And now for the traditional look-how-awesome-my-garden-looks post.

I’ve been a little hesitant to get this garden going for a number of reasons.  For one, our neighbors’ impending renovations threaten to cover our entire back area in debris and sawdust for a large portion of the summer… you know… whenever they want to get started on this 4 month construction project.

But also due to our trip to Europe.  Yep, you read that right.  We’re leaving in 5 days for a 10 day European vacation gallivanting through Ireland, Scotland, and France.  But what that also means is that for 10 days there would not be someone keeping an eye on our plants.  Sure we could ask any number of our friends in the area to come over and water, but in my head it was just easier to not have plants.  Especially because, with a garden like we had last year, it’s not just so easy to say “water my plants.”  Each plant was drastically different when it came to maintenance.

So in light of the above, I’ve kept our garden very simple.  In fact, other than our peach tree and a sack of potatoes, the only living thing in our backyard up until now was a pot of Parsley which somehow has survived a hurricane and a few snows.  Oh … and that strange ivy plant that has burst forth from some of my previously inhabited pots from last year and clings its sticky tendrils to my leg every time I walk past.  One day I will happily kill that plant.  But right now it’s one of the few green living things out back that wouldn’t break my heart to die a horrible death in the midst of construction debris, so it stays.

Despite all hesitation, I swung by Lowe’s the other night to pick up a few things and decided to go ahead and do a casual walk by in the Garden section.  A few plants later….

We’ve got basil…

and cilantro…

and a tomato plant and some hot pepper plant…

I always do a mixture of soil for plants.  Some combination of top soil, compost, and potting soil with some MiracleGro.  For the tomato plant, I crushed a few egg shells and sprinkled that in the bottom of the pot before planting.  Apparently, tomatoes like the added calcium and since I suck at tomato growing, I thought I’d give it a shot.  I’ll let you know if I think it makes a difference…. so basically if anything grows this year.

How are the rest of my plants shaping up you didn’t ask?  Our potatoes look AWESOME.  I had no idea what I was doing when I planted them, but it must be my Irish blood helping me along.

I bought the growing bag and starter potatoes from Walmart awhile back.  There are tons of tutorials online for how to do this, so I won’t go into it here, but if you ever have any potato growing questions, just post to the comments section.

Oh and I can’t forget about our peach tree update.  This little $20 peach tree is actually doing quite well in its pot.  I was worried that even being a dwarf tree, it would die if I didn’t plant him in the ground his first year, but he seems to be doing quite well.  Right now, we’ve got about 9 peaches slowly growing.

Oh and… want a cool tabletop torch like the one up top?  Target!  We’ve got citronella oil in it for the summer and are LOVING being able to spend afternoons/evenings out on our back patio this year.

For a Pinterest Challenge, I usually do something related to the house or a new recipe I’ve tried out in the hopes of attracting more readers.  For a day or two, I’ll have about 500 new fans and then then I go back to my regular amount of views per day while I eagerly anticipate the next Pinterest Challenge. It was recently that I had a sort of epiphany after the lovely words of a dear blogger friend, Ann Marie, who blogs over at White House Black Shutters.  A few months ago, she wrote a post about re-focusing and figuring out blog goals.  A lot of which was centered around… Are we writing for ourselves or writing to attract 500 strangers for a day or two?  Her post really hit home because I realized that I’d started to turn into a crazy attention-seeking blogger.  I’d made a FB page and even considered making business cards.  I mean seriously?  Did I think I was really going to be the next Young House Love? OK so that would be AWESOME and I’ll always have that dream, but in the end, I’m writing for myself.  I’m writing for my family and friends.  I’m sharing my life as it is… even if it’s not the most interesting or Pinterest-worthy.  And if a new reader comes along and likes what I have to say, I would absolutely love that.

So for THIS Pinterest challenge… I actually made something that I have been wanting to make for a really long time.  Ironically, that was always the whole point of these challenges.  To stop pinning and start making.

