The cutest herb garden ever!

You may remember when I planted herbs last week and said I had a special surprise coming for you. Here it is! Remember this fence over my garden?

Well... it seemed like the perfect place to hang our herbs!

How cute is this??

Excuse our chives, which seem to have had better days! But seriously - is this not the coolest thing ever? We wanted to keep our herbs in smaller pots this year because otherwise they grow totally out of control.  We use them all the time in the summer, but we don't use very much (4 basil leaves in the pasta salad tonight was plenty).  

The hanging bars and pots are actually from IKEA and are supposed to be hung in a kitchen for utensils. We spent about $20 on the bar and pots, but I think you could do it even cheaper if you used pots you already had on hand or some other recycled idea. We have a 6th pot to add (mint) but since we just stole it from our neighbor's garden today (thanks, Rob!) we haven't hung it yet.

So there you go... a space saving and totally cute herb garden!

Oh - and check out the hanging baskets on the other side of the fence. I love the fence!

We had a GREAT Memorial Day and the 80 degree / sunny weather we've had for the past week finally broke tonight. It started raining about 20 minutes ago and it's the perfect end to a great weekend.

To get you excited for this week... here's a sneak preview of something we started working on today that you'll get to see more of this week!

Wonder what all of that wood is going to become??

Happy Memorial Day!

P.S. I'm linking to:

  

 

  

Happy Summer!

I spent today doing this...

And apparently, when I'm not home, Sophie likes to do stuff like this:

Zac came home and caught her in the act. This reminds me of the time she ate half a pack of bagels.  

Come visit my (new) garden!

We had a hot, busy day around here yesterday. My parents came to help me do some work in the backyard. Zac and I wanted to do it together I wanted to do it with Zac, but when we both realized we had no idea what we were doing, it seemed wise to call in the reinforcements.  So - Z went to work and got out of phase I of garden duty (don't worry, payback comes in the form of mulching...).

Before pictures:

It was SO hot!

Mom wanted me to show you her cute gardening clogs.

Bricks we dug up underneath a bush?

Gardening is hard work!

And you get pretty dirty!

But by the end, your vegetable garden can look like this! :-)

Oh - and Beth helped too....

Coming soon: my coolest idea for an herb garden ever!!

What's your number?

I am a sucker for all things "personality test."  I love learning style assessments, the StrengthsFinder, and anything related.

But I have a favorite. Perhaps because it relates to some of my most favorite memories from college, perhaps because I just like the test. But it's definitely my favorite.

The Enneagram.


According to the Enneagram Institute, "the Enneagram can be seen as a set of nine distinct personality types, with each number on the Enneagram denoting one type. It is common to find a little of yourself in all nine of the types, although one of them should stand out as being closest to yourself. This is your basic personality type.  Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own."


We all became obsessed with the Enneagram during our Junior year of college, and my fellow Gaines Center fellows turned me on to it.  It's fascinating. (And makes me miss Eric, Alexa, Matt, Jimmy, Nathan, Maggie, Jessi, Chris, Harry, Kayla Rae and Nathan Richard...).

I'm a 1:



You can click on the picture to learn more about me, but let's just say I'm in good company with Gahandi and Hillary Clinton.


Side note: Zac is a 9, as are the two other serious boyfriends I've had. Really different personalities, but all the same number. Interesting........


If you want to take the test, you can do it here:http://similarminds.com/test.html


If you want to read more about your type, I recommend you take the test above, note your number and head over the Enneagram Institute.  


And tell me what your number is in the comments - I'm curious!

If everyone just did their jobs...

This is definitely a rant, but I haven't done one of those in awhile so I feel like it's ok. You've been forewarned.

Why is it so much to ask that people do what they are supposed to do at work? I have a job, and I don't really have a lot of leeway. I get my work done, or I probably wouldn't have a job anymore.

The back story of what stirred up this rant: Since we moved to our new house, I have called the post office 3 times (in less than 2 months!) because our mail doesn't get picked up.

Here's a picture of our mailbox, in case you can't remember the set-up:

See it, there to the right of Zac's arm?

The first time I was told that legally, mail carriers don't have to pick up your mail if they don't have anything to drop off for you. SERIOUSLY.

More importantly, this week, I put mail in the box on Tuesday, came home, and the mail that was delivered was just shoved on top of the letters to be picked up.  Try it again on Wednesday - same result.  I called the post office today to complain and the lady said:

"You need to arrange the mail so that it sticks out of the mailbox. Your mail carrier probably isn't going to check if there's mail in the box."

Oh - I'm sorry. I mistakenly assumed that it was the mail carrier's JOB to get mail out of my box, and put mail into my box (among other things, of course).  How is this ok??

Disclaimer: I am very pro-USPS and use them almost exclusively for all of my shipping needs. So maybe this is me having my feelings hurt at them being sucky.  But if it happens again today, I'm calling the Post Master.

More flowers!

