PHFR

Today is making my dreams come true. What's that? Did I win the lottery? Get Zuzu to sleep on command in her own bed? Hire a maid? Learn how to grow hydrangeas in southwest Florida?

No, unfortunately, to all of those things (and now you know my wildest fantasies). But today felt like real fall, at least for us. Windows open, cool breezes, much less humidity. In honor of the day, I'm joining up with Like Mother, Like Daughter to share my joy (and woes).

{pretty} 

My foxtail fern:

Fox tail ferns are actually not ferns at all - but they do have such lovely green color to them and are very hardy down here. They do so well anywhere, but I haven't settled on where to put mine just yet (hence letting it sit in the pot a bit more...hopefully NOT getting root bound). I am comforted to know it's done fine wherever I've put it, so it's permanent place is very much up for debate.

{happy} 

Flowers! In my garden!

Flowers! I love flowers that aren't waxy or insect looking, like most things down here. This lovely tecoma sans is a flowering bush/tree that has really taken to this spot on the south side of the house, but with some shade from the mahogany tree. It can get up to 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide, but I'm trying to keep it well pruned so we can still walk around on that side of the house.

{funny} 

Is this a bougainvellia or a weed? 

It's actually a bogie, that we had trimmed back and hacked out from the potato vine. But now something else has sprung up - a humongous weed, right in the midst of it. To get at the weed, we have to hack the bogie back (I don't want to wrestle with 2-inch thorns) and then try to wrestles its roots out or else find some sort of poison that'll take out the weed but not the bogie.
I do think it's funny that it looks like we are actively cultivating this hideous weed. Bogie flowers are actually quite pretty, but they're being obscured by this wretched demon.

See? Pretty.

{real}

My house - it struggles. 

Haven't quite dried out the couch cushion covers yet...or found a new place for that huge stroller in my tiny house.

Why, what a pleasant assortment of objects: canned corn, pledge, magazine, tshirt (dirty? clean? who knows!), Irish Coke bottle, ancient joke books, etc. 

Roach killer next to cutting board and bread - obviously a good idea.

Breastfast dishes, general clutter, and a tablecloth that is half falling off the table: my Little Oratory is in GOOD shape.

I have done several big projects lately (washing all of the couch cushion covers, switching bookshelves, weeding out bookshelves, organizing our 1K+ books). But whenever I devote myself to big, deep-clean type ordeals, my regular daily chores get sorely neglected and despite maybe being cleaner, my house ends up messier.
How's that for a fine how-do-you-do??

{P - H - F - R}

Easing back into the blogging game here with a little link-up action! 

{pretty} 

Zuzu has been enjoying our temperate early Spring by sporting some truly awesome headgear and playing outside with chalk and the hose nearly every day. Our next door neighbor, Macie, who is 8, comes over to play most days after school and really makes Zuzu's day! I believe it is for this reason that Zuzu says, every day when she wakes up from her afternoon nap, "Mimi?"(her name for Macie - and both of Macie's sisters, Marren and Mia). 

{happy}

Things are growing in my garden! My orchid is blooming (thanks Mom - the gift that keeps on giving!), and my mint in the little pot is coming up too. Unfortunately, the last picture above shows you Zuzu picking off one of the more promising stalks. 

{funny} 

I put a potty seat out on the porch and have started talking to Zuzu about it, just because I need something else to do in parenting. At this point, she thinks it's a really fun chair for her to sit on and sometimes, pee next to. 

Cracks me up.

{real}

To be honest, I'm really struggling with the housekeeping part of my vocation. The above pictures are documented proof that although my child is adorable, my home is largely a disaster! Between working and getting sick three times in three months, I've gotten a little bit behind. I'm hopeful that after Confirmation this Monday, I'll get some breathing room! 

(Belated) Cinco Favoritos

Thank goodness Hallie allows late submissions, cause between Bar studying, a daily running habit, and y'know, dinner, the time to blog is becoming mighty scarce...

