Green Onion Planter

Did you know that green onions can be put in water, allowing the green parts to regrow almost indefinitely? Just pick up some green onions with the little white roots attached (that’s how they’re sold in the grocery store), then put the bunch(es) in a container of water. Simple as that!

Green onions are so versatile! Here's a short list of how you can use them:

• Rolled in olive oil and then grilled
• Baked into a quiche
• On/in pretty much anything Mexican
• On/in pretty much anything Greek
• Sprinkled on:
• baked potatoes
• soups right before eating
• eggs

I tried it a couple of years ago and really doubted that it would work, but it did! I recently started “growing” them again, except this time I bought more stalks so it looks substantial enough to put in the window alongside my other plants.

The tip is to make sure you cut the stalk all the way down to the white at the bottom or the stalk just dries up like the stalk in the lower right picture below. I also put an elastic loosely around my two bunches to keep my stalks more upright.

What do you think?

Exterminated

The new apartment I moved to a few months ago is a basement. If anyone is even somewhat familiar with basements, they know that insects are a regular occurrence. I, for one, am not a fan of bugs inside. My thought (to bugs) is, “do what you want when you’re outside. Live your life, be free! But the second you step foot over the threshold, you’re toast!!” Once they’re inside, I kill ALL bugs, no regret, no mercy.

In my almost 3 months here, I’ve found a couple spiders, a couple silverfish (they give me the shivers)… and more than my fair share of carpenter ants.

Just to clarify, my bug tolerance is super low. Every time I enter a room I scan it for bugs. It sounds pathetic, but I can’t help myself. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. Any fleck of anything black or brown and I have to investigate to make sure it’s not a bug. In university, I once found 2 spiders in my dorm room on the same day and I woke up screaming, “SPIDERS! SPIDERS!” from a nightmare so loudly, I woke up my neighbour. (Sorry Jen Ma!)


So when a silverfish scurried out from under one of my moving boxes in the first couple weeks, I was scared, but I didn’t completely freak out.

Then when I was making juice for my brother and found a dead silverfish in my mother f-in Brita filter, I was scared, but I didn’t completely freak out. And I made him flush it down the toilet, just in case it was playing dead and jumped out at me.

Then a few weeks later when I was on the computer and felt a tickle on my shoulder, only to realize it was an ant on me, I freaked out… but just a bit.

The final straw was when I went to bed on Thursday night. I was exhausted. I turned on the light. Guess what I saw? A freaking ant crawling on my freaking bed.

I. LOST. IT. 

I went ape $hit bananas. Seriously, coo coo for cocoa puffs crazy.

It was almost 11pm and I didn’t hesitate in the slightest to call my landlord. I basically told her in no uncertain terms would I continue living in a place where I had to check my bed (my bed!!) for bugs. Nah-uh. No way. NOT happening. She very sweetly invited me (and Kevin) to sleep upstairs for the night, which I fully appreciate, but I know she has ants up there too, so I declined. And she said she would call an exterminator to come to the house ASAP. Boy oh boy did she hold up her end of the bargain. By 4:30pm on Friday (if you’re still reading this far, I called her on Thursday at almost 11pm) an exterminator was at the house fumigating. Me and Riley went to my parents house for the night, and I put my plants on the front porch.


I came back on Saturday afternoon to find about 10-12 dead ants around the baseboards. Yuck. But they were dead, so yay! The exterminator said we’ll continue to find dead ants for about 8 more days. He wasn’t lying. Every day since I have walked in to find a few writhing around dying.  I know it’s evil to just let them suffer so I squash them all and end it quickly.

In case any of you were wondering (and miraculously read to the end of this post), the exterminator sprayed the basement, upstairs, and the perimeter of the house. And he gave my landlord a 6 month guarantee, so she can call him to re-spray if we find the fumigation loses its effectiveness.

BLAGHHHHH!! Let’s just all hope that day doesn’t ever come.

Window Coverings–Sheers Out, Blinds In

My mom made sheers to go on the windows in the living and dining room. The biggest issue with this is my parents live in a house with several animals – three cats, one dog. At one point last year there were five cats and one dog (eek!). The bottom of all the sheers were pretty ratty looking from rips and animal hair. After a while there isn’t really anything that can be done to make them look good. Also, in my opinion, sheers can look pretty dated. I’m not a fan.
Overall there are 5 windows downstairs – one very large window in the dining room, and one large window flanked by two tall thin windows in the living room. My parents recently invested in blinds for all of the windows downstairs and they look SO. MUCH. BETTER. It’ll probably help my sister with her allergies too because they won’t hold onto as much dust and fur as the sheers did.
I took some pictures – the quality isn’t that great because they were with my phone. The first one is of one of the small windows in the living room, and the second one is the dining room window.