Sewing is one of my many other completely random skills that just rarely ever gets mentioned around here on Post Grad.  In fact, I’m pretty sure the last time I mentioned the fact that I have the ability to work a sewing machine was when I did the Napkin Throw Pillows (yes, I realize the pictures are missing… I’ll fix that soon) back for a Pinterest challenge over a year ago.  I’ll never be able to make anything ornate, but as long as it only require the ability to sew in a “straight” line (or close enough), I can be pretty badass.

Enter Leanne, blogger and creater of Elle Apparel. Not only is this girl enviously gorgeous, she can make some of the most beautiful skirts and dresses. Clicking through her blog always makes me want to throw money at the computer screen and somehow have all of her awesome clothes. A while back, she posted a tutorial for a Maxi Skirt.  It was super easy and only requires the ability to sew 4 straight lines (score!). I pinned it ages ago and then like so many other great Pinterest ideas, I just never got around to trying it out myself.

Unfortunately for us (but go, Leanne!), she’s since taken the tutorial down.  Everyone went crazy for it and now she’s realized she can market it.  You can go on over to her website and order one for yourself now for about $60.  It’s a steep price, but worth it if you’re looking for that great statement piece for your wardrobe.  OR…. you can do what I did.  Now you can go to her Etsy shop and buy the tutorial for $12.  The girl’s a genius.

As for the math, my advice would definitely be to start bigger and work your way down if you need to. I can’t give specifics of the math, but what I can tell you is that the smaller your waist, the tighter the waistband based on the math since it uses the same constants regardless of size.  So for a 34″ waist, you’re looking at a waistband about 83% that wide to give a nice comfortable snug feel with the super stretchy fabric.  But with a 24″ waist, it’s down to about 75% the width of your natural waist…. which is TIGHT.  I also made the bottom of the skirt a little more narrow than what she used in her tutorial.  I just doubled the waistband width (rather than adding a constant irregardless of waist width) like I usually do when I make an a-line shirt.  I’m glad I did.  I wouldn’t want it much flowier than it is.

My thoughts on the whole process?  The math was a little confusing for me, but the sewing was a piece of cake…. well except for with a sewed the waistband to the skirt right-side out.  Fail.  But nothing a seem ripper and a re-do couldn’t fix.  The end result is amazing.  I’m absolutely obsessed with this skirt and am totally planning on making about a bajillion more.  They are SO comfortable.

Linking up to:

Last night we got to celebrate another milestone at Casa Post Grad.  We’ve officially lived together for a year.

Crazy right?  I still remember the day we signed our lease together and that ridiculous excitement we felt walking back to the Mister’s house… incidentally only a few blocks away from where we live now.  Looking back on it, people really must have thought we were crazy.  We’d been dating all of 6 months when we made that big decision.  But whatever.  We both agree it was the best decision we ever made, so does it matter?

So here’s a look back on our first year….

We stretched our lumpy carpets and ripped the carpet treads off the stairs.

We replaced the bathroom floor and scared our neighbors in our HAZMAT suits.

We knocked down a wall and put up a new one… and then tiled it.

We built a new dining room table top.

We built a picture frame.  And then bought some because I’m lazy.

We found this ridiculously cheap record player on Craigslist.

We built a headboard and almost killed each other trying to get it up from the basement.

We replace light fixtures and painted rooms.

We fought. We I cried. We laughed. We loved. It’s been… quite a year.  I have no doubt this year will be just as crazy.  Can’t wait to share it with you all!

One of my greatest passions is photography.  It’s probably the only hobby I’ve managed to keep up since I was in high school.  I love taking pictures of everything.

