The weekend

What a great weekend! 

My cousin from the US came to stay with us so we spent time and showed her around this great little city. :)

Another wonderful part of the weekend... playing with my new Canon 50mm USM lens. Um yeah!!  Seriously, money well spent. Nice when something good comes out of working your butt off!

I baked stuffed peppers... One of my first pictures with the new lens.

The peppers were awesome!

And my favorite models, Koda and Kissa, helped me out testing settings...

We had a waterfront "picnic" with deli goods with my cousin and my parents. The weather was pretty cloudy, but it was nice and cool.

We walked to scenic spots.

I took every peony picture I could. :)

Low f-stops. ♥

We stopped by the garden...

...and picked the first ripe strawberries at the garden. So sweet!!

 

It was such a fun weekend and so awesome to get to spend time with my cousin! 

Hope you had a nice weekend! 

Happy Monday!

Garden post 7...

Yeah, I could be doing stuff. Yeah, I should be doing stuff.

But it's hard to when the sun is shining, it's finally warm outside (!)...and Bob Marley is telling me not to worry about a thing.

:) 

The pink daisies above have graced our dining table for quite a while...talk about a hardy cut flower!

And the pansies below have changed twice since this picture...not so hardy, but let me tell ya -- falling asleep with the scent of pansies is amazing!

We went to the garden yesterday and put nets out on the almost ripe strawberries (to stop pesky thieving birds!), and to weed. Boy, there was a lot to weed! Glad we've been staying on top of it rather well.

The clematis that no one thought would survive the winter is doing amazingly well. 

The foxgloves are finally blooming! :) They're as tall as me!!

Couldn't keep myself away from the neighbor's poppies again...

Evening summer light... gorgeous!

This week I have:

-worked

-spent time with family from out of town

-cleaned (how exciting...)

-shopped (New curtains to block out the morning sun! Hi sleep!)

...oh...bought a new camera lens... YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAH!!! Hopefully it gets here by the end of the week because I'm STOKED! Best part of my summer so far :D

Can't wait for the weekend, not only because I'm off, but because I'm spending it with my cousin that I haven't seen in forever!! I have all kinds of fun stuff planned! :)

Thanks for stopping by! 

Hope your week is off to a nice start!

Remember, it's summer -- "don't you worry about a thing, because every little thing is gonna be alright" 

:)

Garden post 6

Oh no! I'm falling behind with my blogging!!

Thanks a lot, work! :P 

Another reason: obsessing over fall plans. Working out budgets, timelines, oooh and that pesky thesis!  

(I swear I am going to throw it into a fire when it's all said and done!)

I am in serious need of a real vacation. This brain needs to get away! 

That said, I miss having time to devote to my little blog. And I miss miss miss having time for painting and crocheting! These days, the closest I can get to creative expression is through a camera. If I didn't have that, I'd be in the looney bin! (I get a little crazy when I can't be creative on a regular basis...) 

 (our neighboring garden's poppies)

I love my camera, love photography, but I really miss my paintbrush and the smell of turpentine. It's a different kind of rush when you start a painting on an empty canvas and see it develop into something beautiful. 

 

(neighboring garden's irises)

As for crocheting, I have been dabbling... Like I mentioned in the post before last, I crocheted a few rows together of the big granny square blanket...and yesterday, I crocheted a few more granny squares of my rainbow baby blanket. 

Good thing there aren't any babies coming to my atelier soon, because this blanket is SLOW GOING! :D 

(another flower from another neighbor's garden) 

My list of to-do's around the apartment is ginormous. We haven't washed the windows yet and summer is half over (something most Finns do in spring!)... My cousin is visiting from California next weekend and it's a legitimate fear she might die from tripping over the dust bunnies in the night. (Ok, maybe that's a bit of exaggeration, but it's not looking great here!) There is a pile of rugs to be washed... An aquarium in need of scrubbing.

Ugh, I'm tired already and I  haven't even mentioned the closets, kitchen or bathroom!

(yep, neighbor's)

Thank goodness the garden doesn't always feel like work. 

Especially when sometimes all you do when you get there is take pictures! :)

Amen for flowers!

(The pansy is ours!)

Thanks for reading! 

Hope you're having a wonderful and relaxing summer...and are noticing flowers to brighten your day! :)

Midsummer

I love that midsummer has come and gone here in Finland! It means summer is halfway over! Woohoo! 

I can't wait for this fall and for it to be over! We've been making some big plans for the fall. I want to reward myself for getting my thesis done (guess I should work on that, eh), graduating, working hard all summer... so let's hope we can work out an affordable budget and reward ourselves big! :) 

I had to work during midsummer, which is OK since it brings in money! I had the eve off though, so we spent it sitting outside and cooking sausage over an open fire. The weather was gorgeous and the company was good! Not to mention the lake views! 

Bonfires are a part of a traditional Finnish midsummer. 

Sun on my toes ♥

I'm looking forward to having 3 days off in a row. I have so much that needs to get done!!

Thanks for stopping by!

:)

Garden post 5

Wow, the last time I posted about the garden was at the end of May. Hard to believe I  haven't shared any photos about it since May 22nd. That was almost a month ago!!

Before I go into the garden stuff, I have to share a picture of the pie my husband baked me for my birthday last week. I was really bummed out that morning, so when I came home from work, he had baked me a coconut cream pie to cheer me up!! Delicious!! Thanks hubby ♥

The recipe is from the Brown Eyed Baker. 

Ok, so on to the garden then! 

 (All these pictures were taken yesterday)

Neat rows of lettuce and spinach. 

Blooming chives. 

The most beautiful border in the entire garden, bellis daisies. 

There are a lot of bugs at the garden, snails and spiders, worms and bees. 

Recently it came to my attention that this red beetle thing is the #1 enemy pest of lilies. I've seen them in the past years at the garden, but had no idea they were the ones ruining the lilies! Grr!

Another pest that is tormenting us at the moment are the aphids. On the roses! Mega GRRR!

I looked up a natural pesticide from the internet. Apparently garlic and onion steeped water should help. 

These are some huge hot pink daisies. Oh la la!

Mandatory pansy picture...

The cucumbers have germinated really well. I don't think we'll have to buy any seedlings!

 Peas!!

Potatoes! 

We planted (ahem, my dad planted) way more potatoes than planned, but at least they will clean up the soil for next summer. I want to rotate this plot to grow something else, since it has had potato for quite a few summers in a row...

Our pumpkin seedlings have taken off. They've added additional leaves, but at a slower rate than I thought. I suppose the chilly weather hasn't been too good for them?

My dad has three obsessions at the garden: potatoes, cucumbers, and raspberries. 

As I wrote in an earlier garden post, he and my husband built new raspberry supports, and the growth is AMAZING! They are so much fuller this year, there was so much more room for them to expand and the support has really helped them shoot upwards. My dad is so proud of them! :)

They are going to start flowering soon! Yay!

The currants are already hard, small, and green!

Pansy variety.

We are growing foxgloves for the first time. Or well, we planted them last year, but this year they are going to bloom! :)

This strawberry patch is amazing. SO FULL and SO FULL of FLOWERS! 

Yum!!

Am I the only one who sees a face in the picture above? 

:D

I wish we could go to the garden every day!

Or even better, I wish  I lived on farm and this was my backyard kitchen garden! 

Oh oh oh the dreams...

 Last night I dug out the granny squares and managed to crochet 3 rows together before bed.

How I have missed crocheting!

Kissa took full advantage this morning and took a nap on it...

 I was rude and disturbed her, as her expression is clearly conveying!

Thanks for stopping by! :)