Seed ba-bomb: misfire!

I left some freshly-made, wet seed bombs in my car all week with something on top of them so they couldn't air dry... So basically a nice greenhouse environment. Oh well, these wont go to waste. I know just the spot...

We Can Dress Real Neat From Our Hats To Our Feet...

I figure it shows my age that I made this, but hey. It shows your age if you like it.
So I took a shot...

When the flood waters recede...

Gifts left by Mother Nature

Bells are mine, teeth are a "gift"

New post at FineGardening.com

It took me long enough. I think I just survived my midlife crisis so the blog post should be coming more fast and more furious for now on....
New post right here.

Product Review: Grow Your Own Flamingo

This really happened. 600%?
My SuperBirki....

Go with the flow...

Here are some funny flow charts I made for some speaking I did this spring...

Memes before bed...

I was goofing around in that weird time after I get Hazel to sleep and I don't know what to do with myself...

Thrift Want of the Week

$100 is fair, but too steep for this girl.

Kiss My Aster: The Fragrance

I don't know why I'm thinking about dumb thing like th....hey! DUMB STUFF is what I do!!

Kiss My Aster: The Fragrance has a lavender heart with base notes of soil and WD40 and top notes of teatree, lead paint and strawberries.

It is packaged in a fine, old bottle and labeled "FISH EMULSION"....

Turbulence After Landing

So I went to Seattle last week and it was okay. Three nights away from home/baby, one spent asleep in an airport/on a plane, is just too much for me right now. I could NOT wait to get home.
I scoobied out to Economy Parking E like a tired-ass bat outta hell, it was 5:30am after all. I DID feel a disturbance in the Force, but I figured it would be that there was snow piled on my car for the 3 inches we got while I was gone and I'm pretty sure I've never owned a scraper in my 16+ years of driving.
And then I saw it...

YEAH.

I called the number on the orange label on my window. They didn't have my name on file, THAT is how old these tickets were. Yes, in 2003 I didn't have enough money to buy the $225 city sticker required to park on Chicago city streets by the due date and I got a few tickets until I was able to make it happen. Then I moved to Indiana and a bunch of other places. I should mention that I don't currently live in Chicago, just the burbs.
I guess it got lost in the weeds.

The woman on the phone looked me up with my pre-married name and told me I owed more than 1k, but they'd settle for $800.

After not getting any sleep all night, I made a quick decision to not deal with it immediately. So I did what any level-headed person COULD do. I took a $100 cab ride home. Which is insane. When I got home I took a long nap, I ate breakfast and hugged my lil' girl for the first time in days. It was a restorative hug.

Then the 3 of us struck out to O'Hare again to get my car out of the pokey.

The office for the Chicago Auto Pound at O'Hare is in a sad, scary trailer in the middle of nowhere. It took a while for the clerk to get the paperwork ready, and OH yeah, there's an extra $100 fee for defaulting on a payment plan in 2000 and a $60 boot fee. So, that's 1k and I am so not made out of money. It means eating crackers for a few days. So when I leave the trailer I'm totes deflated.

By the time I realize I've left my car keys at home it's already so much my reality that I don't even care.
We're going to have to COME BACK HERE another time to pick up my car.
At $17 a day, whatever. .

Dan took me to breakfast. I drank.

Fast forward almost a week, Dan takes me back up to O'Hare. I walk to my car and there's A GODDAMN PARKING TICKET because my plates expired on the 1st.

I give up, Chicago. I love you, but I feel like it's a very dysfunctional relationship right now. I want you to want me, not just for my money.


P.S. When I originally got to my car and saw the boot and decided to take a cab home so I could sleep, I chucked my suitcase inside because I thought I'd be right back for it and I was tired of lugging it. Well, that didn't happen. It sat there in freezing temperatures for a week, with a Lingonberry plant in it that I bought in Seattle. That Lingonberry sat in my suitcase for a week and still looks okay. I think there must be a Saab/Lingonberry Swedish alliance.

Weekend Challenge

Some get spring fever, I get spring terror. It's not that I don't LOOOOOOVE spring, it's just that things get a little crayzay in the biz. If any of my analytics are correct, many of you are in the same bateau.  It's the last chance for indoor projects that may not get any attention until, um, next November.

This weekend, I'm tackling these 2 areas... 

The kitchen table catch-all

 Embarrassing enough to light a fire under my keister. 

And this new-ish cabinet? I'm dying to do it up right, the time has not made itself available, so far. Let's see what I can do this weekend.... 

I'm peer-pressuring myself. I originally wrote "peep-pressuring" which also happens this time of year...

Book Review Day!

All of the Proven Winners Garden Gurus are reviewing my book today, so I had to come up with something. A book review of my own book is pretty cocky. So I asked my Dad to do it for me.