For a while, I actually thought I’d become a portrait and engagement photographer.  I even got a few gigs from family and friends for some shoots and started investing in high quality lenses and equipment, but then something happened.  I got my first complaint.  A friend didn’t like the way her fiance looked in their engagement pictures and well… I did the mature thing, fell apart, and declared myself a disaster of a photographer.  Not that the complaint had anything to do with something I had done, but I realized in that moment that I’d have a hard time dealing with clients that could have opinions about themselves.  I can Photoshop, sure, but at a certain point I feel like pictures start to look fake.  So, while a second shoot was done (and not at 6am this time drastically improving their previously exhausted appearance), declared a success, and several pictures were used for their Save-the-Dates, I couldn’t help but still feel a little bruised from the whole experience and questioning whether I had the nerve to move forward with that dream knowing full well one day I’d get an actual complaint from someone.  Do I have the weakest disposition or what?

Is there a job out there where no one could ever complain about your performance? If so, sign me up!

I still take pictures for friends and family when an opportunity comes along and I actually have a Senior Portrait shoot coming up soon, so don’t think I’ve given up.  But I’ve started looking into other ways I can use my talents and love for the art. Enter food photography. Food can be stupid easy to photograph if you have the right conditions.  The hard part is actually getting the right conditions: the right light, the right coloring in the room, no unappetizing glare on the dishware or food (some sauces can give off a stomach-turning glean when photographed), and by God there’s always a crumb on the plate that I don’t notice until I’m editing.  I started Googling.  Because that’s what the pros do. And I decided that to help me achieve some of the desirable conditions (light, color, glare, etc), I should make a photography light box.

There are a TON of tutorials out there.  I used a combination of this one and this one using an old box I emptied in the basement recently from our move A YEAR AGO. Yeah. I’m slow.  The difference in your pictures will literally blow your mind.  The food I was taking pictures of finally looked as delicious on camera as it did to my own eyes in that very moment.

SO… I hope all of you are looking forward to tomorrow’s Food Friday post because that burger?  We took homemade to a new level this week and I’ve got the pictures to prove it!

If you’re a Pinterest fanatic like myself, you’ve probably seen a few of these floating around the Blogosphere.

And now for a totally random aside.  Something I’ve learned over the past year – never post the inspiration pictures on your blog post… even if you’re properly crediting the author.  Some inexperienced (or just careless) Pinner will come along and pin your post with the other person’s picture.  It’s a sad day when you see that your post has been pinned, but see on Pinterest that the user decided the inspiration picture was much better than your own version.  I’ve stopped giving you the option.  I’ll do my best to take good quality pictures for you to do the project justice.

But getting back to the point…

The Mister and I were wandering about an IKEA one day not too long ago and were inspired by their use of the GRUNDTAL hanging rod for hanging fresh kitchen herbs.  Genius!

We bought 3 of them (although we’ve thus far only managed to hang up 2 out of laziness and the yet-to-be-determined necessity of a third) along with a few containers to be our planters and then allowed them to collect dust in a corner of the living room for about 3 months.  Maybe longer.

Wanting to add a bit of freshness to the room before our landlord’s quickly approaching visit, I pulled out the level, drill, and a tape measure and got to work hanging these bad boys.  I picked up a couple of plants (cilantro, rosemary, parsley, and basil) from Lowe’s and hung them in containers by hooks on the rod.  In order to support the weight of the plants and various utensils, I used a plastic anchor for the screws to help hold the rods into place since I’m not entirely sure where the studs are on this plaster and lath wall.

We love it.  And conveniently so did the landlord. Phew!

This is one of our favorites here at Casa Post Grad.  Sometimes you just have a craving for a classic.

Ingredients

• 1 ball pizza dough (we use the recipe from Annie’s Eats)
• 1 can crush tomatoes
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste
• 1/2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• Italian seasoning
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tomatoes thinly sliced
• fresh mozzarella (you can either get a pack of shredded or slice up a ball)
• basil

Directions

Preheat oven to 500. I know.  It’s crazy hot, but that’s what you want.  If you’re lucky enough to own a pizza stone, make sure it’s in the oven while it’s preheating.  You’ll slide your uncooked pizza right onto it in the oven.  This helps you get that super crispy bottom on your pizza which is key when you start piling on toppings.  Nobody likes a soggy floppy pizza!

