Watching my little garden bloom...

This summer has flown by. I feel like it never started in the first place. The months were filled with visitors and trips and events. Around here you spend as much time trying to enjoy it because the months are not long enough and the weather is always unpredictable.

We have had such a bad fire season though. You try to enjoy the beautiful days with blue skies because you don't know if you are going to wake up to a morning full of nasty smoke and falling ash.

Our one main trip this year was to Valdez. We enjoyed a full weekend of relaxing in such a laid back coastal town. We experienced watching a Grizzly fish and visited some interesting places. The best part of it was just spending time with each other without phone calls, work, internet or a hectic schedule.

We came back to 2 a days starting for HS football and I also enrolled in the Summer Arts Festival. I took an Adult Middle Eastern dance class and we performed this last Saturday along with Ballet dancers and Modern Jazz. We did a Saidi piece with is very energetic and folkloric so our costumes were pretty but hot to be in. Either way our group had a great time and I finally conquered my fear of being on stage. I am hoping to take more classes before we move away from here.

In the midst of all the events the one thing that put me at peace was tending to my little garden. The wildflowers on the side of my deck were grown from seeds and my pepper plant and tomato plant from a small sprout from the greenhouse. Since I live in a place where I can't have a "real" garden. I just spruced up my front yard with a potted garden and some lining the sides of my sidewalk and the side of the deck.

Here are some pictures of the progression.

June pictures




My pepper plant when it started growing.


July Pictures







Blooming flowers

















My tomato plant








I am patiently waiting for my sunflowers to bloom. I also had to put a yellow jacket trap by my flowers because I am allergic to them and they came in this summer in full swing not leaving my plants alone and mad at me for watering them. Thankfully I did not get stung at all.

I have more recent pictures of my flowers to download. They are blooming new ones by the day. It is not only peaceful to look out and see such beauty but also very rewarding to see them grow.

Now that I know I can grow flowers from a seed I cannot wait to have my own garden in my little plot of land and make is heaven to spend time in. So I have a small binder of my future goals and what flowers I would like and plants to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. :)

On the jewelry side I have been just working on small things. I did finally order up some tools for metalsmithing and hope to get going on certain projects this week now that my dance class is over for now.

But before I leave I wanted to share some earrings and bracelets I made with pearls that my Grandmother handed over to me. She gave me a set of Philippine pearls strung on a necklace and told me it has been around for a while and that I may have it and do whatever with it. Well I couldn't think of taking it apart without sharing it with the ladies in my family. So I made earrings for them to choose from and for my Aunt a pearl bracelet to choose from. Now everyone has the pearls with them also.

Pearl Earrings


Pearl Bracelets





I hope to be working on more things within the near future. I am so sorry for my absence it is just when your time is limited it is hard to be on the computer when you should be enjoying your family or the beautiful weather. But I will try to keep this up a bit more often from now on.

Have a great rest of the week.