Pink Turtlehead

When I was in college, studying horticulture, I took many plant identification classes.  I loved them.  I loved knowing the scientific names.  I loved identifying plants on quizzes and exams.  I loved learning attributes to similar and completely different genera, and I loved being able to use that knowledge to help me identify the plants around me.  I also found a few plants that I loved based solely on their names; pink turtlehead is one of them.  (Yes, recall the post of how I sometimes act like a nine year old?!  Here is your example: I use every chance I get to say 'turtlehead'.)

Besides the name, I also love that this plant has lovely pink blooms that flower at the end of summer and into fall, a time when I feel like there are more plants starting to fade from the summer heat than not.  It's so amazing to have something else that provides yet another bloom before fall starts.  The turtlehead grabs a tinsy bit of summer and reminds us that it [summer] is still here!  And, I love the fact that turtleheads are so low maintenance (read: easy to grow for people who pretend to have a green thumb)!  We didn't have to do anything to these guys to get them to flower and they look great!  Now that is what I'm talking about!

Without further ado, please welcome our pink turtleheads - blooming for the very first time, in our new house!  We planted them earlier in the summer!

(For the record, here are some other plants that I love because of their names:

-Gayfeather - We planted some of these at the same time we planted the turtleheads.  They died.

-Paul's Glory - A hosta cultivar.  I always want to add 'hole' to the end of that one, but I don't.  I know, so juvenile...When will I grow up?

-Christmas Fern - The scientific name is Polystichum acrostichoides.  I feel like it's the perfect precursor to a horticultural dispute, "Why don't you go Polystichum acrostichoides?"  (Obviously, that doesn't make any sense, but it sounds threatening, right?!)

-Toad Lily - A bit of an oxymoron, don't you think?!)

(And, for the other record, I have never put any of these plants in any of my clients' designs.  I don't think I could explain their attributes without cracking a smile!)

Turtle, turtle!

O-Town or Bust!

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

This weekend we celebrated my family's departure to Ottawa, Canada at my Aunt's house in Maryland.  In addition, I was able to spend some amazing, quality girl time with my best friend, Tamara, while Brian spent some amazing, quality boy time with his boys:  Than, Jeff, and Patrick.  (Boy time included, but was not limited to: "fishing" (I don't believe they caught anything), drinking, late nights, good conversations, good people, and buffalo shrimp...in Florida.  Girl time included, but was not limited to: laughing ... a lot, talking, drinking, reminiscing, shopping, and wonderful company...in Maryland!)

Brian and I both had wonderful weekends in two different states hanging with [some of] the people that mean the absolute world to us.  It was a much needed and nice break away from the every day stresses in Ohio, and I know it meant so much to our family to be there to wish them a wonderful journey to Canada.  The countdown is on; Thursday is the official moving day!  The next time we see my family we may be visiting them in the True North Strong and Free!

Contending With Laundry

Jack has got some competition vying for the most coveted spot on the couch tonight:

Eaten Alive

I swear if I don't have malaria, west nile virus, or yellow fever by the end of the summer, it will be a miracle.  Every time I go outside mosquitoes are on me like white on rice, and I am not kidding.  Within seconds of being outside, I am itching a new red welt.  Any skin that I have left exposed including face, hands, ankles, ears, neck, etc. is fair game according to those little buggers. And if I even think about going outside, a previous mosquito bite will inevitably start itching. 

From what I understand, this year is extremely heavy with mosquitoes because of all the rain that we had in the spring, however, we don't have ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes in our yard and we certainly don't promote mosquito reproduction. We have citronella candles and bug spray; neither seem to provide any bit of protection. The new generation of mosquitoes is ruthless. Ruthless.

Our mosquito dilemma has literally has gotten to the point where I start to wonder what life would be like if the mosquitoes became extinct 65 million years ago instead of the dinosaurs, but then I snap out of it because we all know that would just pose another set of...dilemmas...  At this point, I can deal with a small, itchy red welt on my leg from a mosquito being hungry as opposed to not having a leg at all because a tyrannosaurus rex decided he or she was hungry.

For now, I will count my blessings that we aren't living amongst hungry, non-contained (read: wild) dinosaurs, but these bug bites have seriously got to go!

Cafe Tu Tu Tango & One Year of Marital Bliss

We celebrated our first anniversary this weekend in Orlando, Florida!  Initially, we were going to stay in town to celebrate but everything just kind of fell into place for Orlando, so we decided to hightail it outta Columbus and head south! 

