Friday I'm in love

Hello and happy Friday! I hope you all are enjoying our long summer days. Today I wanted to share my love for baskets from the French Basketeer. 

Here is one of my baskets filled to the brim with daisies from the garden. I seem to have an endless supply of these happy flowers.

I have been taking a basket with me almost everyday now, using them well and they still look fabulous.

Even when the little one decides it's an important part of her "Indian" costume.

The French Basketeer

The shop owner, Andrea, says "Everyone owns several baskets of various sizes in France. It becomes a habit to have several in the car, and to not leave home for errands without one, knowing that you need a way to carry your goods home." Our mission is to provide authentic French baskets, carts and totes which are practical yet stylish and to help get the word out that plastic bags are indeed, “so passé.”

The full line of baskets can be seen Here.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Grown with love

Last fall I brought home a gorgeous bouquet of Zinnias from the pumpkin farm and knew then that I would have to grow some of my own. So while shopping at Target this spring I bought a few different varieties of Zinnia seed. This was my first time starting something from seed and I'm thrilled to actually have flowers!

I started them in the house early May with a plan to put them in the ground after Mothers Day. That is usually when we have the last frost here in the Midwest. They lived in a laundry basket to protect the floor from moisture when I watered them.

Once the weather started getting nice I would bring them outside during the day and bring them back in at night when it got chilly. When it was nice enough to plant them outside, I separated them by gently pulling them apart for better spacing. 

The picture above was taken early June after I found a spot for them next to the Daisies. You can see them in the distance on the left.

Here they are a few weeks later when I thought something went wrong. They were starting to bloom but the flowers were so small! And I expected them to be taller too.

Here they are today in full bloom.

That's more like it!

I'm laughing at myself now thinking about how disappointed I was when I thought I grew some weird dwarf flowers. I just needed to be patient.

Next year I might just put the seeds right in the ground and see what happens.

Any Zinnia lovers out there? How did you plant them?

Joining Censational Girl's garden link party here.

Random Ramblings

Hello dear readers, I'm still here. I jumped online a couple times last week with the intention to do a post but I got seduced by all the great blogs out there and kept running out of time. I really need to get down to business first and then read all my favorites!

Anyway, Mr. 65th took some much needed time off work to hang out poolside and to spend some time with his girls.

We visited the cabin in Wisconsin for a few days, hung out in the city, spent the day at the beach in Michigan and had a garage sale. It feels good to get rid of all the stuff that has been taking up precious space. Plus I had my friend bring some of her clutter over and hang out with me all day. We've done a couple garage sales together in the past and always have fun, even if it was 95 degrees.

That pretty much sums up our week; it was really nice...especially when it was my day to sleep in. Our little one gets up early everyday so sleeping in is a special treat when you're not a morning person.

No progress on the house as of yet, the paint sample for the new siding came yesterday though. The sample looks a bit greener than the swatch on the house so I'm feeling a bit unsure about the color again. I was going for one of those mystery colors....you know the one that makes you wonder what color it really is....the one that changes dramatically with the light. Well I'm going to cross my fingers Crownsville Gray is one of those mysterious colors and we won't just be the green house on the right.

What would you do? Would you prolong the project and go color hunting again or just go with it?