10 Things I Wish I had time to Write About

I think about sharing stuff on my blog every day, but for the past few months none of those thoughts have made it into an actual blog post. This is a shame, because I have a lot of fun stuff going on!

1. I planted a terrarium. My grandmother gave me a Wardian Case for my birthday last fall, and I am finally got around to planting some tiny plants in it after reading a beautiful book called The New Terrarium: Creating Beautiful Displays for Plants and Nature and reading this very helpful blog post by the same author, Tovah Martin. My terrarium is not be as stunning as those pictured in the book (I dumped the dirt all over the leaves on the tiny African Violet!), but I will enjoy my tiny little plants just the same.

2. I made Lemon Lavender Butter Cookies, yet another recipe from Fix, Freeze, Feast: The Delicious, Money-Saving Way to Feed Your Family. To make the cookies, I first had to make lavender sugar with some culinary lavender. These cookies are lavender-scented! Because it is a freezer cooking recipe, I have several dozen more balls of cookie dough stashed in the freezer to bake when I feel the urge.

3. I'm planning a cutting garden. I love having fresh flowers in the house, and I will occasionally buy a $5 bouquet of flowers from the grocery store for my table or mantelpiece. Last summer I kept seeing these beautiful bouquets at the farmer's market--like this--which I didn't buy because they were quite costly, but the flowers were beautiful! I finally realized I was looking at zinnias, which are actually quite easy to grow in my area, so I bought some pretty zinnia seeds and planted them. I will add a few more types of flowers to the cutting garden and hopefully I'll have a nice selection of flowers for vases throughout the summer and into the fall.

4. I'm slacking off in the organizing department. I came up with a list of organizing projects at the beginning of the year, and I planned to post about a project each week. I haven't finished any of them, nor posted anything about them. I need to get motivated and knock some of these projects out.

5. I'm also slacking in the decluttering department. The spring consignment sale went on without me. I haven't sold anything on Ebay yet this year. I did manage to donate some summer clothes to collection drive for an orphanage in South America... but otherwise, nothing. All my efforts from last year will be undone if I don't stay on top of this neverending project!

6. I have been using the Motivated Moms half size chore planner to get a handle on what needs to be done and how often around my house. I also use it to track my menu plans and workout schedule, including calories burned per workout. I'll be honest--I never get everything on the chore list done, but at least some things get done and I am gaining a more realistic idea of how often things need to be done in my household. (Never often enough!)

7. We are planting a raised vegetable garden this summer.We planted a small amount of things last year, and it was so much fun we decided to get more serious about it. Like for the flower cutting garden, I've planted some seeds and we'll see how things develop. I am using this handy site here to plan a square foot garden. For now it's recreational, but I am looking forward to having a prolific supply of vegetables.

8. After many years of studying the room arrangements in The Washington Post's House Calls, I'm finally rearranging the furniture in my living room. This was the room that finally convinced me that I had enough information to improve the layout. This room was also an inspiration. We just need to paint and have the new couch delivered...

9. A friend of mine has convinced me to try growing potatoes in a garbage bag. Apparently potatoes can be easily damaged when you go to dig them up, so if you grow them in a bag, you can carefull empty the bag open at the end of the growing season (or slit your garbage bag open, which is what I'm planning1), dump the soil in a wheel barrow or container, and pull out the potatoes without using a shovel.

10. I did some freezer cooking last week! And I got around to posting about it. Hopefully I will be able to post updates on these other projects, too.