Update and Review - Gardening

I want to share with you my mini review and experience with SeedsNow. A few weeks ago I purchased these sample seeds from SeedsNow.com. At first I was hesitant because I was reading that if you are a beginner with gardening it probably is not best that you plant seeds. It is better to go with something that is already grown and learn to care for it first. Then I was bouncing from different gardening blogs and came across this guy (I apologize I forgot his blog) who has been gardening and he lives in a small apartment. He talks about how he makes it work and how he cares for his plant. He had great reviews and points for SeedsNow and it led me to try out a few sample packs.

As mentioned I was hesitant at first because I was not sure why the 3 previous plants that I bought from Lowes did not seem to be getting any love. They were watered twice a day to avoid getting dehydrated, but parts of it seem to die. It was not recently did I see that there are new blooms and I just need to continue cutting off the weeds. I shelled out the $5.00+ for shipping and handling to try out these samples. I received a free sample of the buttercrunch lettuce and decided to try that out first. In the beginning I did not notice it at all. The packages have labels that tell you approximately how long it would take for it to sprout.

This is the work of about 2 weeks if not more or less. I do the same thing that I have with the other plans and water it twice a day. You wouldn't believe how thrilled I was that even as a beginner I was able to achieve this and so far no bugs have been around it. I am going to move it to a bigger pot and add some compost with egg shells to avoid any creepy crawlers in the future.

I copied this off their site about who they are:

Growing your own ORGANIC & NON-Genetically Modified (NON-GMO) food isn’t hard to do. Seriously. It's not.  In fact, it's actually pretty easy

They are very big about their seeds being GMO free. So I would have to say that their shipping and handling is great. The samples come in these small ziploc bags with a label and the expectant time to see the seedling sprout. I would absolutely recommend them! The prices are not bad at all. If you are hesitant you should purchase a few samples to try out. I purchased a few samples and shipping for 7-10 business days was $1.95. You could pay the $5.00 if you want it to get to you in 3-4 business days.

I am not big when it comes to writing reviews, but I wanted to share about my gardening experience with seeds. I feel a little more confident about the garden I am trying to grow. Fall will be coming and I am doing a bit more research on the types of veggies and herbs I can grow during that type of weather.

It may take some time to grow and I know that I am just starting out, but my main goal is to have healthy produce grown in our little garden. This will save us lots of money in the long run if all works well. That means that we do not have to constantly buy tons of produce every time. I know that we would have to continuously grow a lot of it to be able to really save money, but at least this gives me an idea of what to expect and how long to expect it. I ordered a few more seeds and I can't wait to get them. I am in the market to find bigger containers to grow them in.

As far as my gardening is concerned I feel like they are doing swell! I love that I get to go outside everyday and stare at them for a few minutes. I get to glance at the new sprouts and just admire the beauty of it. I am no pro, but I bet you can tell that I am a beginner. I am so happy about the smallest sprouts and I am determined to continue. I didn't think that this would be something that I would be interested in since I am not the type of person that enjoys getting down and dirty.

Yesterday I decided to buy a few more samples. They are different varieties of herbs and chilli's. I haven't bought more than just the samples because I want to see if it is something that I want to grow a lot of. I want to be able to sample and get my hands dirty with what I have before committing.   I am going to purchase bigger containers to transfer the plants once they get bigger. Sean and I went to Lowe's last night and bought a few more items for me to get the other seeds started. I am excited to start seeing them sprout! Some of them will take 2-5 days for us to see the sprout and the rest will take about 7-14 days.

They look a bit messy because I just watered them, but I am so happy to see these little boxes all filled up. This weekend I am going to get a few more plants and I am going to make sure I document everything!

Ryu's Room Decor

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It's been a while since I've posted anything related to home decorating. I figure I'd share with you all the before and after pictures I have.

When we first moved in we still had Ryu's old crib and was using that as a bed for him. It was pretty much converted into a day bed. I was proud of the minimal decor I had in his room that I put up. We decided to place Sean's shelf (it was actually my idea) into Ryu's room so that he had storage for his toys and clothes. We did not have much moving in. We had a few things here and there, but we lived in a smaller apartment and when we moved into this place we had so much space that we did not really know what to do with it at first (or at least I didn't). I made sure that the first room that I would take care of was Ryu's. I just wanted him to feel at home and be comfortable in having his own room. I didn't have my room to myself until my sister moved out and joined the military.

 

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Since Ryu's birthday we have made a few changes. A few pieces of furniture from Sean's grandmothers home went to us and that gave us the opportunity to add more storage to Ryu's room. I am very thankful that we have these pieces because it has helped us a bit. We received a bed and a dresser and we didn't have to buy any of those items for his room. I was considering buying Ryu a toddler bed, but instead Ryu now has a full-size bed.

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For a while Ryu had a lot of open space to play around. He was completely fine with that since he made a lot of mess scattering his toys around (not fun when you have to clean it up). We slowly showed and explained to him that if you make a mess you have to clean it up. He's been pretty good about picking up after himself before bed time.