It was a wonderful way to celebrate our first year of marriage together!  We flew to Orlando on Thursday night and got settled into the resort we were staying in.  Then, we went to Disney on Friday and hopped from Epcot to the Magic Kingdom and on to Hollywood Studios.  Brian hadn't been to Disney in...forever (aka 1985, or something like that)... and I hadn't been since 2003 or so, so it was a nice visit to the most magical place on Earth!  It brought back a ton of memories!  Some things never change!

On Saturday, our actual anniversary day, we went to Typhoon Lagoon, one of Disney's Water Parks, and tried as best as we could to keep cool.  We learned on Friday that the temperatures are quite a bit warmer in Florida than our home sweet home some 950 miles north, north west, and since Saturday was another extremely hot day, it was a fantastic day to be a water park!

After our umpteenth lounge along the lazy river, we headed back to the resort to find a local place for our anniversary dinner.  We decided on the highly recommended Cafe Tu Tu Tango, which was fabulous!  We enjoyed our wonderful, delicious dinner, and reminisced on what we were doing exactly one year ago!  We still are amazed at how it has already been a year!  We capped the night off with a showing of our tribute wedding video and a delicious taste of our wedding cupcakes!  (Made fresh by our wonderful wedding cupcaker - Alice!)

On Sunday we relaxed poolside and got ready to head back to Ohio.  It was a wonderful one year anniversary and quick getaway!  Orlando ended up being a great place to hang, have fun, relax, and enjoy being married for one whole year!  Enjoy the photos below!

Happy First Anniversary, Bri!  Here's to many more! ♥

One Too Many Scary Movies

When I was 15, I watched the movie Scream.  Shortly thereafter, I awoke one lazy summer morning and headed downstairs.  Our cat, Bayne, bolted up the steps right as I was going down.  I chalked that up to him getting a wild hair up his rear.  Sometimes you really never know with cats.  No less than 2 minutes later, I found out why Bayne had run off so quickly.

I was seven feet from our garage and basement door.  They were right next to each other in my parent's house.  Out of nowhere I hear this, 'BANG! BANG! BANG!' on the garage door.  I grabbed the cordless phone, which I may have already had in my hand at that point, and ran upstairs to my room, closed the door, ran into my windowless, 'no potential of escaping if I needed to' closet, closed that door, and called the police.  (I, clearly, would not have survived if I was in a scary movie.)

I swore someone was trying to break in.

The officer kept me on the phone and made me describe the situation and what was going on while a deputy in a cop car was on his way.  I explained it 84 times, it felt like, when finally an officer showed up.  The dispatcher on the phone said, 'Ma'am, do you have a brother?'

I said, 'Yes. He is in his room sleeping.'  (Why it didn't dawn on me to run in there and wake him up is beyond me.)

The dispatcher replied with, 'It appears that he is locked out of your house and is trying to get in.'

'What?!' I exclaimed.  Shocked, because I honestly did think he was in his room sleeping, and then confused because he had the code to the garage and there was a hidden door key in there, AND because I was home so if he had knocked normally, I could've easily let him in.

I walked downstairs.  It turns out that it was my brother.  Banging on the garage door with a metal baseball bat.  (Imagine hearing that and not knowing what it was.  That is exactly why I called the Po-Po.)

I let him in, got off the phone with the dispatcher, apologized to the officer, and called my Mom crying because my brother had just scared the living daylights out of me.  That was the last time I decided I would be watching scary movies.  I didn't need any more help imagining what was on the other side of things.

What does this have to do with anything, you ask?  Well, last night I went for a run.  I was probably 4 minutes into my run, when I saw a maniac lady (she seriously did NOT look happy) back out of her driveway in a mini van, back directly into a parallel parked car on the streets, and then completely drive off, as if nothing happened.  I didn't know what to do.  I looked around but no one was outside and no one was calling for me and/or the suspect in the hit and run.  So I kept on running, but for the rest of my run I kept envisioning the loony lady driving up next to me in the mini van with her accomplices and "getting me" since I, essentially, was the sole witness. 

THEN, 5 minutes after that, I saw a book and a juice bottle laying in the grass on the side of the sidewalk.  As I ran past, I saw that it was Charlotte's Web, but before I started reminiscing about childhood, I was scanning the area for a little someone whose book and juice bottle that may have belonged to.  No one was around.  And then I started envisioning someone sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, reading about Wilbur and Charlotte's adventures, when an unmarked car pulls up next to them and...  I'll stop.  I don't know what happened, but my mind wanders far enough away from me that I don't need to know what happened.  Everything was probably fine.  I just happened to run by at a weird time.

