jc raulston arboretum & nc state horticulture club!

sunday i was bummed. it's the weekend. andrew is home. jane is home. little buddy the cat is home. and i am home and we're all in the house, and we are supposed to be enjoying the day and hanging out before the work week begins again. but, i'm in the office. doing homework. i. was. bummmmed.

after a couple hours of work, the door creeked open and andrew stuck his head in.
"how are you doin?"
"fine," i said. i was not fine.
"what's wrong?"
"i want to do something fun."

he asked if i wanted to go out and walk through a nursery. yes i did! what a wonderful guy. upon further consideration, i suggested the arboretum. neither of us had been, and i had to go to do a class project anyway. it was beautiful. i brought the camera along:

i can't wait to go back. it was a hot day, and andrew's stomach was talking, so we headed out after about an hour. (lunch at jasmin mediterranean bistro on hillsborough. super good.) i want to learn about how to get involved and what kind of programs are offered. i've been stalking the website since we got home: http://www.ncsu.edu/jcraulstonarboretum/index.php. i highly recommend visiting. they also hold a plant sale in september, sponsored by the horticulture honor fraternity. i'll definitely be there!

last night, i attended the first nc state horticulture club meeting of the year. i really enjoyed it, and i am looking forward to the next one. the club goes on a few field trips each year to different gardens and nurseries. this fall they are going to ASHEVILLE (!) and in the spring they are going to THE NETHERLANDS AND GERMANY (!!!!!!). and they just roam around reveling in horticulture! i was geekin out last night. i prattled on to andrew and my mom and dad and to myself in the car on the way home. i would absolutely love to go, so i can't wait until the organizational meetings for the trips start happening to that i can find out more.

tomorrow is the first day of state's campus farmer's market. i am pumped.

i started school and hosted a party. no big deal.

somehow, several years ago, i was able to take a full course-load, maintain a B average, go to parties, date a boy, sleep, eat, dress in cute clothes and successfully graduate with a degree.  i am going to pat myself on the back now. that took a lot of good time management, as i am now being reminded of since i decided it would be a good idea to try it all over again. only this time with a dog, a cat and a boyfriend, all in the same house.

i am taking two traditionally freshman courses, biology and pre-calculus, as well as principles of horticulture and landscape graphics. there's also a 1-hour lecture specifically designed for transfer students to prepare us to enter the professional world. we have to create a resume and a linkedin profile, as well as sit for a mock job interview. awesome. i can do this.

it's overwhelming. there are so many people. i have lots of homework. i am paying lots of money. i quit my job for this, and the pressure to succeed is heavy. i have turned into the brown-noser, the girl in the front row, the shouter-outer of answers, the person who does their assignments ahead of time and gets the answers right. i will join the horticulture club. (it meets monday nights. first meeting is august 30th. you know i wrote it down in the calender and highlighted that junk, along with the horticulture career expo, which is in october.) i want to be a better and more engaged student than i was the first time around, and it's not easy. the reassuring part is that i know that i made the right decision. i find myself hanging onto every word that comes of my professor's mouth in the principles of horticulture lecture. i caught myself looking at the course catalog today for what horticulture classes i can take next semester. i am still nervous and excited, and i'll be sure to keep you posted.

in other news, we entertained our first gathering of people at the house this weekend! heather's bridal shower/party was saturday night, and i think it was a successful event. unfortunately, andrew and i were busy getting ready up until the very last second, so i wasn't able to take as many food pictures as i'd hoped - by the time i had a chance to get my camera out, most of it was eaten - but below are a few i managed to catch. after the shower, we met up downtown with the groom and some of his friends for a few drinks at natty greene's. it was a very pleasant evening.. and we are all eagerly anticipating their sure-to-be beautiful wedding this december!

heather & jason, the happy couple!

mmm.. empty plates & cherry cupcakes.

almost-drained pitcher of the crucial sangria.

update: chairs and avocados and bridal showers

chairs!
andrew continues to work hard on our vintage patio chairs! we are several layers of primer into our first chair, and will be ready to add the color soon. the chairs sat in the backyard over night one night last week, and we woke up to a couple wet and dirty chair pieces. before we could paint the next coat of primer, we had to clean them. i set the pieces in the shower with the intention of getting to them later in the day.. but looks like a couple of other goobers got to them first.

