Hello! It’s been a while since I have written a post. I have to laugh at myself because I always have big plans in June and then I get into the month and realize that my kid’s school schedules consume my time. So stuff gets left undone. Like painting the accent wall in our living room, sticking to the 30-day coloring challenge, prepping the laundry room to re-arrange the furniture and appliances, cleaning out my craft closet. Yup the list goes on and on and I haven’t scratched the surface on any of them.
To add to this crazy time, it is the month of my birthday and wedding anniversary. So yes, I am writing to you a year older. I had simple requests for my husband to celebrate my birthday. Drop the boys off with my in-laws for the weekend, breakfast in bed with a book (naturally), spend a few hours on the morning of my birthday at the beach, visit a new independent bookstore so I can do some birthday book shopping, lunch at a cafe and then dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. Oh did I say simple requests? Haha. Well, a lady must make the most of each birthday so I was compelled to have a fun but busy day. It turned out better than I imagined and the weather was fantastic.
The intro picture above is in our library. I am writing this post here today while the boys look at options for summer reading. I am such a library geek – always looking for a reason to visit. It’s rather peaceful right now. Some days there is so much activity here.
We are going on vacation to Hawaii in a couple of weeks so I will be rushing to prepare so might not post as much as I should but I will resume when we come back.
I think I better go check on them because my boys might get “distracted” from selecting their summer books. But I hope you are all enjoying the beginning of summer and savoring every moment!
Belinda
Hello Everyone! I don’t know what I am thinking because June is a busy month but I am always up for a challenge. From June 1 – 30th is the 30-day coloring challenge created and hosted by none other than Kathy Racoosin at 
This is from Day 1 which was on Saturday. I convinced my youngest, to help me kick off the challenge by coloring with me. He is coloring in one of my old coloring books that contain a bunch of mandalas. I helped him select a color scheme and he dove in. I think I will try to get him to color with me on another day too because although he didn’t want to admit it, he was having fun coloring and chatting with me.
I chose the “In My Garden” coloring book. I am always discovering more about myself each time I sit to create. What I noticed was I gravitated to this smaller book to kick off the challenge. There is something comforting about a smaller canvas. It’s not too small it’s more of mid-range size about 8×8. So it’s fun to hold and easy to turn while coloring. I used one of my pre-made color swatches that I created a few weeks back to help me with my color selection. I find them so handy and when I use them the pages always look more cohesive.
Well it if you have been hanging out with me for long, you would know that I have an annual plant shopping that occurs between Mother’s and Father’s day. I always give my father-in-law a gift certificate to one of my favorite garden centers for Father’s day. We learned fast that we should go a few weeks before father’s day to find the best picks. So this past week, he and my Mother-in-law came with me for some shopping! The weather was a perfect 72 and sunny. We rolled off with our little carts to see what goodies we could find and I can tell you that we scored on some beauties. We bought so much that we had to put down one side of the middle row seating to accommodate them.
This year I bought a mixture of perennials and annuals. My goal is to buy more and more perennials and to eventually only need to buy a few annuals for quick pops of color.
My FIL bought some salvia, yarrow, lupine and some other beauties. I snagged some zinnias and snapdragons which are my favorites and I bought some more bee balm to add to my others, fountain grass and many others.
After my FIL left, I got right down to business and began planting and writing in my garden journal. I managed to plant about 70% of them before my allergies and back started talking. I saved the rest and finished up yesterday. 
We spent Saturday on the Cape attending my niece’s high school graduation party. They rented a beautiful place on the waterfront and I walked near the water and remembered how much I used to love seeing this flowers along the beach when I was growing up.
There were two large grassy areas for the kids to play and the food was quite yummy.
Apollo and my other nieces played in these funny inflatables. They would run and bounce off of each other. Some kids even went in the water at the beach but I don’t touch the water until July. It’s too cool for my taste.
Overall a great week and weekend. My allergies are slowly subsiding and I am hopeful that I can spend more time outdoors.