For 35, A Little MJ Love

35 just told me about a blog that has great pictures of my first and forever love, Mick Jagger.  As a thank you, I would like to give this to you, 35, my favorite Leo:

Love, 40.

Love

Maybe I am a little late to the party but my Poppy King for J. Crew lipstick just arrived today.  And I love it.  It is quite possibly the perfect summer color.  Summer '11 anyway.  There are still enough hot days left, you can buy this here. 

-35

Square Foot Gardening - Seedlings!

Look at what I have growing in my garden!

Seedlings!

I've never grown vegetables from seed before.  I can't tell you how exciting this is for me.

This picture shows six of my 32 square foot squares.  From left back you can see radishes, lettuce mix, and black seeded simpson lettuce.  The middle row has a mix of radishes and carrots, lettuce mix and black seeded simpson lettuce. Not pictured are two squares of carrots, two of arugula, two of broccoli and two where I planted spinach.  the spinach is giving me a hard time.  Nothing sprouted after my first planting.  I planted a second time, and I think I see a few tiny seedlings beginning to emerge.  I am keeping my fingers crossed!

In the coming weeks I will plant a zucchini plant, which takes up 9 squares!  Luckily, zucchini is generally prolific, so the planting will be worth the space.  I haven't decided what I will plant in my remaining 9 squares.  I may just plant more squares of lettuce and carrots to extend my harvest.  I have another 4x8 bed that I plan to dedicate to tomatoes and peppers.  A third bed is in partial shade.  I am going to plant beans, peas and cucumbers in that bed. 

Hopefully, 35 will share her garden here at some point.  She lives in a condo, but has been able to do great things with a bunch of containers on her balcony.

Love, 40.

Vintage Movie Star Chic

I don't think I have mentioned this before but the sun is not and never has been my friend.  I am pale.  Very, very pale.  So when summer comes, I start the hat search.  It is nearly impossible to find hats that keep my delicate head covered and look normal.  There is just always something so dorky about summer hats.  Or maybe just on me.  This winter I became obsessed with knitting a turban.  I just wanted something different- I have a cloche, I knit a few slouchy berets.  So, after a short search, I found a vintage pattern on Ravelry.  I was very pleased with my knit turban, it is oh so very vintage movie star.  But now I need a warm weather head covering.  After many unsuccessful attempts at tying a scarf turban-like around my head, I began to wonder if I could sew one (stop laughing at me, 40!).  But then I found these on Urban Outfitters website:

You can buy them here.  See you at the beach!

Spring Planting/Square Foot Gardening

I haven't written in a while.  I didn't feel like I had anything interesting to write about.  Then I realized that I have been spending an inordinate amount of time planning my vegetable garden, learning how to compost, and building raised beds.  Which I find pretty interesting.  So I thought I would write a little about that.

This is a picture of our garden mid-summer last year.   It was our first vegetable garden.  We had one raised bed with peppers and tomatoes.  And a hanging planter with strawberries.  I also planted some broccoli, but I don't really want to talk about that.  Anyway - it was SO exciting to watch our veggies grow, and to watch the kids actually eat the veggies we had grown, that we  decided to expand our garden this year. 

We plan to have at least three raised beds.  I am still playing around with my planting configuration, but I know that one of the beds will be dedicated to peppers and tomatoes.  In the other two beds I hope to grow lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes, bush beans, corn, zucchini and maybe eggplant and broccoli.  We are also growing sunflower seeds.  It sounds like a lot of planting for only three beds, but you can squeeze a lot more plants into a raised bed than you can a traditional garden bed.  Also, this year I discovered square foot gardening, which tells you exactly how many of each kind of plant you can plant within a square foot of a raised bed.  I had no idea I could plant SIXTEEN carrot plants in one little square!  There are charts explaining square foot gardening all over the internet.

We live in zone 5.  This means that we need to wait to plant many of our plants until Memorial Day.  But I have planted seeds for some cold-tolerant plants.  I hope to see lettuce, spinach, radish, arugula and carrot sprouts coming through the dirt in the next few days!  Fingers crossed!  Last year, the only seeds I planted were spinach seeds, which yielded me a great big NOTHING. 

Okay, I am off to read more about composting!

Love, 40

Hello, Spring!

I'm not a fan of nail art, really I'm not.  But sometimes I find myself bored and at Walgreen's simultaneously.  It can be a dangerous combo for me- as in, "really, hair dye for only $7??".  Well, this fantastic find is Sally Hansen and costs about $10.  With short nails like mine, there is enough for two full applications.  That's only $5 a "manicure" and it is supposed to last TEN DAYS!! The 12 year old girl in me (the same one that loves all things Hello Kitty) is just thrilled!

Just keep pinning, pinning, pinning

As thirty-five says - "Time waster alert!"

Have you heard of pinterest?  It's amazing.  It's a website where you create virtual bulletin boards where you can "pin" cool things you find while surfing the web.  You can also search topics that interest you and view other members' pins for inspiration. 

If the site is still in beta when you attempt to become a member, don't worry, it took less than two weeks for me to get an invite to join. 

Happy pinning!

Forty