Roll out your pizza dough and curl the edges to create a lip.  The dough will rise more than you think, so make sure to get the dough fairly thin (~1/4″) without ripping it.  Since we don’t have a pizza paddle, I find it easiest to make my pizza on a sheet of parchment paper dusted with cornmeal and then put the whole thing onto our pizza stone on the oven.

Make your pizza sauce.  If you bought a store bought sauce, you can skip this step.  Mix the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, and olive oil in a bowl.  Give a few shakes of your Italian seasoning and season with salt and pepper.  Sometimes we add a clove of roasted garlic or just minced raw garlic.

Using a large spoon, spread the sauce over the dough.  This should test your ability to color in between the lines.

Time for the fun part…. cover the pizza in mozzarella and tomato slices. Go crazy.

Slide pizza right onto your pizza stone in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes until the crust is golden brown.  We save the basil for after baking since we love the taste of fresh basil from the garden – that flavor gets lost when it’s baked.  Just do a rough chop and sprinkle it all over.  Enjoy!

When you get a text from your landlord that they’re going to come over this weekend so you can sign your lease…

This doesn’t phase the average person, but let’s be real here… I’m far from normal.  On the outside, I’m playing it totally cool, but on the inside, I’m looking at the dust bunnies in the corners of the stairs, staring at the smudges on the baseboards, realizing I never went back and did that second coat of paint in the living room, and then there’s the bathroom.

Last Fall, as many of you know, the Mister and I completely renovated the bathroom in our rental home.  Ripped up the floor, tore down the walls.  And while it looks a MILLION times better, it’s not exactly finished.  I’ve been putting off building the shelves and I never did get around to painting above the shower.  The caulk definitely needs to be re-done.  And the grout could use a little patching and a better job sealing.

So while I certainly don’t expect my landlord to be like a quarters inspector in the military or wiping a gloved finger across my not-even-remotely dusted furniture and making note of our unmade bed and pile of clean clothes I was too lazy to hang up, I also don’t want to make it seem like… “Oh hey, I know I told you I’d renovate your bathroom and do this great job, but I gave up halfway out of laziness, so you’ll have to finish it yourself when we move.”

So this week is my panic and get everything done week.  That also means… less posts but more to post about next week.  Like that final before and after of the bathroom I never posted because it wasn’t actually finished and I didn’t have the heart to admit it to you?  Yeah that.

Hey, Spring.  Don’t mind us.  It’s not like we’ve been huddled up waiting for you for AN ENTIRE MONTH or anything.

This weekend was the first time this year that we were finally able to spend a little time outdoors.  In shorts.  Smoking cigars and sipping Arnold Palmers in mason jars.  Yes, sir.  It’s officially Spring.  Well, from the look at the weather for the rest of the week, it might already be Summer.

As we’re not sure how many more peaceful Spring afternoons we’ll have in this house – our neighbors’ impending renovations out back are threatening to inhibit our ability to do so for the next 4 months – we decided to take full advantage and do absolutely nothing but sit outside and soak it all up.

The two trees in the back are our avocado tree, Guacamo, and our peach tree, James.  Yes, we name our plants around here. While the avocado plant will apparently never produce fruit (or so the Interwebs have claimed), we’re pretty excited about our little dwarf peach tree.  It’s self-pollinating, although unless we are actually “lucky” enough to get some bee action on this baby, we’ll probably have to help it along.  I’ve read you can take a soft brush and dust each of the flowers on the tree to transfer some pollen around from bloom to bloom to mimic the bee-pollinating process.  I’d personally rather do that manual step than sit next to bees all afternoon.

For anyone else looking for a fruit tree, they’re currently $20 at Lowe’s (and if you have the Chase Freedom card, Lowe’s is 5% cash-back this quarter).  The container is a 15″ planter from Target ($12).  Dwarf fruit trees should be replanted in planters 12-18″ in diameter soon after purchasing.  When I was there last week, they had several different peach trees – I chose the Elberta because it was the only one short enough to shove in my back seat – cherry, lemon, lime, apple, and plum trees.

