hellooo ~ this & that

Hello and happy July! I recently finished repainting the little table on the porch. I've this table for at least 30 years - a cast off from a neighbor. It's been several colors. The last few years it was yellow and it was fading and peeling. I was tired of the yellow anyway.

The Chicago area has been hit hard with the smoke from the Canada wildfires. I took this photo last week, when the sun was trying to peek out through the haze right before sunset. That was the day we had the worst air quality in the world.

My little veggie garden is doing great. There's two tomato plants on the left, then red onions, and purple beauty bell pepper. 

Exciting to see the first fruits.

This beautiful purple flowered perennial has turned out to be one of my favorites. It's in the geranium family (geranium pratense); more commonly known as Meadow Cranesbill. I purchased this plant at least 25 years ago with my then next-door neighbor, Thanam. She had recently moved here from Malaysia and didn't have a car. I took her to the garden center with me and we each bought one of these plants. For some reason, she thought the name of this plant was Heavenly Death. That's what she always called it. Did it have that name on the plant tag? I don't remember. I've Googled to see if any variety of Meadow Cranesbill has this name and don't come up with anything. But to this day, I still call this plant Heavenly Death because of Thanam. It reminds me of her. (She moved back to Malaysia 20 years ago.) 

Another interesting thing about this perennial is that it's been moved several times and has always done well. It loves where it is now, nestled in-between coral bells. It gets a nice mixture of sun and shade.

Our new(ish) next door neighbor never did cut down the mulberry tree like he told us he was going to. We even left him a nice note on his gate last month, offering once again to help him pay for having the tree cut down and to let us know if he needed any help finding a tree trimming service. We left our phone numbers and also told him he was welcome to stop by and talk to us. Never heard from him. *sigh*  

So, you guessed it, we're once again having to deal with millions of mushy mulberries falling all over our patio, in the hostas, and all the other plants that run along the privacy fence ~ not to mention the walking path to the patio and in all the fresh mulch we lay down in the spring. We haven't been able to use our patio in for three weeks, so far. And when the mulberries are done falling, Brian will then have to power wash the patio to get all the stains off. Have I ever said how much I hate this tree? 😜

INDOORS:

I got tired of looking at this squished space in "my" room. (I never know what to call this space. I have several names for it: Phil's room {used to be my son, Phil's bedroom}, the guest room, my room, my office.) 

I cleared the space out, including the bookcase so I could move it.

I started by moving the bookcase underneath the mirror. Clementine immediately took up residency on the chair moved to the side. I stashed my yoga and exercise equipment into a basket in the corner.

In this view, you can see the opening to the room, as well as how the wall next to the door juts out, creating a little nook next to the bookcase. 

I decided I didn't like the basket of exercise equipment in the corner. The corner needed some height. So I moved the exercise stuff into a smaller basket, tucked the yoga mat and bolster next to the other side of the bookcase (as seen in photo above), and put a stool with a plant on it in the corner.

Took the framed cat art print from the kitchen and moved it to this wall. 

I think this space looks much better now. Less cramped.

The white chair got moved into the living room across from the couch. The chair has become Clementine's new favorite napping spot. Funny, because she rarely napped on it when it was in "my" room.

For those of you in the US, have a happy and safe 4th of July. (Clementine doesn't like fireworks ~ and neither do I.)

august: ending, birthday, storms, day trip

Grab a drink of your choice and settle down for a long-ish read. This is what happens when I don't talk to you all for awhile!

How can we be nearing the end of August already? It makes me sad. I don't want summer to be over so soon. The warm months here in Illinois are fleeting. Today even feels a bit fall-like with dappled sunlight and a cool breeze. I don't hear the children who live in the homes behind us, playing in their backyards. They must be back at school already; or inside their homes doing remote learning. I'm not sure what our school district chose to do this year. 

Even my gardens are starting to look dejected. The perennials in my butterfly garden are drying up and past their prime.

The tomato plants are done for the season, too. This is the time of year when plants look tired.

