Sprouting!

For the first time...ever, I have finally gotten around to sprouting some herbs to have them ready for planting in the Spring.

Well...that is a stretch. I wish I could take the credit, but these were planted on a school field trip and we were given the plants to take home. That being said...I have managed to keep these going from seed to now! It's pretty exciting and has been surprisingly easy.

I was given the tip to put a layer of plastic wrap over the seeds to create a sort of greenhouse effect, as seen here:

I must say this really kick-started my herbs. Within a couple of days I already had sprouts. It has now been a few weeks, and most of the herbs seem to be off to a great start. I'm pretty excited about it. Unfortunately, the chives seem to be having trouble...which is surprising, since I thought chives would be the easiest to grow!

I also stuck little popsicle sticks in the soil to label which herb is which. Below you can see the oregano :) The other herbs are chives, parsley and basil. 

My next job will be to decide where to transplant the herbs. In the most recent House & Home magazine, there were these really cute DIY tea tin herbs that I love,  as seen below:

 Go to the H&H page here

Otherwise, I could go with my original plan of potting them and sticking them in the backyard, something like this: 

We shall see. 

And on a completely unrelated note, is my husband not the cutest? This is what welcomed me this morning.

Europe Bound!

Can you believe that in all of the madness of packing to move, Joe and I found time to plan a trip?!

Well, we did!
Last night we booked our flights, our hostels, and our train passes. We are officially heading to Europe this summer!

This is Joe's first Europe trip, which is pretty exciting. I have more experience, having lived in France for a year through University and having done a couple of other trips as well. I'm excited to show Joe through some of my favourite places, and seeing a few new ones, too!

We will be spending a few days in Paris, and then a few days with my wonderful host family near Nantes, France. After that, we will head North to Belgium, and then to Southern Germany to finish it off. Altogether we will be in Europe for 16 days in July.

I have felt a little stressed at the idea of a trip in the midst of our many expenses right now (new house that needs some work, new car, need to new furniture, etc). But I think I just need to remember how it feels to be in Europe in order to feel good about it. To sum it up, this picture embodies how I feel when I'm in Europe.

I'm getting excited :)

Bathroom Inspiration

I love glass showers. I dream of having one eventually. The problem in our new place is that the main bathroom upstairs is narrow and fairly small, so having a glass shower would mean potentially NOT having a tub in the bathroom. Considering Joe and I hope to start a family in the future, having a main bathroom with no bath could be a problem.

Today on Pinterest, however, I found a glass shower/bathtub combo that looks great! Here it is:

I LOVE the blue tile in the back of the shower. I don't necessarily like that the door only covers half of the length of the tub, as this would probably create many puddles over time. I also love the narrow linen closet beside it.

At our new place, there is only space for a shower/tub combo, sink and toilet. So this could work great!
Maybe bathroom reno's will be closer in the future than I realise :)

Easter Time!

The end of our 4-day Easter weekend is fast approaching.
Joe and I did the usual: Visiting family and friends, dying easter eggs, eating way too much sweets, and enjoying the springtime weather.

A few other exciting things happened this weekend (along with one NOT so exciting thing).

1. Joe turned 29! His birthday fell on Easter Sunday this year. Next year he'll be 30...whoa!

2. I started running again. I plan on doing a 5k race in June with Joe's family and thought I should train a bit. My legs hurt.

3. We officially started packing for our move! We have the basement almost emptied out, and both spare bedrooms packed up. One of them is now serving as a storage room:

4. While going through things and packing, we pulled out a lot of things that we could sell or donate. So far, we sold Joe's old guitar and made $150, and sold a bunch of old books and made $36. Not bad! Also, while we were dropping off our many boxes of donations, I picked up this chandelier that I hope to do something fun with in the future :) It was free!

5. And the not-so-exciting. This weekend we said goodbye to one of our furry friends, Beau. Yes, the sweet kitty that loved to make appearances on my blog, like this:

When Joe and I came home from work on Thursday, he had been sick and was straining to pee (and going wherever he was). We brought him into the emergency vet expecting to need to buy him some medication, but things were much more serious than we thought. It ends up he had a blockage that would have cost about $2000 to fix and there was no guarantee that the surgery would work! He had medical problems that would last his entire life and he would need a special diet and potentially further surgeries. It was an extremely difficult (and sad!) decision to have to make but we had to give him up. It was too much for us to take on. He was a great cat, and handsome, and very loving and I will miss him.

There is Hope!

One of the things I have been dreading/looking forward to (mixed feelings!) about our new house is tackling the kitchen.

It is currently done with an 80's malamine cupboard. You know, the type with the wood strips as handles, comme ça:

Needless to say, this is not my dream look for a kitchen.

I have searched the internet high and low for examples of kitchens with these malamine cupboards that have been repainted and salvaged. My search always came up with nothing, or with examples of people who had simply re-faced their malamine kitchens. I was losing hope.

While perusing through Pinterest and my House & Home magazine, however, I have been noticing that a lot of modern kitchens are starting to use very stream-lined cabinets that have a similar look to what I would imagine these cupboards to look like. Let me show you a few examples of what I mean:

That being said, this still isn't my favourite look. But could I live with it for a while? Sure!

I have a problem that even though I have already bought a house, I still look at MLS to see what's available and get some ideas. Yesterday, I came across a kitchen that, from what I can tell, is repainted malamine cupboards!!! (Sorry about the itty-bitty photos, but making them bigger just made them fuzzy!) Anyway, my point is that they look good! This is a kitchen that I could definitely live with for a while. Besides, our new kitchen has beautiful tile floors and granite countertops to hide anything I don't like about it :) 

So there you have it: Hope that my new kitchen may look good. One day. Maybe.

Patio Furniture

Oh my!
It has been over a week since my last post.

I can hardly believe it. I could blame it on the fact that I spent 2 nights starting and then finishing the Hunger Games. (A must read!) Or then watching the movie for another evening. Or I could blame it on the fact that I've been uber exhausted lately. And work has been crazy. And I have been trying to be active.

But in reality, the real culprit is a case of writer's block!
I am still stuck in the "limbo" state, where I am simply waiting to move. It is only 7 more weeks at this point, but it has been putting a serious damper on things to write about.

Anyhoo...since the past few weeks have been unseasonably warm, and our new backyard is large and lovely, I have been thinking a little bit about patio furniture. My Dad has kindly offered to buy us a set for our wedding. But my question is, should I get a set without cushions? Or a set with them? See examples of each below:

I've asked around and there are pros and cons to both types.

For example: Patio furniture with cushions is super comfy, but requires a lot of care in taking the cushions on and off in case of bad weather. You would probably also need a place to store the cushions, like a deck box. However, the trade off may be worthwhile in that I plan on spending a lot of time in our backyard, and hopefully hosting many friends and family, so the extra comfort is a bonus.

The sets without cushions, however, are also quite comfy, but you don't need to be constantly worrying about cushions. I don't mind the look of either. Of course, I don't actually plan on getting a new set until we are moved into our new place.

So, any thoughts or experiences that could help me to decide?