Seedling update

Last summer I was astounded to learn that the foot-tall potted tomato plants at the local green house (the ones that shouted "Feed me, Seymour!" when I walked by) had actually been planted nearly a month after the spindly, quaking, awkward tomato specimens in my basement. I assumed they were using some kind of super secret green house steroids, and that may still be the case, but more importantly I learned that proximity to the light is essential in regulating the rate at which the seedlings gain height.
So this year, I'm following the directions that sage oracle at the green house laid out for me. First, throw the seeds loosely into the growing medium and cover them lightly. Heat the trays from below. When they sprout, get them up into the light. After they show true leaves, transplant them up to their necks and keep them right in the lights.
Supposedly this will yield a super hearty tomato specimen ready to withstand the rigors of late spring (also known as July).
Here are the Stupice variety I planted. They are doing amazingly well. Their seed leaves are enormous and the true leaves are ready to come in. They are supposed to yield a large number of fruit about the size of a baseball that are good for all typical tomato uses, from canning to sauce to slice and eat.
These are the Wisconsin 55 variety I've planted. They are struggling to shed the seed pods and as a result, their seed leaves are a bit jagged and rough looking. Hopefully they rally soon. Both are heirloom seeds from SeedSavers Exchange and I've had mixed results with them previously. Most of my problems resulted from having growing the plants too tall and not hardening them off properly before planting them, so I'm hoping this year will be different.
I'm in the process of re-wiring the light rack they are growing in. I'm adding more bulbs, which I hope will further assist the plants in growing thick instead of tall. Stay tuned...

Splash of Color

In the wintertime everything seems to lose its color. We get a little tire of seeing the same white landscape, and there's not much we can do about what's outside. So instead we like to put up fun colors around the inside of the house.
This is a close up of the fabric we used to make new curtains for the kitchen. Lulu found a fabric designer she likes on the interweb and we've ordered a variety of interesting stuff from them.

Here's a little less of a close up. Some of the silvery parts are threaded with shiny metallic thread. This is just a simple one-piece curtain hanging on a spring-tension curtain rod, so we can move it around and take it down with no hassle. In the summer, the cats like to hang out in the open window, so we like to be able to move the curtain however we need.
So you end up with this. Our kitchen window looks out over the alley, and occasionally there will be folks walking by (more often when it's not minus 20 degrees...) and it's a little weird to be making diner and have someone walking their dog five feet away, looking at you. Maybe I'm too conditioned to the space you get living out in the sticks, but for me, the curtain is the way to go. It lets in some light, it's bright enough to liven things up, and I can make my morning coffee in my PJ's and not have to be accused of flashing anyone.

Fall Project

Here's a project we worked on and finished while waiting for the produce to ripen in the garden last Fall.
Lulu and I like to refinish furniture. Occasionally we find items that are well built or worth salvaging and we fix them up. This is a sideboard we found at the Goodwill for like 4 dollars. Notice the crooked drawers. The slides were so worn that the drawers hung like loose teeth.
I was able to save the awesome funkadelic orange and lime green patterned, fake velvet fuzz accented, 70's era contact paper drawer liner in its original splendor. Sadly, I was unable to find a roll of matching contact paper to line the other drawer.

The top looked like wood grain Formica, but turned out to be simulated wood grain contact paper, on top of bright orange contact paper, on top of heavily scratched wood grain Formica. It was a regular archaeological dig to get down to bare wood. Apparently contact paper played a prominent role in the decorating style of its previous owners.

This flashy pink sideboard is the refurbished and rejuvenated version of the crumbling Goodwill purchase. As you can see from the original pictures, it was falling apart. Now, it's one of the most unique items of furniture in our house. The top surface is treated with a type of paint that turns it into a chalk board.
Incidentally, that candelabra was initially black wrought iron. It's interesting what a little Robin's Egg Blue spray paint can do for you...