One plant that seems unbeatable is this passion flower vine. I bought it as a medium-sized potted plant, put it in the ground in front of our house and it took off with a vengeance. As you can see, it's climbing the downspout. It starts getting near our gutters, and it's getting a good pruning. I was warned by a friend who's a Master Gardener, that this plant overtakes everything. I don't mind because we couldn't get anything else to grow in this area and like I said, I can always cut it back. It does remind us of The Little Shop of Horrors with the "Feed Me" plant though.

I celebrated another trip around the sun last week. I had a lovely, quiet day with cards, phone calls, texts, private messages on Facebook, some gifts from family and friends, and lunch out with Brian. We tried a new restaurant just over the border in Wisconsin (masks worn to and from the tables; tables all far apart with the closest diners being more than 10 feet away from us). We had heard that storms were coming and on the way home, we turned on the radio to find out that the storms were going to be bad. Winds up to 100 mph, trees down, hail. I had Brian pull over to the side of the road so I could get out of the car and take this photo. I love the stormy sky, this home's landscaping, and the surrounding farm fields. 

We got home just in time to put our potted plants and chairs that were on the porch, into the garage. This is what it looked like at 3:00 in the afternoon! It was so dark, the photo cell lights on our house went on. Sure enough, I then got a tornado warning alert on my phone and we headed to the basement. Our power flickered on and off a few times and after the storm was over, we went outside to assess the damage. It wasn't too bad ~ small tree limbs and leaves everywhere. Parts of Chicago and surrounding suburbs got hit hard with huge trees uprooted and power out for days!

After a long week with Brian having a stress test and a colonoscopy (both passed with flying colors, thank God...and I just have to brag, that my hubby at 60 years old, can still complete the entire treadmill stress test! His doctor said he and only one other patient of his are able to do so. I can vouch for how amazing and hard it would be to complete a stress test...I had one last year and definitely could not finish it!), he announced he wanted to "get out of here" and spend time in the city (Chicago). 

No worries, we were safe. We only went to a few of our favorite independent shops in a select neighborhood and we had lunch on the patio of a cute, little diner.

Chicagoans are fantastic with social distancing and wearing masks. In all the neighborhoods we walked through and in the small shops we went into, everyone was practicing both these necessary protocols. We didn't encounter one single person not wearing a mask, even outdoors. Because walking in these crowded neighborhoods, you are always passing by another person. So unlike our own little neighborhood, far away from the city. We don't even have sidewalks, so we walk on the side of the road. We rarely even encounter another person on our walks and if we do, they're on the other side of the road, easily 10 feet away.

 The architecture on some of the homes and buildings in this area of Chicago we were in (Lakeview) was amazing...

 And so were the gardens and plants around the houses in the Roscoe Village neighborhood...

Oops, not a plant! But one of the cutest little doggos I've ever seen. 💓 This is a mini Australian Shepherd. So cool that it has one blue eye and one brown.

We stopped in a vintage shop where we were the only customers besides one other person. We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to look around. Both of us love mid-century modern furniture even though we only have a couple of pieces in our home. I fell in love with these nightstands, though they were too short for our bedroom and wouldn't go with our headboard or just our room in general. And no, I don't have a hankering to completely change our bedroom right now either!

Love the curved, raised piece on top of the nightstand.

A beautiful cabinet that caught our eye...but nowhere to put it in our small house. Check out the tile in this store, too! *swoon*

Another small, independent shop we went into was Praha. We discovered this shop last year and vowed to return. We were the only customers in this shop at the time, so we were able to spend time looking around...

and had a lovely, long conversation with the shop owner, Todd. I came home with two vintage planters.

The only two other shops we went into were bookstores; both independent, one with new books, the other with used. In both shops, again, we were the only customers. Sign of the times we're currently in, for sure. At the store that sold new books, I got the Wendell Berry poetry book and Brian got The Warmth of Other Suns. We like to support independent book shops when we go to towns that have such stores. We could've paid a lot less on Amazon, but we want these independent bookstores to stay in business. We know that our small purchases are a drop in the bucket, but we can only hope that every small purchase counts towards filling that bucket to stay afloat.