My mom inquired at several places before placing her order. She called Blinds-To-Go first, thinking they would be the least expensive, but they weren’t by a long shot. She ended up getting a much better deal from Select Blinds, which is something I’ll be keeping in mind for when we move into the condo and have two walls of windows to contend with… although we’re definitely looking more for roller blinds, not slatted blinds like these.
Overall, the best price she was quoted from Blinds-To-Go was over $600, but the valance was very thin and to get a different pull cord was an added cost. At Select Blinds she got a much thicker valance (standard) and the price was $330 total! Literally almost half the price!! She asked at Blinds-To-Go if they could match that pricing and they said no. I was surprised because I always thought they would be the least inexpensive.
Have any of you gotten a great deal of window coverings? It’s one of the first things I think people should put up in their homes when they first move in so I’m doing my research early! Help a gal out!

Store Crash: West Elm

A few weeks ago I went to West Elm for the first time – and it lived up to its hype. The store was set up beautifully, with some really nice displays and great pops of colour.
This mix of driftwood, candles, jars, and bottles was set up as a centrepiece on a reclaimed wood table. I would never have thought to put these pieces together, but it looks great. I also really like that they’re using multiple smaller-scale items as the centrepiece, whereas I think most people usually just use one big item.

I was crushing hard on this coffee table. I really like it. Like, a lot. I have to really restrain myself from buying furniture until we move to the condo, but it’s. so. hard.

I saw some nice chairs and poofs too. Poofs are great in living rooms, especially if you’ve got a more casual vibe going on. The slipper chair is great for smaller spaces – because it has no arms it takes up less space and you could probably get two people on one in a pinch. And I really liked the rocker. Looked like something that would go well in a bedroom. Although if it were in my room, I would use it strictly for piles of clothes and never for sitting…

How awesome is this string of pendants?! It’s so cool. I love the impact of having 5 in a row, but I think even just 1 (or maybe 3 if you have the space) would look great too.
We found this bookcase that was very well styled. I like that the bookcase has open and closed sections too. I love the idea of using open bookcases like this as a quasi-room divider. As we headed to the back of the store, we found this same bookcase in the As Is section for less than half the price ($239.97) of the original ($599)!! The only issue was the top section was missing the screws (where I put in the arrow) so that is easily fixable with a quick trip to Home Depot, etc. If either of us had a car big enough to take that home, it would’ve been mine!!!

Have any of you been here lately? Do you like to get inspired by store setups like I do? The merchandisers do such a good job of making the displays so pretty!

Resolution Check-in: May

How many of you are still working on your new year’s resolutions? No one? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Me neither! My resolutions have fallen woefully to the wayside.


MY 2012 NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

1. Stop swearing
You know what? While I haven’t been actively working on this one, I have really curbed my habit here! In my new position at work I work with a guy who non-jokingly says things like, “Gee Whiz” “Hokey Dinah” “Bass Ackwards”… what do these words mean? I have no idea lol but it’s hilarious. And makes me want to clean out my mouth with a bar of soap
Goal achieved? It's coming along


2. Improve my photography skills
Eeek, still off the bandwagon with my photography challenge. When I moved I misplaced my camera and its accessories (charger, tripod, SD card). I have since found everything, but something is up with my SD card and I can’t take photos off of it… Anywho, my photo challenge will be up and running again very soon!
Goal acheived? Fail... womp womp


3. Learn Photoshop
I’ve been playing around with GIMP, a freeware photo editing program. I learned how to add washi tape to photos, which makes me a very happy girl. I’ve learned that watching YouTube videos for specific issues is much more helpful than reading any user guide.
Goal achieved? Coming along nicely


4. Read more news
I’m still doing well with my Twitter apps (CP24, Toronto Star and CBC News). But the news is so depressing! I don’t want to hear about drugs (bath salts??) that pretty much turn people into cannibalistic face-eating zombies… Sounds like patient zero to me. Time to start preparing for the zombie apocalypse!!

Goal achieved? Check!!


5. Do more DIYs on my blog
A big fat zip going on here. I haven’t done any projects in the last 2 months. Booo. But in preparation to start more DIYs I have been pinning like crazy! Check out my craft/diy folder on Pinterest!
Goal achieved? Room for improvement



6. Declutter each season
Nothing helps me declutter like moving and move I did! Packing helps me prioritize what’s important, which is seriously only about 30% of what I own. I still have 3 totes that I haven’t unpacked… and I moved 2 months ago lol. I’m slowly chipping away at it.
Goal achieved? Yes-siree!


7. Spend more quality time with the ones I love
Check! Kevin and I are still doing weekly dates. I’ve also caught up on my emails with friends.
Goal achieved? Yes indeed-y!

Overall I can say I'm still happy with my progress. I think I’ll focus this next month on doing some DIYs. I’ve fallen off the blogging bandwagon hard so I’ve really gotta pick myself up and get back into it! My walls are bare and they’re just crying out for some art or something…
How have your resolutions been going? If you made any, have you been sticking to them, or did some of them fall off the bandwagon like mine?
Image: zombie apocalypse