I made it home safely without any drive-bys or kidnappers hunting me down because I was a witness.  But these are both clear examples of why, fourteen years ago, I took the 'scary movie' genre off of my viewing list.  Sometimes I don't even like seeing the previews to new movies coming out.  I know it is sad.  Sad, but true.  I am a scaredy cat, and I don't need movies to assist in my cowardice. 

Sometimes life is scary enough!

Happy August!

Last night, we headed to the Ohio State Fair for a little Monday night adventure.  We are shocked that it is already August!  Can it be?!  At this time one year ago, we were tying up all the loose ends and getting ready to walk down the aisle.  Now, we aren't necessarily tying up any loose ends, but we did walk down [the fair] aisles!  We saw every deep-fried food you could think of, plus games galore, rides, haunted houses, scary fair workers, cotton candy, funnel cakes, and even Mr. Lincoln himself.  It was quite an adventure.  Time really does fly when you're having fun!

O Canada

My Mom, Stepdad, Scott, and brother, James, are all moving to Ottawa, Canada for three years at the end of August, so Brian, Jack, and I headed to Maryland for a visit home before they head north!  Fortunately, Brian was in Maryland for work all week while Jack, Bun, and I held the Columbus, OH fort down, so Jack and I drove to Maryland on Friday and spent the rest of the weekend with our wonderful family!

There's something so special about going home.  I grew up in Maryland, and 90% of my family still lives there.  We miss them dearly living in Ohio, so it is so nice to be able to see them when we can.  We always have so much fun together!  We are never short on laughs, hugs, moments, and inside jokes, and it makes the time that we can all spend together so meaningful. 

This weekend was too short as usual, but we packed our moments in to relish in each other as much as we could before our visits are in our home away from home in Ottawa.  We had dinner at Frisco Grille, we had sleepovers, we headed to Wockenfuss (this is the candy shop where I worked the majority of my high school career, and they have things that you can't get anywhere else in the world!  We had to stop and get a quick fix!), we got our nails done, played ball (of course), [some of us] saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, [while the other part of us] partaked in one of the greatest sporting events FedEx field has ever seen - the Manchester United versus Barcelona game, and enjoyed just being at home - where nothing else matters.

We drove back on Sunday reminiscing about the lovely weekend, the change of moving to Canada, the visits we can't wait to make, the family that we hold so close to our hearts, and the special moments we were able to share.  (Though I don't have a ton of pictures, I have more than I did the weekend we had to hand draw our pictures!  Check them out below, if you'd like!)

Interviewing in 2011

Times are a changin', folks.  Things are not how they used to be.  This is evident, not in the rising costs of milk, eggs, bread, etc., but in the extensive, arduous process of searching and interviewing for a job.

It's 2011.  Paper resumes no longer get you anywhere.  We are in the era of technology, of information.  Where if you want something, you get it.  Where news travels faster by social media then it ever has before.  Where if you want a job, a paper resume won't cut it.  You've got to upgrade to the video resume.  Yes, the video resume. 

I went to a recruiting office today looking at some opportunities there.  (For those of you that don't know, my job situation is not the most ideal situation, so I've been keeping my options open for a while...a long while... and this recruiting center was just another step along the 'open option' way.)

I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  I figured a face to face interview, a paper resume review, a discussion, perhaps a little insight into a potential opportunity.  Riiiighhht.  (Obviously I'm still thinking it's 1999.)  What I got was an intelligence test, a Microsoft Office test, a Microsoft Excel test, a typing words per minute test, a drug test, AND a video resume, in addition to the face to face interview, paper resume review, and discussion.  I was not expecting all of that.  Talk about throwing you for a loop.

I passed all of my tests, I answered my three video resume questions, I did everything the recruiter asked me to do, and I left, for the first time in my life, feeling like the times have caught up to me and left me behind in the dust.

It's 2011.  I'm 29.  Good old fashioned paper resumes just won't cut it.  It's time to upgrade to the video resume.  It's time to adapt to the changing times.  It's time to catch up to the speed of the rest of the world, folks.

Welcome to Interviewing in 2011...

Livin' The Life

We inherited this old, leather couch from one of Brian's friends who is moving out of state.  And when I say 'old', I mean - vintage, comfy, classic!  Old in a very good way!  Though we have not yet 100% settled on an exact location for said couch, we are not the only ones who have been content with the addition.  Jack has also enjoyed having the extra, ample space in our living quarters.  (I'm sure the cool leather really makes his day after endless games of ball tossing in the heat and humidity!)

We witnessed first hand how much Jack enjoys this couch tonight.  We have even caught him sneaking downstairs to sleep on the couch while we are upstairs getting ready for bed.  Usually he follows us wherever we are.  This couch must have a stronger pull!

What a lucky puppy!  He is certainly livin' the life!