait to see blooms! The pussy willows in the park are bursting, the birds are back, the days are getting longer and the sun is definitely stronger, I just love spring!
  

Weekend tidbits

We went out for Thai food on Friday night, and MMMM was it good. So good, in fact that I just enjoyed leftover green curry veggies & tofu with jasmine rice for dinner. Is there anything more delightful than mango sticky rice? I drank jasmine tea by the gallon.

What a GORGEOUS weekend! It was so nice to have a taste of spring.

Saturday the weather was just amazing. It was about 15 degrees but the sky was perfect blue with high whispy clouds and a light springey breeze. We rallied the dogs and drove to Cobourg (where I grew up) to visit my parents. We all went for a walk along the harbour, out the pier, across the beach, and through the downtown. I had hoped to get some adorable treat jars for dog and cat treats but sadly, no luck.

It was so sunny, that on the ride home I decided I simply had to get a new pair of sunglasses. So, for $20 I now have sporty sunglasses which do a much better job than the other $20 pair I have which aren't that dark and have a nasty habit of pulling out my hair.

Looking back I really wish I'd gone for a rollerblade late Saturday when we got home. I really got hooked on blading to work last year in Ottawa and can't wait to get at it again. I still really stink at it but am getting better.

I even got 2 runs in with the dogs, about 5.2 km on Saturday, and 4.8km on Sunday. I felt good after both and am seriously hoping I can stay on track and get going on the weights in an effort to cure my comfy bum. I'm starting the Running Room 10k clinic on Tuesday night and am really looking forward to it.

I'm starting to get pretty excited about spring. The dose of spring weather we had the last 2 days (which I gather will be short lived, they're forcasting rain/snow and temperatures hovering around 0).

I'm looking forward to seeing the fruits of me planting a whack of tulips, hyacinths and daffodils bulbs in OUR garden this fall. I'm getting nerdy about gardening this summer, having our own yard and I'd really like to have a nice garden out front, with mint growing in it for mojitos.

I'm also looking forward to more hours of light in the evening and firing up the BBQ we inherited from my grandmother. She insists she's too afraid to use it (lest it explode) so she gave it to us. It just needs a good cleaning after sitting idle for a few years. I might even give it a fresh coat of BBQ paint to make it look all new and shiney.

The only downside of the glimpse we had of spring is that the zoo has started shedding MORE than they were before. As if that were even possible! It's a good thing my spring cleaning instinct has kicked in.