The bed and dresser came the day before his birthday and it was the only chance Sean got to get it over. We spent that evening getting his room together before he came home. We even added a TV (an older tv I bought from a friend) and DVD player on top of the dresser for him. It's not connected to cable so that he does not get used to watching TV all the time. We also get to monitor what he's watching by buying the movies or shows that he gets to watch.

The morning Ryu came home for his party he was surprised and happy about his room. I'm glad that he was alright with us taking away the space in his room for a bigger bed. There is still some area to play, but not as much as he had before.

 

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This is what Ryu's room looks like from his door way.  He still has a lot of walk room and I've noticed that since he got his bed he does not care to play much on the floor anymore. He prefers to be on his bed.

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I still plan on adding family pictures and posters on either his shelf or on his wall, but we are still in the process of decorating. Ryu has this fascination with maps and Sean grabbed his old Globe from his dad's place. I am trying to find a huge map to place over his headboard for him. I have browsed Pinterest for ideas on how to add personal touches here and there. I am most likely going to continuously take pictures if we do any other updates to his room. I had a lot of fun decorating his room to the best of my ability and with the resources that we had. I am happy with the outcome. In the beginning I was not a hundred percent with how it all came together, but with time and money it will get better.

Beginner's Gardening 101

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When I was younger I never liked plants or flowers. I believe that it had a lot to do with the bugs and worms that I have found on multiple occasions in my grandparents garden. If you asked me a year ago if I would to plant a few things I'd probably pass. However, now that we're in a much bigger place the idea of gardening started to sound like lots of fun. We do not have a garden, but we have a huge patio area. Sean provided me with a baker's rack to place outside where I can place all my plants.

I've looked at Pinterest and Google trying to find inspiration on what exactly I'd want to garden. I then realized that most of the plants I want to garden are many vegetables and herbs. I have tons of room on the baker's rack to place multiple pots and plants for a little produce area. I am in no way shape or form a pro at gardening nor do I even know that much about. Although, after reading a few articles here and there I am confident enough to start with these three beauties!

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I'm super excited about these three little plants that I have. It's small to start with and at least I can get my foot into the door of gardening. I started off with cilantro, basil, and a red onion plant. For the onions I'm going to have to replace the pot with something larger. These pots are plastic and I am trying to find the old school ceramic clay pots. I didn't find small ones at Lowes. Hopefully I can find them on Amazon or Google. I have been thinking if I wanted to have a few flower pots on the top of the rack just for decorative purposes, but I'm really not a big fan of flowers. If I do decide to purchase flowers I'd love to have some Plumerias or even Orchids. I think those type of flowers would be beautiful on our patio. We still have a long way to go as far as decorating or getting our place together, but at least we're starting on the right foot.

I'm so excited about this whole gardening ordeal. I hope that this all turns out well. That way we can have a few fresh produce to add into our meals that I can say I grew myself! I easily get sucked into projects and if something doesn't happen quickly or I don't see progress I tend to give up and move on to the next thing. However, with plants I know that growing something takes time and I want to learn how to become more patient. I think this is the best way for me to learn how to provide some good TLC and see it manifest on its own. I also plan on documenting my little gardening adventure. That way I can at least see the type of progress I've been making to evaluate whether I'm good at this or not.

Pending News of Moving

We had moved into our new place about a month ago. We still have a lot of furniture to purchase and decorative items to get before it can really feel like home. However, we have still managed to slowly put our personal touches up to the brand spanking new home that we have.

[caption id="attachment_56" align="aligncenter" width="562"] Our new kitchen[/caption]

Our kitchen now is not this bare, but looking back at this picture it was much cleaner (haha). When we first walked into this place the kitchen was the first room I fell in love with. It's not a super big kitchen, but it is a huge upgrade compared to our previous one. We seriously got lucky with this place because even if rent was a little bit above our budget, it was worth getting. We have seen another apartment prior to this one and even placed an application in, but we didn't snag it. I guess you can say that there was a real reason for not getting that other place.

I will add more pictures of our place once it slowly starts to come together. I also just started blogging again and I'm still trying to figure out and remember how to use Wordpress.
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These pictures were taken a good month ago before we got situated. I have to take pictures of how our place looks now. I want to take pictures of how our place will slowly evolve into what we call home. I also want to post the dining table that Sean made for our place. The table he made is absolutely awesome and we found a tutorial online. I'll post it all together once I get a picture of it so you can all see the process and the breakdown of what we spent. I am lucky that Sean is quite the handyman because the dining table that I originally wanted was $900.00 at World Market. He made me the same exact replica of the table and only cost us $120.00 in lumber and materials. I am in love with our dining table even though it's not 100% finished. The fact that I got my barn style dining table for a fraction of what it would have cost me to purchase it made makes me extremely happy. I'll post more about the DIY projects we do here at home once I get to it.