100s Day

Did you ever have this in school? On the 100th day of the school year, we were asked to bring in 100 of something in order to show our collections with the class. Most kids brought things that were easy to carry, to things that were easy to amass- like clothes pegs, or craft feathers, or playing cards. My mom used to draw me pictures of elaborate ballgowns of the Disney princess variety so I could color them in. I actually brought in 100 of these one year for 100s day. I think my teacher must have thought I was some kind of coloring maniac (I was!) and that my mom was similarly nuts about drawing (she was!)

I share this story today because this marks my 100th post on Keeping Busy with B since I started the blog back in 2011. It definitely wasn’t my first blogging venture but it’s definitely been my longest, and one of the best blogging experiences I’ve had so far. So I thought I’d share with you today a fun a little by-the-numbers post. I think you’ll find it’s really telling about me!

Number of baked goods featuring chocolate: 10

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Double Trouble Chocolate Chip Cookies

Lucy’s Chocolate Chocolate Cake

Classic Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate Banana Cookies

Cappuccino Cupcakes

(Not pictured: Chocolate Brownies, Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, Chocolate and Pear Muffins and Vegan Brownies.)

I may or may not like chocolate the most out of all of the flavors. Don’t tell the other recipes.

Number of books that have been on my bookshelf (at least, since I started blogging about my bookshelf): 34

Winter 2015 Reading List

Spring 2015 Reading List

Summer 2015 Reading List

Fall 2015 Reading List

Winter 2016 Reading List

Spring 2016 Reading List

I wrote here about how I’ve been trying for the past couple of years to reclaim one of my favorite hobbies by setting myself goals on Goodreads and since publishing that post I’m pleased to announce that I’m ahead of schedule! (If you’re a reader too I highly recommend you sign-up if you haven’t already and then we can be friends. I’m not getting paid to ask you. I actually just want to be book buddies.) Also, sometimes I review books that I read which I talk about more in-depth here.

Number of times I’ve used flowers to showcase my baking: 5.

Classic Sugar Cookies

Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins

Banana Cupcakes with Cinnamon Frosting

The Deconstructed Peanut Butter Cookie

Cupcakes for the Masses

Can you tell that I like flowers (and that I like to pretend I have a little bit of a green thumb)? You can find where I get my flower inspiration from here and here, and read about my porch and my best tips for getting your outdoors ready for spring here. Mostly I’m just obsessed with spring. And writing spring stories. I even write about spring when it’s fall. With all of this talk of spring you’d think I was born under a maypole, but I’m actually a summer baby. (Shhh!)

While we’re talking about hidden motifs, have you noticed the number of rainbows in my blog? 6.

More Thoughts on Procrastination

How to Choose the Raint Pain Color

My Office Essentials

How Much is Too Much Organizing?

How Do You Know When It’s Time for a Makeover?

And the number of hearts? I count 4.

Classic Apple Pie

Porch 4.0

A Cacophony of Cakes

Cappuccino Cupcakes

I love being creative when I bake or include photography for the blog, mainly because I don’t really like myself in pictures. You may think I’m trying to be mysterious not using my full name or showing my face, but honestly- most people close to me call me B. Also, sometimes I do make an appearance on my blog.

Number of disembodied limbs of mine that have made it to the blog: 2.

Run Your Errands More Effectively Today!

Welcome Spring!

And finally…

Number of posts my dog has written: 1.

Number of recipes she and I have collaborated on: 0. (This is probably a good thing.)

Thanks so much for all of your continued love and support of my blog, you guys. I couldn’t have done it without you! Here’s to the first 100 posts- can’t wait to publish at least a few hundred more.

Love, B

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Porch 4.0

One of the biggest draws of renting this apartment is the outdoor patio space located directly outside my window facing the back parking lot of the building. It may not be the prettiest view, but having a small outdoor space all to my self makes my rental feel bigger in the warmer months, almost as if the patio acts like an extra room to eat or simply chill.

I’ve had the chance to dip my toes into gardening before and really enjoyed it (maybe even almost as much as baking, although I wouldn’t go that far!). So when I moved here four summers ago I decided not to let the jungle of concrete deter me from having an enjoyable outdoor space. Over the years, my patio has slowly evolved growing into a makeshift garden space that’s perfect for sipping my morning coffee and getting lost in a book.

I started out pretty low-key when I first moved in the spring of 2013. I’m guessing my priorities veered more towards buying furniture than starting a garden from scratch. My dad very kindly bought me the hanging baskets as a housewarming gift.

The next year I was craving a little bit more privacy, so with a few extra dollars in my budget I decided to add a few more decorative items and plants to make my porch feel like it was just an extension of my apartment. So in 2014 it looked a little something like this:

With my dog, Gemma, keeping watch outside my evenings when the light was still out often looked a little something like this:

I still miss all of those chalk hearts that I drew all over the concrete ground. At the time I was think it was meant to be symbolic of a safe, loving space but looking back on them now, they were still tons of fun. Unfortunately I discovered that chalk art and dogs don’t really mix. I’d often come back inside to find Gemma covered in rainbow stripes.

