Been Gone a Long Long Time

Hi Everyone!

Remember me?

I know, it's been a while.

I've been keeping myself busy around the house lately.

The weather here has been toasty.

We had our first triple digit number last week.

I think we were at 101 degrees last Wednesday.

I've been enjoying spending some time outside

working in the yard.

It's not been too bad and when I do get hot

I have to say I sure am enjoying this baby.

The garden is growing like crazy.

I have more lettuce than I know what to do with.

The tomatoes are growing so fast.

These Big Boy Varieties are about the size of my fist right now.

My first bell pepper.

Our hibiscus are looking good right now.

I wasn't sure this one was going to make it

but with a little loving care

she's turning out beautiful blooms.

We have four bird feeders in our back yard.

We live in bird central.

I fill these large feeders in the mornings and by the afternoon,

all four of them are empty.

Next to the feeders,

I keep suet cake cases.

When I ran out of suet cakes,

I began filling them with bits of yarn

and I like to watch the birds come and grab some

for their nests.

We have two back patios.

The main one runs almost the length of the house,

the other is under a Ramada next to the pool.

The Ramada patio has been empty since we've moved in

since we didn't have enough patio furniture.

Last weekend we finally found a good sale and now

have some furniture in there.

I'd like to make some new pillows to brighten up the space.

The flowers on the table are so pretty.

I love the contrast of the lime green sweet potato vine

with the dark green of the vincas.

I've been busy inside too.

No, I still haven't redone my bedroom.

I'm still pretending it doesn't exist.

I do have to get on that shortly though.

I've been working on some smaller projects.

Remember my pantry jars?

I love these jars but I find that I'm constantly

in and out of the pantry grabbing them.

I don't like a lot of stuff on the counters

but I wanted these to be more accessible.

As you can see,

they had the original shiny silver lids 

with key tags for labels.

If I wanted them on the counters,

they would need an update.

I sprayed the lids with

Oiled Bronze Spray Paint.

Then I attached oiled bronze knobs to the tops

with E6000 glue.

I found the free printable labels

over here at The Painted Hive.

I didn't have the right label paper to print it out on

but I did have some clear contact paper

so I used that.

I found out the hard way that even after they sit

for an hour, the ink does not dry

very well on the contact paper

and it smudges very easily.

I redid the labels and this time

hit each one with a shot of hairspray.

Yup.

It worked.

As soon as the hairspray was dry,

the labels didn't smudge.

I just peeled the back off the contact paper 

and applied them to the jars.

They look so much better in my kitchen now.

And one last thing.

Katie's dear sweet boyfriend, Travis,

is home from his third tour in Afghanistan.

We have been so thrilled he is home safe and sound.

Of course,

I haven't seen very much of my Katie lately.

She's been busy with this guy, I guess.

Have a great weekend!

xxx-ooo

Holly