Children's Mural

The future home of The Silver Chair bookstore.

Well, we've been having some excitement. My husband is opening a bookstore called The Silver Chair. They closed on the house they are going to convert into a store yesterday. Yea!

I am going to have a couple jobs in helping open up the store and one I'm planning now is a mural in the children's section of the store. I have a plan to make a "land" with famous children book characters in it. I'm having a rough time deciding on what characters to put in the mural. I sat down for two minutes and came up with 30. Yikes. Help me out and tell me your top 5 or ten picks.

Here are 10 from me:
1. Jack the Giant Killer
2. Rapunzel
3. St. George and the Dragon
4. Rikki Tikki Tavi
5. Mary had a Little Lamb
6. Peter Rabbit
7. Jack Sprat and Wife
8. Ugly Duckling
9. Three Billy Goats Gruff
10. Little Red Riding Hood

The Fruit Of My Labor

So close to being edible but not quite. The bottom picture is of my strawberries sending off shoots that will root and be more plants next year. I won't get fruit from them till next year. I have cute feet too don't I?

Birdbath Part 3

I grouted the bird bath and frankly, I'm disappointed. It looks nice but not what I wanted. The grout takes away so much of the tile color. I picked too light a color grout which made the flower disappear. I'll get over in a week.
I also found blossom end-rot on my tomatoes so I have to go buy calcium nitrate to spray them with but thankfully it is a common problem here and fixable.
I have a blackberry plant that is growing really well. I just planted a gardenia bush in my front yard. And a tiny rose bush that came with the house just wouldn't die no matter how often I mowed it. So I transplanted it near the huge rose bush I couldn't figure out how to kill without it scratching me to death.( I don't know how well I'll do with such fussy plants as roses. I like my plants as mellow as me.) Soon I will post some more garden photos.

Family Pictures

Jennifer, Tony and Alex.

We just got home from a visit to my sister-in-law's house. We went to see my nephew Alex be baptized. We get to be godparents. It was so much fun we stayed an extra day. Here are some great photos of family and friends we got to see.

Joffre with baby Alex.



The Grandparents with Joffre and Renata.
Our good friends the Geary's. Their baby, Ayden, was also baptized.

Lastly, me with our friend Nahum who has recently become a priest in the Anglican church and gotten married (a good combo).

Top 10 Geekiest Things Knitted on the Web

This is so funny.

Birdbath Part 2

I've adhered all the tiles on my bird bath. I almost ran out of blue. I had to move some bigger pieces around because it got pretty pathetic near the end with tiny blue pieces.I wish I had had more dark blue pieces, but I'm happy. Now I have to grout it which is the part that makes me the most nervous. We'll see.

Frozen Yuca

Publix, the best grocery store on the planet, sells peeled chunks of yuca frozen. For those of you who haven't heard of yuca (also known as manioc and cassava depending on which continent you are on) it is a tuber like a potato. It's really popular in latin countries. It is delicious fried in oil and served with salt like french fries. You can also make it with lime and garlic. I'm very excited about Publix selling it peeled in chunks because it is a bit of a pain to peel and cut. It is much harder than a potato. So now I can boil the content of the bag , slice, chill and fry. Yum. They also sell frozen plantains already fried that are quite good.

Ode to Hubby

My Hubby was upset with my post about him telling me my pot was ugly. ( My very nice neighbor came over and I told her what Joffre had said about my pot. She tought he was being mean and wanted to see the pot. Her response was, "Oh Kim, that is ugly!") He said my tone sounded bitter. I am not good about understanding my tone well when I write. Anyway, I am redeeming him by telling you how great he is.

Tonight was a great night for me to sing his praises. First he cooked dinner. He cooked a delicious dinner, flank steak in Mojo, palm heart and tomato rice, and a carrot salad with lime and cilantro which was really really good. I don't like carrots much and I loved that salad. (By the way, if you are one of those people who have never had palm hearts you need to have a palm heart salad. You buy them in a can a whole (not sliced) near the canned artichokes. Put a little olive oil, rice vinegar, cilantro and tomato in with them and you will thank me later.) Then Joffre Jr. started having an accident in his underpants and it was not pee. Joffre whipped him up, had him on the potty and bath tub before I could blink. Then Joffre Jr. had another accident when he realized he had not finished. Repeat of previous senario. Next he cleaned up George and got him in the bath. Finally we were all clean and Joffre gave us all a group hug and we prayed the Our Father together. (Did you know Joffre can pick up all three kids at one time? Fun fact. I keep trying to get a picture but he doesn't do it for very long.)

So if you can't see how great my husband is you are a dipstick. And I'm sorry if I was bitter about my ugly pot. The End.

New Blog To Check Out

This woman makes the coolest purses. She has an Etsy shop and sells on Ebay. I really need to find some great gardening blogs so I stop checking out these sewing blogs. I will never be a serious sewer and they make me want to torture myself by taking on these big sewing projects . I would love to buy from them if I just had the money. Alas I guess I will just work on my contentment level and save in a money jar.

Birdbath

My husband has been hogging the computer for work so I haven't been able to post often.
I'm making a mosaic in an old birdbath that came with our house. I'm doing a koi fish with a water lilly. I thought I'd post it in stages. Today I hope to do the lilly pad and some of the water. I'm really enjoying making mosaics. I did a practice one on a flower pot that my husband frankly told me was ugly. It was. I was nervous to start the birdbath but it is coming out well so far.

The Garden

You can see in the top picture my sunflower is getting quite big. They are so much fun to watch grow. I've got tomatoes growing on my plants but no red yet.The weirdest thing is that I have marigolds and nastriums as big as my tomato plants but neither has produced a single flower.

Displaying Plants...I Mean Paintings

I thought this was a nice way to display planty paintings. It becomes more of a sculpture than a painting. I saw it a this site.

Joffre Jr.

Joffre , my husband, told my son Joffre that he was handsome last night and Joffre Jr responded, "No, Dad, I not. I happy."
"You can be both handsome and happy, son."
"No, Dad, I happy."
" Ok."
We are trying to figure out what his definitions of handsome and happy are exactly.
When you ask him "How are you, Joffre?" He responds, " I just Joffre."
He has his queston words mixed up. It's so cute I don't really want him to get it all straight just yet.