I saved the best for last. The used bookstore. This is Bookmans Corner. Another Chicago store we discovered last year, and happily so. I think it's a good thing we don't live closer, because I'd be in here far too often, dragging home so many books that my house would end up looking like this!

John, the owner is now 85 years old. He told me the place was for sale ~ including all the books ~ if I was interested. 😉 As you can see, the charm of this place is the claustrophobic aisles with homemade bookshelves and books piled precariously everywhere. 

John has books on every subject you can think of. An entire aisle is dedicated to different countries all over the world. I could happily spend hours in this store, digging through piles of books until I found ones I didn't even know I needed wanted. John doesn't even have a cash register in his store. He tallies up the purchases (which are sooo reasonably priced!) in his head or writes them down on a piece of paper. We paid in cash and he pulled out his wallet to give us change.

These are the four books I came home with. Brian found a few, too (not pictured). Oliver Sacks was a British physician and professor of neurology and psychiatry, best known for writing books about case histories of his patients and his own neurological conditions. I'd read a couple of his other books, so was glad to find this one. 

at home is a book of black and white photographs of everyday home still life vignettes. From Amazon:

"In striking black-and-white still-life portraits, Frederking captures the small and large elements that define the spirit of his home, as well as revealing why the home is at the heart of the American dream. Home is a place where objects become enlivened and symbolic—a newspaper lying askew on the kitchen table, a fluffy bedspread spilling through the iron lattice of a bedframe, a staircase spiraling down into mysterious shadows—and thus affirm our existence. Everything we buy or touch, renovate or borrow becomes a mark of our selves, and these marks are nowhere more concentrated than in the home. Frederking’s powerful visual sequence examines the simple backdrop that anchors our complicated lives—and ourselves. "

Thank you for visiting and for your sweet comments. Stay healthy, well and safe!
xoxo

patio time

One thing I love about this time of year is spending time on the patio. It's a peaceful spot to have morning coffee or tea, a relaxing spot in the late afternoon with a magazine or book, and of course, we have dinner out here often, too. Though these past few days have been too hot to do much hanging out here past morning.

This path on this side of the house is lined with perennials and is fun to dress up with potted annuals for color. I wanted to paint the ladder this year, but Brian likes it as is, so I left it alone.

It's hard to see some of the details from the overall photo above, so here's some close-ups. This is on the right side of the path as you're walking towards the patio, though I took this photo coming back down the path.

I love this red bench I got at a vintage shop for $5 a few months ago. It's not sturdy enough to sit on, but it looks nice in the gardens.

Looking back at the bench area from the patio.

With living in an area where we're surrounded by neighbors, I love that we have this space carved out for privacy. The only thing I detest - and that I've mentioned on this blog probably every summer - is the neighbor's mulberry tree. It's already started dropping green berries on the patio. That means within the next week, ripened berries are going to start dropping by the thousands. They not only fall all over the patio, but the furniture, in my plant pots, into the hostas, and all along the path leading up to the patio. They are mushy and rot quickly, attracting flies. They also stain everything, so I have to move my patio furniture up against the house. And they ruin my hostas. 

Friday edit: Some of you had commented or emailed me to let me know we can trim the neighbor's trees that hang onto our property. We are aware of this and have done so several times in the past years. But it's complicated with both the neighbor and the mulberry tree itself. I will give details in my next post. 

I have this bicycle at the end of the patio, behind the settee. This is my first "real" bicycle from childhood. I got it for my 8th birthday in 1970. An original made-in-Chicago Schwinn. I love using it now as garden decor. When these tiger lilies bloom, it looks so pretty around the bike.

There's the bike in the background. 🌞

The warm evenings are magical...

Do you have an outdoor space to enjoy some quiet time?