Plants and flowers and jobs and costume jewelry, oh my

Ah, my first day off in six days. You must realize that even before I was a bum for a year, I was a M-F/9-5 kinda gal for my entire work life. Thus, even working until 6 or 7pm is kind of weird. Working on weekend days is still rather hard to grasp. At any rate, I'm off today and it is kind of blissful, particularly since Steve is off too. First off we headed to an estate sale in the county, with a stop for a misto and a visit with an occasional co-worker. The sale was in a -century modern subdivision that was even better than usual -- it was quite hilly so the houses were seldom on the same level as their neighbors, affording each more privacy. There wasn't a whole lot of interest in the house, but I did get a handful of costume jewelry, a funny photo and the cutest mini TV tray. Here's all the loot on the tray. Should I paint/decorate the tray or leave it in its 'shabby chic' (I really hate that term but it's all I got) state?

Here are close ups of some of the jewelry. I probably wouldn't ever wear these leaf motif earrings, but I was thinking they might each make a cool pendant. The triple blue stone earrings are quite pretty and seem to be good quality. The sword is a swanky cool tie bar. I'm gonna have to think of a cute way to wear it with a scarf or something.


The glorious rain of the past few days has made all my plants very, very happy since I'm not the best waterer in the world. It is a flowery time at our house and I couldn't be happier. I took a bunch of pictures this afternoon, so you get to see 'em. Remember the wee coleus babies? They're growing up into such lovely adolescents!

Even though the rose of sharon births hundreds of annoying volunteer plants every year, I still fall in love with its flowers when they appear. So pretty and tropical.

Combine it with a vibrant orange tiger lily and it's almost too much beauty at one time.

Speaking of the tiger lilies, check out this one:

My blue bellflowers are almost spent as the brown-eyed susans are just beginning.

The hearty hibiscus bush is about six feet tall this year and loaded with buds. Each of these buds will produce a giant, dessert plate-sized hot pink flower. When our iguana, Mitch, was alive, he loved nothing better than to gulp down these flowers. It was his favorite treat.

And last but not least, the herbs continue to grow (I tucked a little coleus seedling in that herb pot and it finally has started to grow!). It is time to pluck a bunch of that basil and freeze some pesto.

So how is work going, you ask? Pretty good. In basically my fourth week of work I've been promoted and gotten a raise, so I don't have much to complain about. It's going to be a totally new experience supervising people, but it seems to be coming rather naturally. We'll see! I just hope I can do it in a way that helps people like and respect me. I know it's possible because I've had those kind of supervisors already. But I've also had another kind that I'd rather not be. It's a delicate balance, I guess. Tomorrow I start work at 5:30am! Is that crazy talk or what?