Gardening in High Heels

cultivate a beautiful life

Sunday Lately, 85

Sunday Lately is a weekly link up brought to you by the Blogger Tribe. Link up and see what's been happening lately!Sunday Lately is a weekly linkup hosted by the Blogger Tribe (which is being fearlessly lead by Meghan, Nicole, Katy, and myself). We e-hang out every Sunday, sharing a small glimpse into the last week of life in our own worlds. We’d love if you could join us!
This week’s themes: Completing, Visiting, Repeating, Writing, Scheduling

 

Last Sunday, I woke up with a summer head cold and proceeded to spend the rest of the day in bed. I could have written something while I was alternating between sneezing and coughing, but I watched Gilmore Girls on Netflix instead. I also got a lesson in aphid removal from my mom while she was visiting. All in all, the week was pretty awesome.

Completing

Awkward: I have been stuck in a creative rut recently. I can’t shake anything out when I sit down, so I haven’t really completed much of anything lately. Oops.

Awesome: I did end up going through my hair/makeup/body products with my mom while she was in town and got to clean out a bunch of stuff that I don’t use. I guess you could say I completed some cleaning.

Visiting

Awesome: Last week were two family birthdays in the space of three days. So I was visiting lots of family. It was really nice to see people that I usually don’t.

Repeating

Awkward: I feel like my days are running into each other. Getting a business started is sometimes really repetitive. Wake up, make coffee, sit in front of the computer, don’t move for hours. Repeat.

Awesome: Picking and watering my garden. I planted late, so I’m used to having more on the stems by now. It’s finally coming alive, though.

Fresh garden basil

Fresh garden cucumbers

Writing

Awkward: Nothing. Insert crying emoji here.

Scheduling

Awkward: I feel very much like I’ve been scheduling nothing, too. Oh well.

What have you been up to lately? Link up with us and share!


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Sunday Lately, 24

This week I’ve been doing oil pulling.  It’s that thing in which you swish coconut oil around in your mouth like mouthwash for 20 minutes and it’s supposed to reveal a whiter, straighter, prettier smile that also opens into a studio apartment and a million dollars.

It’s kind of gross.  I’m trying to stick it out though.  In other news, we went to Wigle Whiskey‘s Tar and Feather party on Friday night.  It rained for most of the evening, but it got nicer at the end of the evening and we got to watch the tax collector get dunked.  It was a great time.

Tar and Feather party at Wigle Whiskey

Updating

Instagram!  I’ve been on the fence about opening a blog-specific Instagram account, but I finally did it!  You can find me at instagram.com/GardeningInHighHeels.  It’s going to be more focused on “blog stuff” like gardening, updates, and interacting with bloggers/readers.

Reminding

I signed up for The Joy Equation with Molly Mahar and I need to remember to take the workbook to Staples and print/bind it.  It’s beautiful, full color, so it would totally kill my printer if I did it myself.  I also would never get it bound.

Needing

To catch up on other blogs and leave comments.  That’s my favorite part of blogging and I’ve been putting priority on other things in my life.  What are your secrets for balancing all aspects of blogging?

Wearing

This awesome Blogger, Maker tank from Katy’s Handmade Escapade shop!  I love the way she’s laid out the words so each one is kind of different and the font that she chose to use.  And the fact that it’s totally comfortable!

I want to live in this shirt this summer.  It’s also really hot and swampy here, so the less layers, the better.

Being

Hot and swampy.  The humidity here has felt off the charts.  Today so far is a little cloudy and cooler.  I think this week is supposed to be rainy.  It’ll be great for my garden in terms of water and not so great in terms of weeds.I spent about 2 hours yesterday weeding that damn garden and I know it’s one of those fruitless jobs, like vacuuming, where as soon as you do it, you can’t really tell you did it anything.

Fresh Essie mani and fresh herbs

Weeding a garden is the best accomplishment.

What have you been up to lately?

