around my home ~ indoors and out

Hello, friends ~ how's your week been? I was actually sick most of the week; but 

nothing major. Just a raw, sore throat, headache and tiredness. Just enough to make

me feel yucky and not have a lot of energy. I doubled my vitamin D and took a

tried-and-true supplement, Allibiotic. I swear by this stuff. If you take it at the first sign 

of a cold or scratchy throat, you can pretty much avoid a full-blown cold. At least that's

how it's worked for me, Brian, and Tim. (My mom swears by it, too.)

Do you remember the round, wooden mirror I bought a couple of months ago

and couldn't decide where to put it in my living room? I had thought it would look good

on the fireplace wall ~ here's Brian holding it up for me. Nope, too small. And I wasn't 

keen on hanging sconces or anything else beside it to balance it out and fill in the

 white space. 

 

Turns out, I found a better spot for it: on the wall right inside our front entrance. I hung two

 San Francisco prints on the smaller wall to the side. The larger one is a vintage painting

that we picked up in an antique shop last year and the small print is just a page from

a calendar that I framed. The city of SF holds a special place in our hearts, as that's

where we spent our 25th anniversary five years ago.

I think the new mirror looks a lot better than the gold, oval mirror that was there before.

 I was getting tired of the plates, too. The gold mirror is now in the master bedroom.

 

The past two weekends, I've frequented a farm in our area to buy a ton of tomatoes

and some other veggies, as this is pretty much it until next summer. (Waah!) 

We enjoyed one last batch of fresh gazpacho ~ so easy to make in a food processor.

 

Topped with cucumber and avocado, it made a delicious and healthy lunch.

And then with the rest of the crop, I put tomatoes, garlic, and rosemary in a big

roasting pan and tossed all with olive oil and salt. I slow-roasted in the oven for a 

couple of hours until the tomatoes were saucy. The house smelled so good! Then I

packed the sauce into freezer bags. I have five bags in my freezer right now. It'll be

so awesome to use these summer tomatoes in spaghetti sauce, chili and soups 

this winter.

And then going on around my yard...Brian planted these fountain grasses in the little

ditch area in front of our house beside the driveway. We don't have sidewalks in our

neighborhood. The other side of our driveway has a larger ditch and that's filled with 

tiger lilies. I'm happy to see that these grasses are doing well and have grown a lot in 

the past month that they were planted. I can't wait until a few years down the  road when

 they're really tall and they sway in the breeze. Fountain grasses have always been one

 of my favorite plants, especially in the fall.

All my potted flowers are still going strong.

 

 

In my butterfly garden, the sedum is in full bloom. I never used it as a cutting flower until

I saw a few bouquets on blogs. I now have a bunch in a Mason jar on my kitchen table

and I'm happy to report that this is a great cutting flower ~ they still are colorful and sturdy

even after a week on my table.

 

Looks like my cherry tomatoes are pretty much done for. All the leaves are

drying up. Makes me sad. I love being able to step outside my door and pick 

fresh tomatoes off the vine. And cut flowers for the table and pick herbs to use

in my cooking. Can you tell I'm a warm weather person?

Farewell to the Black-Eyed Susans, too.

 

Have a wonderful weekend!