Long Weekend & Gardening!

These two weekends have been pretty awesome.  Its a new learning experience to plant my own garden and grow my own seeds.

Last week, that was exactly what I did (other than my food adventures HERE). Around mid-week, my boyfriend sent me pictures that the seeds, my little zucchini was growing.

Hello World, Zucchini!

By the time, this weekend came around and I went to go see my seedlings, some others were sprouting as well.  Of course, I was the genius and didn’t label them so I know two of my broccoli are coming out along with possible basil and oregano. Oregano is my guess and even some chamomile, which is also a guess.  It needs to get bigger for me to realize.  Those two are so small that I didn’t even bother to take a picture of them. I’ll probably do an update post on how that’s going soon.

For some who don’t know, I’m currently in my long weekend, which means NO WORK TODAY! YAY! Thank you, Queen Victoria 😉 Regardless, this weekend was the mega plan to go to this huge greenhouse producer garden center called Les Serres Jean-Francois Dauphinais out in St Basile Le Grand, a little town on the outskirts of where I live.  Originally it was just myself and Phoebe@Starry Traveler but then my boyfriend came along and thank goodness because we needed help with that 😉

We spent almost 2 hours there going through rows and rows of herbs and vegetables and flowers.

This was everything that I bought, with a few little ones from Canadian Tire, that we picked up everything and my lovely Clematis is out of the shot.

So lets have a little more close-up tour of what I’ll be planting for both my indoor garden and outdoors (if it happens, more about that later in this post).

Lemon Verbena, Stevia, Ground Cherry and Lime Mint

For you Vampire Diary lovers, I can make some vervain 😉

Raspberry

Delicata Squash, Ginger Mint, Strawberry, Blackie Sweet Potato and regular Sweet Potato…

The one in the top row in the middle is baffling me right now.  Its escaping my brain what it is…

Moving on 😉

Hibiscus

Spanish Lavender, Goldilocks, Mixed Lettuce, Crimson Star and Little flowers

Other then the two on the right, lettuce combo and little red flowers, the rest are all going in pots or indoors.

The most awesome part is that after my post about Crimson Star, there flowers if you miss it.

Flowers

I fell in love with them and although the garden didn’t have them, we managed to find stuck in the lower row of the Canadian Tire garden exactly two plants, one for me and one for Phoebe.  Score! That was a happy moment.

We still have one more plant that we haven’t shown, here’s the lovely Clematis.  The first plant I thought about wanting in my garden because they are so beautiful.

Clematis

That was my crazy garden shopping.  Its a bit late to sprout seeds from everything at this point so its pretty great to have found that lovely garden center. I’m sure to return there.  I have a few other plants I have in mind if these succeed.

However, there is a bit of issues on the outdoor garden issue.  My previous owners were not the gardening type and the gardening area has turned into partial storage and grasslands full of weeds.  As I was weeding away, I found some white worms.  I may be a gardening amateur but I know these not so little guys are a big no-no. This means, I need to treat my soil before I can use it.  I have some researching to do on that.  With my vacation a few weeks away and mostly time to work on the weekends, maybe I’ll have to throw in a few weekdays this coming week to try to get everything done.

Whats good is that on Sunday morning, we headed out to Ikea and bought a few more items for the house.  The most significant being some pots to plant my indoor herbs garden.  At least that will most along as planned and that will be done later today after a little fun time with friends 😉

I’m pretty done with updating on the weekend.  I bought some paint for the dining room also but that won’t be done until the last room in the upper floor is taken care of. I’m just going to say that the colors are very delicious because I can’t remember those fancy names.

Fun and exciting times!

I’m doing a bit of research (if I stop falling asleep while I do it) on herbs, vegetables and flowers to see where and how to plant it is more appropriate.  Also on my list, natural/organic treatment formula for my apple tree; how to get rid of white worms and how to have more space effective indoor gardens 😉

I know some of you are very wonderful gardeners. Any advice?

Also, no worries! Normal programming will be back. I have a fun week prepared and I promise you will like it 😉

Hope all of you had fabulous weekends and to my Canadian friends, Happy Victoria Day (unless you have another name because I know we like to be special over here in Quebec and have different names)! 

Daily Prompt: Fifteen Credits

Daily Prompt (August 21): Another school semester will soon begin. If you’re in school, are you looking forward to starting classes? If you’re out of school, what do you miss about it — or are you glad those days are over?  Photographers, artists, poets: show us LEARNING.

I’m definitely physically out of school.  That glorious moment happened back in 2009 and in the last year or so, I’ve actually been thinking of jumping back into that craziness.  Being in school for 20 years of my life, granted I started school in pre-school (and that still counts to me), its really crazy when I first went completely full-time and knew that it was not a summer job anymore, that it was the real deal and I was in the real world.  I was lucky enough to be in a part-time job that I could switch to permanent full-time right away.  For me, that was an amazing feeling especially since at that point in time, I was getting fed up with school.  I was definitely glad to get time for myself: watch movies, be with friends, go see the world, and do things I wanted to do.   Of course, nothing is ever perfect and with a low paying jobs, it didn’t fulfill some of the things I wanted to do so I finally changed jobs and now, I have more money but less time for myself and the people I love.

For that, I miss school a lot.  I miss the time I had with my best friend during our crazy study sessions.  There was a lot of meeting new people during new semesters and working on group projects.  There was time to physically move about with other people.  As much as it was paying (*ahem* investing) to stay up late and have a massive workload, there was a lot of great memories also.