-1-

The Wailin' Jennys

The only thing I ever wanted to do in life, but never did, was be something of a folk/bluegrass singer. I always thought I'd be really good at it, but never knew how to learn. Singing along to these amazing ladies and their crazy harmonies is as close as I get! 

-2-

Escada perfume. 

In high school, I would buy every new seasonal fragrance Escada put out. I was never disappointed! On a whim, I picked up and sniffed their newest one while in Ulta this week and was pleasantly surprised - I still love them! So summery and nice smelling, nothing that hints at 'dusky' or 'spicy,' which always makes me want to puke. I adore perfume, it's an accessory I never want to be without, but I haven't worn it that much since Zuzu came along. I always worry - is my perfume messing with my natural musk that tells her I'm her mom? Am I overthinking?

-3-

Growing things. 

Delosperma, a particularly lovely flowering ground cover

With all this rain, the various plants I try to coax into life are flourishing. How lovely! My basil has all-but out grown its pot, my citrus tree is busy putting out fruit, my variegated ice vine (delosperma) is overflowing its pot, and after I severely cut back my mint, it seems to be coming back. Makes me hopeful that I can grow my family! 

-4-

Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures

Caption on this one regarding why her husband deserves Father's Day: Better yet, he doesn't even roll his eyes when I read a another parenting book and announce that everything we have been doing is wrong and now we are doing it like this.  On a biweekly basis.  

Have you seen this blog? Hysterical. Warning for language. But so many of her drawings really resonate and anything that can make me snort with laughter deserves a FF mention.

-5-

Modern advancements in weather technology. 

Having lived through a tornado, I'm more than a little skittish about bad weather during the Spring and Summertime. In fact, I'm probably downright crazy about it. It makes me jumpy and sometimes causes minor panic attacks (which is awesome when I'm in public places!). And so I'm so grateful that now we have technology that will tell me when tornadoes have been sighted or when they're likely; unlike so many in the past, I have the ability to know when it really is bad or when it's just another Florida thunderstorm. 

(on my mind because we're under tornado watch today)

Wherein L'Orangerie Begins to Take Shape (in my mind)

I have come to the realization these days that the entire concept of gardening as a "hobby" is a total racket. Big garden stores (Lowes, Home Depot, Wal-Mart) hope that you'll want to do something outdoorsy when the weather turns nice and so you'll decide to do some planting. You'll come to their store and drop around $100 on soil, pretty plants, some new gloves since your old ones are lost or infested with roaches...and then you'll think about how nice it all looks. Maybe a little later you read an article on a pallet garden or a square foot garden and so you go out and buy everything you need for that (maybe another $100, more or less). But as life goes on and you get busy with the things that you have to do, you forget about your efforts except for sporadic watering and by the time winter comes around, everything is dead or overgrown and ugly. So you take it all out and bemoan your lack of gardening skills because "everything I try to grow dies!"

Pallet garden from Life on the Balcony

Maybe you even try to get MORE serious about it - you actually read the labels on the plants that say whether they grow in sun or shade, try to water more regularly, get some books on gardening. More money to major retailers and still more things wither and die. At one point, you get a red hair to self-sustain your family and grow a vegetable garden, but nothing much comes out of it- not even your raised beds! 

Here's my theory: this is a scam. The more I have gotten into gardening over the past two months, the more I have realized that: a) garden centers (even most local ones) are not your friend, and b) gardening is actually a science called horticulture. I went to my local garden center (read: non-chain!) and saw a HUGE display of beautiful hydrangeas.  I was thrilled, since I love them so much but had thought they could not grow into Zone 11. 

I asked one of their friendly knowledgeable salespeople if this was some new hybrid that could withstand the heat and thrive despite the cold snap hydrangeas usually need. "No," she said. I must've looked confused because she continued "we just sell 'em to people who want the color." My look deepened. "They won't last more than two weeks. Even in a pot." This was not the first nor the last incident that has put me on my guard! I have come to realize that garden centers do not sell what will grow in your zone or area; they don't care if you are buying plants that will die. They will mislabel and sell you plants that cannot grow where you are, but not tell you; so you'll probably blame yourself and come spend more money at their store. 