Even cockier!


By my Dad...


When I was in fourth grade, you wouldn't have to write your new vocabulary words ten times and turn them in if you instead wrote a story incorporating each word only once .I was all over the story thing. I wove intricate fables incorporating remembrance, manufacturing and decompose into the same paragraph; My teacher said I had a "gift". Fast forward to my getting out of the Army and upon questioning on a blind date, bold faced stating that I wanted to live in an apartment furnished in black and white and write children's books, I was so deep. Anyway, along life's travails I came to know this very special person who wrote the fun and fact-filled home horticulture book "Kiss my Aster", Amanda Thomsen. She's my Daughter! But, you see, instead of thinking about writing, being told you have an aptitude in prose, she actually applied pen to paper (keyboard) and made something really special happen. While writing this book she also had time to:
1. be a wife
2. be pregnant and have a beautiful baby girl
3. keep her job in horticulture and
4. keep her hilarious blog: "Kiss my Aster" up to date with hardly skipping a beat.
She has delivered a book that has relevance and irreverence with spot on language anyone can understand. This is a self-help book steeped in experience. When she advises not to try to tear something out with a chain attached to the bumper of anything. It's me with my undersized 4-cylinder American-made small pick-up versus a 12 year old Burning bush. Really ugly, but eventually victorious, permanent damage to truck bumper, though. She will help you in manufacturing a landscape using "red wigglers" to decompose your compost with Landstalking remembrances to last a lifetime. Mrs Fegley said plural uses of the words was okay...

The End


You can read the other reviews here...

Niki Jabbour- The Year Round Vegetable Gardener

J Peterson Garden Design

Cowlick Cottage Garden

Gardener to Farmer

Red Dirt Ramblings

The Dandelion Wrangler

Gossip in the Garden

Punk Rock Gardens

and you can win a copy of the book by commenting on Storey's blog.

And then there's Paul's review on Texas Triffid Ranch. It should NOT be missed.

Catching Up Before Going Out

Busy times over here in Maybeland. It seems most days include a celebration for something related to my book. Also, I had a birthday this week. All of these celebrations include a certain (starting tomorrow) 21 month old so life is very unpredictable, just the way I like it. I had such a stick up my butt when I was in my 20s, I would not have been able to enjoy (or achieve, actually!) any of this poppycock.

• I'm leaving later this week for Seattle, where I speak at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. Not sure what I'm most nervous about, the travel, the TWO presentations or what I'm gonna wear.

• I've been meaning to post a funny story about a recent trip to Wisconsin, but since this little hoodlum was born I don't get a lot of computer time. Wait for it, it will be funny. I promise.

• It's been on my mind to mention 2 worthy, awesome bits of Chicagnificience. Good Things Grow Midway  and The Mobile Garden Project

• Also, obsessed with Chicago versions of the Harlem Shake. Whether it has jumped the shark or not.

Where I'm At....

Bookwarming Party!

Sunday February 10th, 2013
Lemming's on Damen
Chicago
1-3pm
food, paczkis, drink specials
books, books, books

come on down!

A project- complete!

Before I had a baby and before I got a job that never ends, I used to do 47 projects a day. You can sorta trace it back on this blog, when I was in Indiana? Crafty! When I moved back? Too whipped up to even glue googly eyes on the Mold-a-ramas...

So when I get to complete a little thing, while still being employed AND having a toddler, I rejoice.

I hung all my necklaces from this vintage towel bar thingie this morning before my little turtle dove woke up. Now I can blog about it since she's gone to sleep.

A small project, but it's nice to be back!

New post at FineGardening.com

Waah waaaaaah. Here's a list of stuff I'm NOT doing...

Aster, Faster (week of 1/20)

Ate: Trader Joe's Belgian Chocolate Pudding. OMG.
Read: Just a smidgen of Simon Doonan's Eccentric Glamour. I'm going through a fashion phase, again.
Made: a silly and difficult to make slideshow presentation on Google Drive, or whatever it's called now.
Heard: This story on NPR about tomatoes- super interesting!
Grew: A lovely Jasmine- totally budded and ready to smell up the whole house with its loveliness! I get one every year at this time and it's a total SAD fighter!
Saw: Spots. I got my pupils dialated when I went for new glasses. I'm sticking with the RayBans.
Wore: hot pink glitter Converse
Bought:  2 really old looking, unmarked brown crocks at the thrift store, .95 each. And this super rad throw....

Don't forget the gray stuff above are all links!

xoxo!

Aster, Faster (Week of 1/14)

Look at me being CONSISTENT for a whole 2 weeks!