Still, if its anything I have learned, as much as life isn’t the ideal world we all wish it was, we make the best of the situation. So like I said, PHYSICALLY I’m out of school.  I no longer have to move my physical body to an institution to learn but rather, even right now, I constantly feel I’m still learning.  My desire to improve myself never stops.  I’m still actively trying to finish studying for my piano, taking online courses to get my TESL certificate and eventually, I want to take classes to excel in Spanish, event planning.  I’m doing self-learning for baking and every single day its lessons after lesson whether at work, at home, in relationships with friends and family and along the way, I learn more about myself.

Every single one of us is in the school of life.  I’m not exactly sure we ever will leave it while we’re alive.

BUT, thats what makes life awesome, right? RIGHT!

HAPPY FRIDAY! 🙂 TGIF!

How about you? Is the school year starting for you? Do you ever wish to go back? What is it that you miss about school (if anything)?

Daily Prompt: Back to School

Daily Prompt (July 26):  If you could take a break from your life and go back to school to master a subject, what would it be?  Photographers, artists, poets: show us MASTERY.

Believe it or not, I think about this question ALL THE TIME! Why? Well, there are times I look around me and see a good amount of people I know have found their passions, followed their dreams or is content with their careers.  Does that mean that I’m not content with my life? Thats not completely true! I’m fully grateful for everything I have but I also do believe that life is about upgrading myself.  There is never enough learning, whether its personal development, development for our minds or career development.  Life’s a whole world of things to study and learn everything.  That’s one of the reasons why I have such a versatile blog.  I try new things and then some of them become my passions and I try to learn more.

I wrote about this a while back is that I’m actually trying to figure out my  life a little and eventually be able to change my full-time job into a part-time and maybe have myself a little side business.  Enjoy the life of being self-employed and all…haha! I’ve always dreamt about having my own baked goods shop with tea and all that good stuff.  Whether it will happen depends if I figure out how to do it and save up the money.  However, a lot of other ideas have popped in my head and are all under consideration.  Its never bad to learn something new anyways, even if I don’t turn it into a career 🙂

If I were to go back to school, I’ve thought about a few things, but definitely I’ll be going back to learn something I am passionate about:

Option 1: Professional baking!

I’m sure most of you have figured out I’d say that! I’ve learned a lot on my own and doing my own research but nothing quite compares to learning it at a school and getting some tips.  Thats my personal view of course! On that note, I did just benefit from a Groupon deal and signed up for a cupcake decor course! Appearances of my desserts are always a bit funky, its something I do want to improve 😉 I hope to start that ASAP! Going back to cooking school would probably be the only thing that would mean I’d have to give up my current job!

Option 2: Spanish (or other languages)

I’ve studied Spanish to an intermediate level from high school to college to university.  I always choose it for electives.  I love the language and how expressive the tone is.  I miss learning and perfecting it a lot and its something I’ve been planning to do an online course next year provided I wrap up a few of my goals this year.

Option 3: Photography

I just bought a Canon Rebel T5i.  I’m still learning a lot about how it works.  Everything seems so complicated with all the buttons and exposures, apertures, shutter speed. My mind sometimes feel like its exploding when someone tries to explain it to me but once I do some shooting, I always feel so energized and I always pick up something new 🙂 I actually have lingered on that certificate at the university I used to attend.  One day, I will do it! That I’m absolutely sure of!

Option 4: Personal trainer certificate

This one I’ve actually been looking into.  Ever since I’ve been crazy into working out and learning more about staying fit and healthy and trying out different forms of exercises: strength, cardio, yoga, etc.  Being active has become my lifestyle.  Imagine the last 2 weeks where I’m sick and I haven’t worked out, its feeling pretty crappy.  I lost 5 lbs in a flash but thats definitely not a healthy way to do it. Personal trainer certificate would be something to do for myself and if possible, to help others.  Its something I’d really love to do one day.  I’ve looked at my options and trust me, when I feel I’m ready mentally and physically for it, I’m going to do it!

Option 5: Music-related professional studies

Music is the center of my life.  Why? Its pulled me through so many tough times in life from when I was younger till now. Singing, playing piano has always pulled me back from the dark place.  I’ve always wanted to learn lots of instruments.  I am doing it on the side alongside my piano.

These days, I’m even looking at memory training and all that! Even turning my blog into something more.  As I was researching this stuff, I actually came across a certificate in the university I went to called Certificate in WordPress and Javascript! Doesn’t that sound interesting? Maybe for the computer saavy bloggers out there this is some baby-ish thing but for me, this actually sounds like a pretty good deal to do bigger and better things with my blog.  Maybe… Although maybe I need to do a creative writing (or something along those lines) type of course instead.  Or I could just read a dictionary. Wouldn’t owning a blog as a full-time job be pretty epic? I think it would!

There is a world of opportunities out there! None of these options really require me to give up my current job.  Since I do still have to live and pay bills and I probably could never give up that realistic mindset that I have.  Plus, there are bigger goals that I’d like to accomplish in the coming year.  Of course, the topic do say “if you could take a break from life” but still, I’d take any of those options 🙂

If you could take a break, what would you want to master?

This is my response to Daily Prompt: Back to School! Check out other subjects bloggers would like to master HERE!