Be a Better Blogger is a weekly link up dedicated to helping you be a more intentional blogger. Want to be a better blogger but don’t know where to start? Head over to the Be a Better Blogger page for daily prompts and a weekly linkup to help get the creative juices flowing! Oh, and use #beabetterblogger on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook to keep the fun going even after you hit Publish!

Sunday Lately, 22

I have been hit with crazy allergies this week.  Ever since I got back from Virginia, I’ve had a sore throat, aching ears, sinuses draining, and fits of sneezing.  Mostly the sneezing fits come when I’m carrying a cup of coffee.  Yup.  It also makes it hard to sleep when I’m exhausted yet I can’t stop the coughing and the draining.  Thanks for that, body.

But despite the allergies, I’ve manged to blog every day with Katy and Meghan for Blogger, May I.  I’m so proud we made it!  This is the last day that I’ll be a semi-cohost with those two and Nicole for Sunday Lately.

Huge beautiful white peony!

Doing

Preparing for a yard sale.  It’s been years since I participated in a yard sale.  It wasn’t even hosted at my house, it was at my uncle’s house.  I’m woefully unprepared for this.

Appreciating

The peony flowers in my yard.  I love the way they look and how they smell so wonderful in my house.  The only downfall of fresh peonies in the house are fresh ants in the house.  It’s kind of annoying.  But, I’ll gladly take some ants if I means I’m surrounded with beautiful, fresh flowers.  I’m sure there’s an adage in there somewhere.

Purple peony

White peony bloom

Designing

Because I have fresh peonies, I took some new shots to use for desk photos here and maybe an image on a home page.  I’m excited at the prospect of seeing where I can go with this little blog of mine.  I’ve been energized by photos of flowers, which I want to share more of here, and late-night wine, and early mornings waking up gently and getting some things done.  The late nights and early mornings don’t happen back-to-back.

Humming

Taylor Swift songs.  One of the companies that I do social media posting for is going a TSwizzle concert ticket giveaway.  In the posts, I’ve been trying to get punny with song titles.  And after I write it, I get the song stuck in my head.  Guess I’m just gonna have to shake it off.

Expecting

To be busy in June.  There’s the yard sale all next weekend.  I want to keep going writing a post per day in a continuation of Blogger, May I – I want to call it #GoBlogGo, but we’ll have to see what the group decides on!  And I’m also going to be participating in Emily Levenson’s Project:Food Budget.  And like I said, I want to share garden updates and photos of the progress there.

What have you been up to lately?


Plant a Garden in Under an Hour

Gardening is a new found love.  I really got into it when my mom moved away and I moved into her house.  It was either maintain her garden, weed a little bit, and get some veggies out of it OR weed a big space of dirt and get no veggies.  I think the choice was clear.

She has a thumb so green, it’s practically neon.  I’m not so day-glo just yet, but I have learned a thing or two.  For today’s Blogger, May I prompt, a list of 10 things, I’m sharing how to easily make your own garden a reality in under an hour in 10 easy steps.

How to plant a garden in under an hour in 10 easy steps.

1. Find somewhere to put some plants.  Got a little space in your yard?  Is it sunny?  Great!  Next step.

2. Go and buy the plants.  I’d love to start my plants from seed, but that requires a lot of forethought.  I wasn’t invested in the garden enough to start them in January, and if I planted most of the plants now, they wouldn’t start producing until like..October and ain’t nobody got time for that.

If you’re like me, Home Depot will be sold out of cherry tomato plants and you’ll have to go back to buy more plants.  Much fist shaking happening at Home Depot.

(Okay, this part may take over an hour in and of itself.  I can never decide how many tomatoes I want or what kinds of herbs I think I’ll need/don’t have seeds for.  Don’t count this against the hour allotted!)

3. Weed the garden space one last time.  You probably will have done this two weeks ago and then gotten a handful of frosts, so you couldn’t put plants in yet.  Frost will kill a new pepper plant, but apparently nothing kills the spiky weeds in my garden that attack me to no end when I try to eradicate them.