I am lucky in that my natural suspicious nature made me catch onto this fairly quickly...also I listen to my mother, who knows a lot about gardening in Florida (albeit in Zone 10, which makes a BIG difference!). So I decided I would do what any consummate academic would do and read some books on the subject before I made any big big purchases. Well...even as I'm reading the books about gardening in SW Florida, I'm finding them hard to understand. What is "pinching back" a plant? What does it mean to prune severely versus drastically? As I did more research, I realized that these terms are actually heavily-laden with a meaning and understanding that evades me, the novice gardener. Which is when it hit me: gardening is a science. No one would approach any other branch of science and expect to intuit the right answers as a side-hobby! But we assume that gardening should be something we can just figure out - nevermind soil pH, heat zone maps or those other pesky details! We should be able to shove something in the ground and make it grow! Hm. Not so much. 

A working farm by Louise Magno 

Turns out there's a reason why people used to starve to death back when we were a largely agricultural society - growing things is not necessarily easy. It takes planning and thought, and usually an outlay of money, especially if you live in Florida where the soil is more like sand. So although L'Orangerie is a ways away from where I want it to be, it's nice to be erecting the support of the garden. On Monday the tree crew comes to take down several problem trees (like the palm that is leaning on my house) and clear out some invasive potato vine. From there, I can hopefully start tilling and enriching the soil! Only then can I plant, but it'll be just in time for spring and I hope it'll start moving more quickly then. 

Happy feast day of St. Hilarious! 

Vacation, Obsessions, Gardens

The hubs and I have been at my parents' place in Orlando since Monday. If you know my husband, you know that's a minor miracle. He does not take vacations. He says he does, he'll even come home early during the week, but really, if he can access a computer, he can work.

This is a picture from the first party where Tom and I hung out - this was the last time I ever saw him that far away from a computer (2009)

So I have taken the computer hostage for the week, which means I should be posting a lot, but instead, I have been on pinterest. In fact...I've been a little, well, obsessed with pinterest. What, you ask, is pinterest? It's a virtual cork board on which you can "pin" (via a button installed on your toolbar) things you find on the internet - craft ideas, recipes, sewing projects, cute fashion, books to read. You name your boards different things ("gift ideas," "recipes," "garden") and then while you're surfing the web, if you find something cool, you pin it; later, when you return to pinterest and click on a particular board, there is a picture of the thing you found and if you click on it, it takes you to the original website. Genius! (If you're curious, my page link is http://pinterest.com/mjrofl/) Currently, it's by invitation only, but if you want to join, let me know and I'll shoot you an invite.

This is a picture my sister tagged of me on fb. I'm not kidding. Apparently, she thinks I am an mythical aquatic maid, with an internet addiction and a secret wish to die by electrocution. 

Pinterest has helped fuel my longing for my garden. I have been on a gardening binge for the past month or so, ever since the weather became beautiful. As far south as I live, this is the time to do outside work! And now it's all I can think about: I dream in herb patches, raised beds, and vertical planters. I use google search phrases such as "tumbling compost bins", "root hormone", and "variegated ice plant." Today I bought something called "rooting hormone" and I actually know how to use it. 

From the Green Light website...rooting powder is what you use to help grow plants from cuttings - which is far cheaper than buying new plants whenever you need something.

So far nothing exciting has been happening in my yard, but I'm also trying to not over do it since we're getting a new roof and hopefully rebuilding the porches after the first of the year - I don't want to plant something close to the house just to have it die when it's crushed underneath roofing tiles. But even just the little I'm doing - weeding, removing dead trees, trimming palms, putting herbs in pots, preparing the ground, propagating cuttings in mason jars - it feels so very very good. To see my little house grow and change bit by bit, to clear away the neglect the years had done to our place, does my soul great good and gives me great inner peace. So much of today's modern work involves no final product, just a bunch of paper or computer files; I take such comfort in being able to survey a final work. There is such joy in planting to things and tending to them as they grow. 

I hope you all are well, and enjoying your weather, be it frost and chill or heat and humidity!