Our 2011 Patio Plans

Well, I was home today taking a bit of a vacation after coming back from Passover with family, and I decided to work on the plans for our patio that I mentioned.  The winter was really hard, especially with our heat going in and out every few days, and our apartment isn't very big.  We took this place because of its sweet patio space, so we are going to make it amazing for this summer.

So this is my vision!  I decided to make a collage because it helps me get a feel for the colors I want, and it also explains it to JewishGuy who luckily trusts my tastes enough to say "I can't picture it, but I'm sure it will look good."  So there you have it, the foundations of a good marriage, right? :)

Read the full description after the jump!

Boozy Birthday Present

JewishGuy's birthday was Friday so for his birthday I made him a painting of his favorite Scotch.  Well, it used to be his favorite, I hear rumblings there may be another contender.  But he always has a bottle of this in the Scotch cabinet so he at least likes it enough to have a painting of it on his wall at the office.

I almost didn't do the lettering because that is my absolute weakness (painting lettering ... just ask my former job as a custom plate painter at a pottery painting studio).  You can see I'm not very good at it.  But without the letters it looked so blah and generic.

Anyway, I like the way it came out, and I'm writing this before I give it to him because I scheduled this post for the future so he won't see it before he gets his present so I haven't seen his response yet.  I think he will like it!

Plans and Plants

From here you can see (clockwise from left) the basil, spinach, tomatoes, chives, and then in the front right one little bell pepper starting to peek up!  The bell pepper seeds came from a pepper I got at the grocery store that I wasn't sure would sprout, but here we are!  And because the planters are clear, I can see that there are at least four other sprouts coming up.  Yay peppers!

I know there's not a lot of art making going on around here, but actually there's quite a bit of art making going on!   I just can't share it!  My groups at work are making many long-term projects so I don't have little directives to share, and I haven't been able to make my own versions of these projects so I can't even show the ones I'm working on.

However, the planting is part of a larger therapeutic process for me.  We are planning a big decorating project for the patio.  It's very exciting!  It is also helping me through these cold, wet days that are just dragging on.

I even made a sketch, although I don't think the lamps will be the same.  We'll have a vertical garden on the fence that gets the most sun, which is where these sprouts will go assuming they survive us being out of town for Passover (I'm going to ask the pet sitter to water them every day but I am nervous).  We're also planning to have solar lights placed around the fence and even make a solar light chandelier type thing so we can do seudah shlishit out there - the solar lights will turn on automatically when it gets dark so we don't have to do anything.  They aren't very bright but most of the meal would happen before it gets too dark anyway.  Also we are hoping to somehow cover the gigantic air conditioning units just to make it not seem so ugly and maybe buffer some of the noise.  When the units are both on it's pretty loud out there.  AND we're going to try to figure out something to do with the space right next to our apartment, under our upstairs neighbors' overhang, because it's kind of just empty space right now.

All that and more ... to be unveiled in June.  A big project!  A spring project to keep us focused on the summer and warm weather!  Keeping spirits high during the last days of winter and the first days of spring...

Grow Station

I bought a gro-bulb and a lamp just to keep the baby plants warm, nourished, and happy.  I read that if they don't get enough sun they get stretched out which can kill them, and baby plants need more sunlight than their adult versions, but even the adult versions probably wouldn't like the conditions inside our apartment.  So of course I rushed out and bought a bulb.

I'm going about these plants much differently than I did two summers ago when I planted the cholent mix to see what would grow.  (I never harvested, by the way, because I moved the plants downstairs to be in the sun and promptly forgot about them.)  But those plants were a self-exploration in nurturing as I was working through feelings about nurturing where I was working with children.  This is more of a hobby and a way to feel productive, so I really want to make this work this time.  Come on, little planties!