Ate: Dan and I went on a date night to a local Italian joint. It was great, or at least really good. The white bean and escarole soup made me very happy. It was recommended on Check, Please!, which always makes everything better!
Read: Always, always reading McSweeney's-- Words I Need For My Dissertation That Don't Exist by Carmen Faye Mathes
Made: Home-made play doh for Hazelnut. I left it uncolored so that there would be one less thing ruined in our house. What can possibly go wrong?
Heard: CAN NOT STOP! Santigold "Girls"
Grew: Working on forcing a.... shit. I can't tell you because I'm in the midst of blogging about it for FineGardening.com.... (Shameless, I know)
Saw: Golden Globes- Fey and Poehler FOREVER!

Wore: My milkmaid headband like crazy
Bought: A ton of stuff from the thrift store, including a bunch of vintage smocks, for less than $30...

Thrift store find of the week

Charlie the Tuna lowball glass-- 45 cents

Aster (Faster) Week of 1/6/13

So. I don't blog enough. And it's not that I don't have anything to say or that 10000000000 things aren't happening. It's that I can't organize myself to tell you everything that's going on. So I'm going to try to give you a weekly breakdown I'm calling Aster (Faster) using the same dang format every week. Here goes nothing (literally).

This week I...
Ate: I just so happened to be in St. Louis for a trade show and the group I was with chose to eat at Bailey's Range, which is famous for their alcoholic milkshakes (which I did not indulge in, but those that did almost died, in a good way). I got a vegetarian patty melt and it was good. I'm still thinking about the mustard.
Read: Reading is rough at this stage of the game, I yearn for it, but I like hanging out with my kid too much now. But I am nibbling on the AMAZING Why Grow This When You Can Grow That? by the AMAZING Andrew Keys. Timber, his publisher, is having a Pin-It-To-Win-it contest right now too.
Made: all my writing deadlines (or at least I missed them by {} that much and made up for it with a sunny disposition)
Heard: Come on now. It's awesome. "Bike Chase" by Breezee One
Grew: All houseplants bouncing back from mealybug, the only thing I chucked was a piece of Red Shield Hibiscus I rooted in a glass of water. The mealybugs liked that more than I liked the mustard at Bailey's Range. It's been cold, cold, cold but some of the garden still looks pretty good.
Saw: Mutha flippin' Downton season 3 premiere, yo.
Wore: A vintage, thrifted beaded sweater that weighs 14 pounds, with a vintage (also thrifted) Jantzen wool shift dress with a Betsey Johnson zebra belt... to my first book signing here in Chicago
Bought: A milkmaid headband from Puppy Cat Meow (photos to come!)

St. Louis, You're A Real Town

Leave Me Hangin'

I bought a SCAD of vintage padded hangers at the thrift store the other day-- a quarter each and 25% off that. Awesome.
At the checkout, a woman behind the counter asked me what I was going to do with them. The woman checking me out grimaced. I am a nice person, but how to answer THIS DUMB if a question without snark?
Couldn't be done. I snarked it ("Um, hang clothes????) and left.

Thrift Jackpot

I'll get some sort of explanation up here soon. But for now, it's just photos...

oh yes I did....

Status Report: Freaking Out

There is a lot going on.
2 posts on winter outdoor decor at FineGardening.com (Trainwrecks and Good But Iffy)
A cha-chingy mention on this Better Homes & Gardens gift list
It was Dan's birthday last night and I paid $75 for crappy gumbo, but amazing beer (a little more beer and I wouldn't have remembered the gumbo, that's for sure)
Working on getting t-shirts made
And trying to keep my indoor friends alive...

And oh yeah, there are 2 boxes of my book on my front step and it's freaking me out.
FREAKING. ME. OUT.

Coming soon...

Kiss My Aster t-shirts are in the works...

Here is the first design. 

Early.

I got news today that my book, which had the due date of January 1, has (SURPRISE!) been released... TODAY.
I'm so thrilled about this that every time I think of it, I'm pretty sure I'm going to pass out.

Now, I'm no infomercial. I'm not shoving anything at anyone.I was a lousy salesgirl when I was a Girl Scout, I refused tips that one time I cocktail waitressed ("Oh no, it was a PLEASURE to bring you alcohol all night!")....  But I can say it's a funny book at it'd make a great Christmas gift for the non-gardener/gardener in your life.

It's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. They will be getting their shipments in the next week and sending them out pronto. Exciting stuff!

Out There and Feeling Vulnerable

My book, Kiss My Aster: A Graphic Guide to Creating a Fantastic Yard Totally Tailored to You, is now available for peeping at. I mean, there are A TON of pages available for your viewing pleasure.

Asterzilla vs. Mumthra

New post at Fine Gardening... it's about how I love asters and hate mums. As usual.

Here.

Playing with Some ECards