Monthly Archives: June 2013
Dakota: Three Months Old
I would say something cliche about how quickly the time flies, but really, it’s felt like about three months. 🙂 Dakota continues to be very big for her age, which leads to awkward conversations with other new moms… Everyone comments on how big she is, but almost everything I say in response makes it sound like I’m bragging, even though I don’t really even see it as something to brag about? Now I mostly just stick with “it’s genetic” and leave it at that. Ah well, on to the picture!
And the first two months:
We probably could have teased a big smile out of her if we had wanted to, but she was super chill and relaxed, so we just went with it. In fact, she fell asleep while we were putting the camera stuff away:
And I finally remembered to get a “behind the scenes” shot, not that there’s too much to see:
This month we opened the front door to add just a bit more ambient light. I think it helped!
Functioning Bathroom Sink
We still have to finish tiling and install trim and a door, but we have a functioning vanity, complete with electricity! Behold:
We really wanted a double sink, but there just wasn’t quiiittteeeee enough space. But then we discovered this hybrid… two faucets, one drain. The actual vanity is screwed into the wall and doesn’t touch the floor, and it has drawers instead of cabinet doors, which I’m seriously loving. Here’s another angle:
We’re hoping to add some glass tile (matching what we’re putting in the shower) as a backsplash and possibly add a frame to the mirror. I love the lights, found them in the outdoor lighting section. (And only later recalled that Young House Love used the same light in one of their bathrooms.) And while we don’t need a functioning shower vent yet, I’m happy with this switch that we got:
The light switch is on the left. On the right is the vent switch… you can preset how long you want it to run and then just hit the button each time you use it. It shuts off automatically after the designated time has passed. Okay, so it’s not really that exciting, but I love steamy showers and hate mold, so shower vents are important to me. 🙂
The jury’s still out on our other “innovation”:
That’s a set of electrical outlets hidden behind the lower drawer of the vanity. My theory is that we can plug in things like razors and electric toothbrushes without electrical cords running all over the bathroom. And we can leave the razors and toothbrushes in the drawers while they’re charging, so there’s less clutter on the sink. There’s enough of a gap between the back of the drawer and the wall for this to work, but I haven’t actually had a chance to set everything up yet. Possibly it will be a miserable failure, but I’m feeling optimistic.
Now if only the shower was done!
Poor Neglected Front Yard
So, in positive news I’ve figured out how to run the in-ground sprinklers manually. Last spring, half of the front sprinklers stopped working on the timer, but I didn’t realize it because we hadn’t needed to run them all winter. I just thought there weren’t enough sprinklers. So for most of last summer the front yard looked like this:
It’s still early in the season, but currently the yard looks like this:
And I have some hope that it will continue to look like that, as long as I keep running the sprinklers each week.
The lavender plants (on the left of the picture) are getting a bit out of control though. So it finally occurred to me that I should check and see how one is supposed to prune lavender. It turns out that it’s supposed to be cut back by a third each year to keep it from getting too “woody”. Uh-oh… I haven’t been pruning it at all, and from the back it looks like this:
I have no idea why it’s been growing like that, presumably because they get morning and afternoon sun, but are in the shade in the middle of the day? But there sure is a lot of woody stuff in there. After some indecision, I decided to cut it back by a third using hedge trimmers, not worrying too much about cutting each stalk separately and avoiding the woody parts. If they start to look bad I’ll just start over with new plants since it only took two years (without any special treatment) for them to look like this.
The alyssum on the other hand is looking great:
in fact, the flower box that I transplanted it from is even growing some more of it. I guess I missed some of the roots:
Ignore the fact that the flower box is pretty much a mess otherwise. The other flower box is a little better, but kinda gets blocked by the bushes:
I think maybe the two bushes on the right are gardenias? I should really get an expert in to look at all of our plants some day. Ah well, here’s a close-up:
The small bush on the left is definitely a hydrangea. I know this because Dave’s mom saved it from the clearance rack at the home improvement store last year. I believe at that time it had maybe three sad-looking leaves and one bloom. Over the winter I thought it had died completely, but now look at it!
So I guess the point of this post is that I don’t actually kill all my plants, no matter how much I ignore them. Yay!
I’m contemplating trying to “naturalize” the front yard to make it less water-intensive though, so I think I’m going to have to do a lot more learning if that’s something I want to try tackling myself.
The Letter K 