Pining for the Fjords

On Friday afternoon, Chris and I met at the Desert Botanical Garden after work to see the Chihuly at the Garden exhibit.  We’d been meaning to go to the exhibit for the past few months, but since it ends in mid-May and we recently ran across a Groupon discount for the exhibit, we carpe diem’d that business and got ourselves to the DBG. I visited the DBG a few years back on a team builder with work (we used to work within walking distance of the Garden), but this was Chris’ first experience there.  Since my new building is still much closer to the Garden than Chris’ work (plus he had to take time to go home and let out the kiddos), I beat him there by about an hour.  While I was waiting for him to arrive, I checked out the other special exhibit currently at the Garden, the Spring Butterfly Exhibit.  There’s an additional $3.50 charge for the butterfly house (in addition to the Garden’s normal entrance fee of $22 – or the Groupon price of $12!), but it’s well worth it.  Well, if yo

A few months back, I took my friend Charity’s recommendation to try out Stitch Fix, an online personal shopping service.  For some background info on the program, please click here .  For the results of my first Stitch Fix box, please click here . For a few months, I was receiving a monthly box of goodies from Stitch Fix, but recently moved to every other month to help save money for other projects around the house, like the garden.  Brief Garden Update! Sprouts on everything except the tomatillos. C’mon, little dudes! I received my latest Stitch Fix box yesterday, and I wanted to share my newest results.* Here we go! Stitch Fix has recently delved into offering bags as accessories, in addition to things like jewelry and belts and such.  This is the Emperia charleston embossed crossbody bag with zipper detail: Fair warning - the modeling in these pictures is a direct result of Easter brunch at the Westin Kierland. It involved lots of food, 2 mimo

If you haven't read last weekend's adventures, click here . After building the retaining walls and procuring some free dirt last Saturday/Sunday, we spent the week staring longingly out the back door, dreaming of what we'd plant once we finished the garden.*  We took plenty of measurements, calculated the volume of the dirt we'd still need, thought up a few potential irrigation schemes, and made a list of what seeds and transplants to buy when we next made it to the HD.  We knew we'd be finishing things up on Saturday, as we had an early run, the City of Peoria race, the Pioneer Days 5K.  We figured we'd already be gross, so why not finish up the back yard? Hooray for small races! I took second in my age group and Chris took first in his! Since we knew the race would take some time in the early morning hours of Saturday, we hit up WalMart and the HD on Friday night for their equivalent of happy hour (seed packets 2 for 1!**).  WalMart had single c