A Monthlong Vacation

Saturday Night, 10:30 p.m.

I've had a long vacation from posting on this blog--my last post was on April 20, 2009. Perhaps you think I was up to my eyeballs doing something important and meaningful. Like making tons of new jewelry pieces. Or honing my photography skills for the web. Or organizing my craft room. And filing away all of my mail.

Truth be told, it wasn't any of that. The reality is....I simply ran out of steam. Lost momentum. During the past month, I chose to do all of the things that I haven't been able to do in a long, long time. Like sleep. Many nights I've turned in by 10:30 p.m. Unheard of! Obviously, I haven't been very productive (because my productive time is usually after everyone goes to bed....usually after 10 p.m.) but I sure do feel great in the morning!

Also, I rarely watch TV. Don't have the time, and besides, Luna doesn't like to relinquish control of the remote control. Well, over the last month, I've developed an addiction to the show "Without a Trace"--a crime drama starring Anthony LaPaglia that centers around the investigation of missing people. It's on practically every night on TNT. I just realized that I am actually watching really old re-runs of the show.

I told my Dad tonight, "I just saw the episode where Jack Malone got shot."

He said, "That's a really old episode".

That's how much I watch TV.

So, now we all know that I've been sleeping the time away and watching TV crime dramas. But, you ask, is there anything at all that I've done over the past month that is remotely productive?

Why, yes! We've started to paint the exterior of the house, and have continued our landscaping on the side of the house. In my last blog post, I posted a photo of our puakenikeni tree. Our tree is doing very well, we've had several flowers bloom already! Below is a photo of the first bloom from our tree:


In this photo, Luna, who has an incredible green thumb and great eye for landscape design, is putting orchid bark around our newly planted trees to define the area (with my son and niece as his audience):


Hopefully by my next post we'll be done with the repainting of the exterior. For now, I'm off to rest and elevate my right hand, which is cramping up from holding the paintbrush while doing the trim work around the house. Oh! Maybe I'll catch an episode of my favorite new (old) show....

Happy Spring, Everyone!

Monday afternoon, 2:40 p.m.

Whether or not this is backed by any actual evidence, it seems as though we have had a very long winter--rain, rain and more rain! So when the sun made an appearance out the last two weekends, work got done around here!

In our front entryway, we laid the extra tile we had from our renovation. We chose a beautiful, warm limestone tile called "Inca Gold" to go throughout the entire house. The local supplier didn't have enough material, so we special ordered the balance from Saudi Arabia, and it pushed our move-in date back a whopping three months!

I should have taken a "before" photo. Anyway, this is how our new and improved entryway looks from the front door:


Don't you just love the kiddie bench?

And, we also started to take out the existing landscaping on the side of the house. We are leaving some of the plants, but removing 90% of what is already there. Our first task was planting our favorite tree, the puakenikeni. This flower is our favorite--it blooms a pale peach color, and turns bright, vibrant orange, and gives off a beautiful scent. We had three of these trees at our first house, and we were able to fill our house with bowls of these blooms. Simply said, these flowers make me happy.

Local wisdom says that you need to plant these trees in the front of your house, because they like to "show off". We will probably end up planting another one in the front, but we haven't worked our way there yet...

Here is a photo of my 16-month old, helping us with our spring gardening:


And a close-up photo of the beloved puakenikeni, now firmly planted in the ground:


I took this photo yesterday (Sunday) and this morning, one of the buds had started to bloom. So exciting! Also, I am thinking of somehow incorporating this image into my banner for my ETSY shop, if I can figure out how to do it....

In addition to the outside gardening that I have been tending to, I have been crafting my jewelry pieces like a mad lady! I still only have a few pieces, because if it is not absolutely right, I go back and take the entire thing apart. At a recent bead show, I purchased a strand of the most amazing rutilated quartz briolettes:

Let's see if the pieces I make can do these justice!

Stay tuned.