Optionally, you got lazy and the frosts were a coincidence. #BlessingInDisguise

4. Figure out where you want to put your plants.  Don’t put the same plants where you had them last year.  Crop rotation, soil fatigue, gardening terms here…

This took me a while because I wanted to keep like plants together, save room around the edges for beans and peas, not forget about seeds I wanted to plant, and keep in mind where everything was last year.  I went through a few different configurations.

Plant a garden in under an hour in 10 easy steps.

5. Plant!  I mean, there isn’t much to say about this step.  Dig a hole, drop the plant in, cover with dirt.  Ta da!

6. Discover more little weeds that need to just.die.already. Pick them and vigorously throw them anywhere but inside the garden.

7. Give your plants a little food.  My mom recommends Miracle Gro plant food.  I happened to have Osmocote from my Christmas stocking, so that’s what I used.  This will really help to get them started off on the right foot (root?) and get them to grow big and strong.

8. Water.  Gently, por favor!

9. Do a little happy dance.  Realize you forgot to leave a space for the cherry tomatoes.  Curse Home Depot a little more.

10. Marvel that it only took an hour.

Have you ever planted a garden?  What’s your favorite thing to grow?


Five goals for May

Ah, a fresh new day and a fresh new month.  So many possibilities.  So many goals just waiting to be made…and completely forgotten halfway through the month til eventually you decide…better just wait until another fresh start new month comes along.

Just me?

Anyway, today is the first day of Blogger, May I with Katy and Meghan.  In case you missed it yesterday, we’re blogging every day this month and we hope you’ll join with us.  And not get sick of hearing from us every.damn.day.

Today is Introduce Yourself.  Since last week, I pretty much just wrote about myself all week and I don’t want to subject you to that too much, I’m going to introduce you to myself through my five goals this month.

(And in case you’re wondering – I’m Angelica, I write, manage social media marketing, love craft beer, can’t live without chocolate, bake when I’m upset, am an accidental gardener, and can quote the entire SATC series.  Many accomplishments, for sure.)

Five goals for May #BloggerMayI

Write a blog post every day

Didn’t see this coming, did ya?  I’ve done this before a long time ago and they weren’t the best quality things around.  I hope I can hit quality and quantity this time around.  I’m so thrilled Katy asked me to join in the fun and help her lead the charge.  And I can’t wait to dig in and really get going with this challenge.

Complete the Pittsburgh Half Marathon

I may be am cheating here.  I know I’m going to complete the marathon.  But people write things on their to-do lists that are already to-done just so they can cross something off, so I can do that here, right?

(Take a look at a few things I’ve written recently with some running tips!)

Get my garden in

I knew I wouldn’t really start to work in the yard until after the marathon, but I can’t put it off any longer.  There probably won’t be many more frosts in Pittsburgh; I’m thinking mid-May will be the good time to get everything in the ground.

I’ll definitely be planting the staples – tomatoes, peppers, green beans, zucchini, peas, eggplant, herbs – but I also want to add some marigolds in to keep critters out.  I never have, but I’m interested in seeing if it’ll do anything to alleviate the groundhog/bunny problem.

Put my office together

I have things thrown in my office because I quite literally have no where to put them.  I don’t have any office furniture in that room, so the supplies I’ve moved into my house are just sitting there.  It’s driving me nuts!  I have to get it off the floor and put away somewhere and have a functional space for my computer, sewing machine, scrapbook supplies, Post-Its, etc.

Stay on top of emails, invoicing, scheduling social updates

Pretty much just the little flotsam and jetsam that accumulates in life.  When things get busy, the first things to go to the wayside are posting on Twitter, replying to emails, cutting coupons.  Doing dishes.  At least I don’t have a problem remembering to grocery shop and eat!

Introduce yourself and link up!  What are your goals for the month?

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People Really Dug These

We Belong in the Garden Together