avocados!
less than thrilling news. it is still a brown pit on two toothpicks in a yellow glass. however, i must admit we had a slight mishap. let's just say the present pit is not the same pit as the one i photographed several weeks ago. a less than perfect tooth-picking job, mixed with a high-cat-traffic area, caused the pit to fall and sit submerged in the water for a while. the pit eventually split, and so i went on the search for a new pit. we found one, and it's doing quite fine so far. no roots. will photograph as soon as some excitement hapens.

bridal shower!
it's happening this saturday. it will not be outside in the backyard. awful mosquitoes (what is a cheap way to get rid of those jerks?!), deconstructed metal chairs with gray primer, HOT, mosquitoes, and a landscape-work-in-progress. however, the inside of the house is shaping up nicely, so i'm looking forward to having people over. we'll have some quesadillas, spinach and artichoke dip, chips and salsa, cupcakes, sangria and more. i am pretty pumped, but busy getting it all together. i'll post some pictures after it all goes down.

oh, and once again, SCHOOL STARTS TOMORROW! my backpack is packed, my clothes are picked out, and the coffee maker is ready to go. let's gooooooo.

little pitbull's first trip to logan's!

last week, jane and i ran some errands in seaboard station, including a walk around logan's! it was super hot, but worth the stroll. jane found shade under some perennials and laid down. she also got an ear-rub and some sweet compliments by some logan's employees. we'll be back!

on another note, TOMORROW IS THE FIRST DAY OF CLASSES!

another avocado activity.

if you need a break from guacamole, and you have an intense sweet tooth like myself, give this a try: avocado quick bread.

ingredients! see green squishy stuff, to the left.

two pans of more squishy green stuff!

finished bread. cozy cinnamon spice, moist cake-y inside.

andrew says: "it's delicious! and it's kinda green."

the little pitbull helps plant iris.

this past weekend, the little pitbull helped us put some iris rhizomes into the ground in the backyard!

her name is jane.

mom rescued the iris from a friend's yard, and now we have a crop of iris rhizome split between us. andrew and i decided to put ours in the backyard, in a pine-strawed natural area that was already there.

this is an iris rhizome.

this is the future iris patch!

jane is helping.

finishing touches!

baby iris. see you next spring!

i've never tried planting bulbs, but i would love to plant more. we'll see how this experiment turns out!

airlie gardens & the bottle chapel!

airlie's 400-year-old oak tree

i was super excited to have the opportunity to visit airlie gardens while in wilmington. i had heard of it, and driven past it when visiting eleanor's house, but had never gone inside - and neither had eleanor!

you can read about the history of airlie gardens on its site in more detail. basically, the land got its pick-me-up when the jones family moved to town. sarah jones worked with architect rudolf topel to create much of the garden that you can see today. in 1948, the corbett family bought the property to use as their residence,  and continued to care for the gardens up until 1999 when they sold it to the county. now the public may visit it almost everyday of the year and enjoy all that it has to offer!

here are some sneak peaks:

inside the butterfly house!

the pergola garden.

smelled like honeysuckle!

and the main attraction (for me anyway..): the bottle chapel! the chapel was made out of over 4000 colorful glass bottles, metal sculptures, and mosaics. it sits in the minnie evans sculpture garden, in which all the pieces were designed by area artists as a tribute to the late wilmington artist. i loved every inch of the chapel.

it's definitely worth the five dollars to visit airlie. bring your camera. and wear your sunscreen. (that last one is for you, cj.)

big fish.

i didn't even know the new hanover county aboretum existed until our recent trip down to wilmington. i'd heard of airlie gardens, with the glass bottle house, where people got their fancy bridal portraits taken and about which many magazine articles are written each year (and one blog post, coming soon..). but the aboretum? raleigh has one. chapel hill has one. but this my first trip to the aboretum in wilmington and i was really looking forward to it.

one of my favorite things about the aboretum was its abundance of brightly and uniquely colored foliage. the shades and varieties of coleus are so beautiful to me, and i appreciated the display that the aboretum had!

i also really liked the water garden. someday i will have one!

in the pond lived many large and hungry koi fish. eleanor and i bought some fish food for 25 cents from the vending machine and got to know the fish a bit better!

eleanor feedin our buddies!

there was also a japanese garden with a traditional japanese structure, and some delicate, colorful blooms that i could not walk by without photographing.

i felt so lucky and glad to have been introduced to the aboretum. it might not have the fame of airlie, but it has plenty to offer!

now, as i wrap this up, i'll return my focus to ewan macgregor and billy crudup in the real big fish. i haven't seen this movie in years. i've got my tissues. the ending is so wonderful it makes me cry.

photos of airlie soon!