2010 Flower & Garden Show

I thought I would share some shots of the garden show. There were a few things there that caught my eye.

I wonder what the real Dr. Chomsky would think of this? I thought it was funny.
Here's a lovely panorama of one of the gardens. My preliminary garden sketches for the backyard are leading me toward something like this...a big patio with 3'-5' beds along the perimeter.

This was one of the coolest new ideas I saw this year. It's a vertical strawberry bed. It's something I think I might be able to make work in my space.

And this was my all-time favorite new plant (at least new to me): 'Midwinter Fire' Bloodtwig Dogwood. The photo doesn't do the color justice. And doesn't it look fabulous with the black mondo grass?

All in all, the show this year was a little bit less amazing then in previous years. The first year I attended, maybe 2003, there were tons of freebies and awesome coupons from the nurseries around the area. This year, there wasn't much of that. I think I came home with three packets of seeds and a single coupon to a nursery in Lynnwood. The show organizers seem to have let in a lot more shed-builders and window replacement vendors. There are still some awesome booths, Ravenna Gardens had one for sure and some of the more far-flung nurseries were peddling some interesting plants. Prices seemed a little steeper than my last memory and it didn't look like the vendors were selling as much given the huge masses of people at the show. This was the year for the longest ticket line for sure.

But as usual, the show didn't fail to inspire and with a backyard that is a blank slate (well, more like a blank concrete), I needed a few grand ideas to get me thinking.

Garbage, Yardwaste & Recycling

Maybe it was my inner guilt about filling 7 dumpsters full of construction debris from this renovation or maybe it was just a quest for more civic involvement but I've found my way onto a City of Seattle citizen advisory board on Garbage, Yardwaste & Recycling. This board looks at a bunch of stuff concerning solid waste including rates, frequency of pickup, legislation at the federal/state/local level, conservation, and other policy-related topics. I've been to my first meeting of this group, called the Solid Waste Advisor Committee or SWAC and I'm eager to weigh in from a citizen of Seattle perspective. So, if you're a resident of Seattle and have thoughts about our solid waste service, leave me a comment. Part of my role is to reach out to folks in my community, specifically those folks in SE Seattle.

Seattle, We have a 2nd Bathroom!

We have a second bathroom complete! Lest you think we've been doing nothing on the home improvement front, I have a photo of a completed second bathroom (dare I say Master Bathroom). We've been using this second bathroom almost since we moved in but the details weren't complete. They are now! Here's the rundown: We sanded down all of the ugly trim, filled the holes and re-sanded; painted the trim white to match the rest of the house; caulked between the windows and trim; repainted the red-orange walls to get a clean edge with the ceiling and address a few of the areas without paint where we thought we might put tile but opted not to.
Except for the missing door (doors on bathrooms are so overrated!), we have another room to check off our list. That leaves one room and one hallway to finish up before we officially have this house put back together and have time for other things like the hobbies we both abandoned when we took on this monster project!

The $100 hole

Who knew that a simple do-it-yourself electrical project could cost more than $100? That's the price for wanting lamps in the middle of the living room without visible cords. A special brass outlet box, some Romex and two hole-saws later, we've got an electrical receptacle in the middle of our living room, to be cleverly hidden beneath our sofa.

A Yummy Sandwich

I don't have a picture to share because I ate the evidence. But I would like to share a recipe for the most delicious of sandwiches. I'll call it the "party leftovers sandwich". See, we had a party this weekend a put out a spread of hors d'oeuvres including and antipasto plate with peppers and marinated roasted vegetables and salami. But not all was consumed so we were left with a few spears of zucchini, slices of eggplant, strips of roasted red peppers, pickled cherry peppers and some slow roasted tomatoes. We had some leftover salami and sharp cheese as well as a couple of hoagie rolls from a different sandwich creation earlier in the week. Now, some of this stuff came out of jars from the store but not all. I slow roasted the tomatoes to the tune of Orangette's Pomodori al Forno. And I roasted the eggplant and zucchini, coated in oil and salt & pepper & oregano at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes and then cooled it all down in the fridge for a few hours. And that, my goodness, is the basics for a great sandwich: A chewy hoagie, slathered with a grainy mustard (Justin uses mayo) and piled high with roasted & pickled veggies and topped with a thin slice of salami and a sprinkling of grated cheese (we used Parmesan). Yum!

Anniversaries

Well, our first anniversary of home ownership came and went yesterday without so much as a nod from us. We forgot. Good think a home can't divorce its owners...

We've come a long way from last December 1.