One of my favorite things about moving into a new house is watching all of the plants come to life - because when we bought the house, it was winter and we had no idea what was around here.

Now, we have these!

So pretty!

And with those, comes this!

Sitting outside tonight we saw our first lightening bug of the year. Dare I say it -- is summer here?!? 

Our house is excited for the World Cup

As in, bought a new USA team jersey and put it on tonight to watch the friendly game and forgot to take the tags off excited...

He is so stinking cute. Anyone interested in watching the World Cup games is invited to our house....

Free fonts!

I just discovered this website today, and it is AMAZING.  They have hundreds of fonts and they are all F-R-E-E, which is my favorite word!

Seriously check it out. It's awesome!

Have you noticed my glasses lately?

I can't remember if I told you already, but I have been fighting some sort of crazy eye thing since February.  First the doctor thought it was an infection and gave me some steroid drops.  Two weeks of glasses and drops later, eyes were doing better and I was allowed to start wearing contacts again.

Except that it came back.  More drops. More glasses.  Cleared again. Contacts again - and it came back.

I decided to get a second opinion and went to see Dr. Sands at the Cincinnati Eye Institute, who is awesome.  He ruled out contacts (more glasses. Hence why after 18 years of wearing glasses you are just seeing them in pictures this year).  Gave me this ridiculous test to check my tear production - by sticking something in my eyes to see if they tear. Yes, sir, I do feel that painful foreign object.  Check "dry eyes" off the list. Allergy drops didn't help - and it wasn't an infection.  Dr. Sands referred me to a "cornea and external disease specialist."  And I'm sorry, but that referral should come with a reassurance that you aren't dying.

Finally got in to see Dr. Wander today, and he was awesome.  He had a hunch and all of his investigating proved right - after, of course, I was revived from my fainting spell.  Seriously - halfway through my exam I just straight up passed out.  He told me that there is this nerve that connects your eyes with your stomach and it's used to help you control stomach acid.  A few times a year (4 - 5, he said) he has a patient pass out, and it's related to this nerve.  So I am not the only one.  Still embarrassed!

Diagnosis is this: my contact solution caused a "toxic reaction" in my eyes. He said he's seen it in about a dozen other patients using the same solution (stop buying Opti-free solution!) - they use it for years and then one day it just starts destroying their eyes.  If his idea is right, I can start wearing contacts again tomorrow with a new solution and I should be totally fine.  Fingers crossed!

$250 in co-pays and 10 eye doctor visits later (my insurance company probably hates me), I should start getting better!  And my pupils are on their way back down from being dilated (that is so horrible) and I can stop worrying about going blind / having a brain tumor. Which, of course, is what I was worried about!!!

Apparently, I'm delicious.

When we were growing up, Emily was definitely the sister with the sweet tooth. She was also the one who always seemed to come inside covered with mosquito bites. We used to joke that she was so sweet that the bugs just loved her.

Fast forward 20-ish years and ever since last summer, every time I go outside I come back covered in bug bites.  Last night we ate dinner on the patio, and by the time we went inside, I had 5 new bug bites.  Ridiculous.

I am resisting the urge to show you pictures of them, but know that you would say things like, "Oh you poor thing" and "Ouch that one looks really itchy."  Especially the latter.

I bought some bug spray and carry a Benadryl itch stick in my purse, but any other suggestions about how I can keep my body from being dinner for a herd of bugs every night??

A day at the track

We went to Louisville today for an alumni event for Zac's fraternity and went to Churchill Downs to take in some races.  We sat on Millionaire's Row, and I imagine this will be my first and only time hanging out up there!

The view sure is pretty from up there!

The finish of the first race

This is a horse but his nostrils look like creepy eyes.

Every time I see this guy all I can think is how it would be the perfect job for my Papa.

Horses in the paddock

I don't know how well you can see this, but it's a replica of Churchill Downs on Derby Day of miniature glass sculptures.  Beautiful!

Zac and his friends

A pretty fun day topped off with Mexican food on the way home... no complaints there!

More things I want to make

Now that I follow so many amazing blogs in my Google Reader, I keep adding to my "Things I want to Make" list.  Sigh - so many projects, so little time!

Maybe it's because I'm "from" Kentucky, but this is the cutest thing I've ever seen.  Head over to The Polka Dot Chair to find the tutorial.

Fabric baskets. As baskets are so expensive (and not usually this cute), why not make your own? For every single room? Sew4Home rocks.

The problem here is deciding which to make first!! The Handy Hippie posted a pattern for each today and I am in love!

Busy weekend ahead of me... some friends coming over tonight for a "Girls Night In" with pizza, wine and pjs (super excited), then going to Louisville tomorrow for an alumni event for Zac's fraternity (less excited) and a program at work on Sunday afternoon.  I'll take some pictures for you!

Dill's comeback

Check out the comeback from our precious baby dill overnight thanks to a little TLC and some water!

Last night:

That's poor dill, smack in the middle.

Look at the dill this morning!!!!

Major comeback!