Despite the addition of my herb garden, I still hadn’t quite satisfied my green thumb. Some new garden-crazy neighbors moved in upstairs in 2015 and the clippings from their plants transformed my porch into a green oasis. (The new green deck chairs helped.)

Friends and neighbors started dropping off unwanted plants, or plants that needed rescuing and I was more than happy to welcome them into my brood. Unfortunately, a lot of these family members were only seasonal so I find myself back at square one for this upcoming spring.

The nights are still chilly and some mornings I wake to find frost still lingering on the ground, but I’ve already started scheming and dreaming. (Here’s how I do some of my garden research here.) Seeds are starting to sprout in their containers lounging on my windowsill. Already, I’m squirreling away extra cash to fund some of the projects I have planned. This year I’m hoping to find a balance between greenery and recreational space so I can make the most of my porch while I’m able.

When the beautiful weather hits, I know I’m going to be more than ready.

I’d love to hear more about your upcoming plans for spring and your outdoor spaces, or maybe you have a suggestion for mine! Comment below or drop me a line at keepingbusyb@gmail.com.

If you want to see a little bit more about how I’ve organized my own personal spaces you can check out how I styled my bookshelf here, the story of how I purged everything in my apartment here, how I organized my closet here and some of the things I just can’t figure out how to organize here.

A Secret Garden of Reading

I love flowers. Duh.

I risked showing you my bad phone photography to prove how much I loved flowers in this post here. Flowers come up a lot in my baking too (the arrangement in exhibit A, the decoration in exhibit B, the wrappers in exhibit C and the cake stand in exhibit D). Even my logo is a flower.

Obviously, there is something missing in my life.

I don’t have a garden. Instead, I have a little patio just outside my apartment window that faces out onto our building’s back parking lot. It’s not much but each year I try to compensate by filling my outdoor space with plants and flowers. My apartment is filled with them too. It’s such a sweet and pretty space and I find tending it very fulfilling.

And yet…

When the weather starts to feel more spring-like, you’ll often find me drifting aimlessly around in the bookstore until I wind up in the gardening section. Maybe you’ve seen me there. I’m the one ogling the books about floral arrangements like they’re dirty magazines. It’s not that I’m not happy with my little garden. I just sometimes like looking at the other gardens and wondering what could be. That’s not cheating on my patio, right?

Over the weekend I treated myself to a latté and a little wander around my local bookstore to see if I could dig up a little inspiration as to how to style my porch this year. (Haha. See what I did there?) Here are some of my favorites:

For those who are clueless about flowers but love having them in their home, The Flower Chef offers simple step-by-step “recipes” on how to imitate eye-catching floral arrangements with attention to color, shape and time of year. Even if your home isn’t full of flowers, it’s kind of like flowering porn for the gardening set.

For the ecologically-concerned gardener (or in my case, person), The Bee-Friendly Garden is part-design book, part-biology and altogether a compelling (and beautifully photographed) argument for why bees are an such an important thread in the delicate fabric of our ecosystem.

For those who want to drool over impossibly gorgeous gardens that you’ll never have in your lifetime, Secret Gardens is worth a flip-through. I needed to physically remove myself from the store before I marched up to the cashier with the three remaining copies.

For the gardener who’s also kinda crafty and talented at all the things, you’ll want to add The Crafted Garden to your collection. This is not a book about crafts from your garden: this is a book about crafts from your garden and how you too can create beautiful vases, wreaths and other decorations from the home using bark, twigs, and other plant materials. Sounds like garden sorcery to me.

For the gardener who hails from Toronto, you may remember Frankie Flowers from the news from many, many years ago, but since then he’s also published several gardening books. I like Pot It Up one because it offers gardening advice based to my particular climate zone, but there’s tons of other great practical tips for the makeshift gardeners like me that rely on planters, pots and hanging baskets to create a little green vista in the big city.

For those who want to get in touch with their inner hippie, A Wilder Life is your modern guide. There’s literally something for everyone in here, whether you’re looking for new skills like star-gazing, or if you feel like making your own natural beauty products. Oh, and there’s lots and lots of plants for you to gaze at adoringly as well.

My dreams of having a giant garden in which I can frolic may still be a long way off, but in the meantime, a girl can read. And dream. And drool. Really soon, I hope to be doing just that outside one on my patio chairs. The reading and dreaming part, I mean. Definitely not the drooling.

I love to read and I love sharing my favorite books with you. (For more reading inspiration click here or here.) Don’t forget to friend me on Goodreads either! Btw: These lists are totally my own creation and I was not paid or perked to share my opinions with you by any author or publishing company.