Pots, Paintings, and Dread

Last spring I purchased a beautiful red Peace Lily from Home Depot and planted it in a beautiful ceramic pot I bought at Hobby Lobby. It has not grown one flower since I brought it home. It looked awful several months ago, so I set it outside and it began to perk up-- for a very short period of time. This is how it looked earlier today: dead leaves, cramped, awful. It doesn't look that bad, but it has looked like this for a very long time with no progress.

The solution I came up with was to repot it. Ryan took me to a few places in search of a pot, and none of them owned up to my standards. We finally went to K-Mart and I found one I love. It's not anything like I orginally had in mind, but I love it oh-so-much! It's a thousand times better than the other one which caused my Peace Lily to be so cramped up.

I brought it inside because I'm girly and I don't particularly enjoy the outdoors. Really, Ryan and I decided to have a Big Bang Theory marathon and I couldn't wait to begin either activity! I forgot to buy a shovel, but luckily I had these plastic shovels that came with the sandbucket I bought to help with cleaning my aquarium. (Two weeks ago, I set up an aquarium I've had for five years now!)

I think I discovered the issue:

Look at all that water! I knew something was wrong when I went to dig my plant out of the old pot and I could literally just pull it out with two fingers. Not only had it rained several inches this week, but there was no drainage hole in the bottom of that pot. Eek! I'm glad I laid down that trash bag before I began this project.

I love the end result. Hopefully it begins to grow and grow! I trimmed off all of the dead and semi-dead leaves. I was saddened to see it so bare, but it still looks so much better. It's not quite as large as it seems in the pictures.

 Ta-da!

 

I also made a painting the other day. I had fun making it, but I don't love the finished product like I thought I would. First, I made a little sketch in my trial version of Adobe Illustrator. It's a neat program, but way too complicated for me. I'll just wing it next time. I was basically able to design my painting on the computer with real measurements, so when it came time to actually begin, I knew exactly where to put each line. Perhaps that didn't make sense. Oh well. :)

I put my canvases together and began taping them off with painter's tape. 

 

Then I painted it gray and green, to go in our p-l-a-i-n guest bedroom, and then removed the tape.

Ryan insisted that I get in the picture with my painting. Ignore the background mess... I had to put my aquarium on top of my book shelf, so I had to find a new place for what was originally on top. The mess is not there anymore. :) Anyway, I do like my paintings but the green didn't turn out as bright as I had hoped, and the canvases still look too small on the wall I put them on.

I think I might try it again. I'm thinking BIG. And yellow. :) And here's a little secret-- I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say I get nauseous every time I write the date because it's getting too close to August. I can't stand the thought of it. At all. Dread.