As for the rest of the garden…. well we’re making a few changes this year for convenience and due to the unknown in regards to how much the renovations next door will affect our back patio area. We’ve already been informed of the probably of debris and dust.  Womp wah.  Anyway, more on the garden and our latest kitchen project later this week!

Full credit for this delicious recipe goes entirely to Mountain Mama Cooks and as usual when I cook something of someone else’s, I’m going to force you to go on over to her blog post to get the recipe.

This last weekend, we’d hosted a big dinner with several friends while the Mister’s sister was in town.  I love love love making big dinners, but unfortunately we always end up with a ton of odds and ends leftovers. This dinner was no exception.  We’d done shredded pork tacos w/ my super easy homemade tortillas.  When all was said and done, we’d ended up with a bunch of leftover already chopped up cilantro, tomato, and red onion as well as a few limes.

Instead of just having another taco night, I decided to actually use the leftovers to create a slightly different meal and knowing our diet was severely lacking in fish, I picked up some fresh cod and a mango on my way home.  Mountain Mama Cooks had just the right recipe with a simple blend of spices for the fish and an easy to recreate recipe for a basic mango salsa.  I served ours over some cilantro lime rice.

In general, I try to be a friendly neighbor.  I will greet you kindly.  I’ll sign for your mail because you’ve graciously signed for mine.  I’ll pet/play with your dogs while you take them on walks.  I’ll stand on the stoop and complain with you when the power goes out.  I’ll get out with you and your son on a nice day and help you sweep up the leaves on the sidewalks.  But ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid this past month I’ve lost my patience and ability to be a kind neighbor.

The house next door has been sitting empty for a few years now including the past year that we’ve lived here.  Suddenly about 2 months ago, we started seeing some activity.  One day I saw our neighbor from across the street go inside.  Then a few days later a truck was outside and they were hauling out some old antique furniture. And then about a month ago, all hell broke loose.  A full renovation had kicked off and it was demolition time.  Sitting on the couch trying to watch your favorite show is impossible with the distinct “WHACK” immediately followed by the sound of the wall crumbling in pieces to the floor… over… and over…. and over.  The guy in that video at least A) acknowledges how much his neighbors probably hate him, B) was working in daylight hours, and C) was using a power tool to make it go faster rather than a chisel and hammer….. oh and D) was doing ONE wall in ONE room not 5 guys working on the walls of an entire 2 story house!

Luckily, for most days, they’ve quit before I’ve come home.  Only occasionally do they work until around 7 or 8 and only once have they actually been demoing until 10:30 at night.  A night I seriously considered pulling all of my hair out strand by strand and screaming/crying in the floor in the fetal position.  Listening to a demo echo through your house is the closest I’ve ever come to declaring insanity.  It makes my eye twitch.

And just when I thought the worst was over, I came home yesterday and opened the back door to let fresh air in the house while it was still light out.  Much to my surprise, I was greeted with a layer of siding, drywall, and insulation that had fallen into our yard.  Oh HELL NO.  I stomped right on over to their house, right into their living room, and started yelling.  Perhaps I’m a little low on Vitamin B these days, but I snapped.  Last straw.

And you know what’s worse?  While I stood there supervising their cleaning of our yard, one of them had the nerve to say “Oh and we’ll replace your window screen.”

“Excuse me?”

“The window screen that we busted.  We’ll replace that.”

“You busted our window screen?!”

Ballsy move, dude.  Ballsy move.

Upon further inspection, they’d also destroyed our gutter on that part of the house too.  Although, given that it’s connected and they’d taken out a wall, I’m not sure if that was avoidable.

There’s a little satisfaction in knowing that our roof runoff will pour directly into the hole in their house.  Karma.

I also find it all incredibly ironic that this happens hours after I post about all of our plans for the back area this year – changes to the garden and some colorful upgrades in furniture.  Now everything is covered in a lovely layer of debris.

I guess on a positive note, the demo has been done BEFORE we plant our garden, so hopefully we won’t be coming home and finding insulation in our lettuce.  Yum!