Currently loving...

 ... this berry dessert at the Olive Garden. 

 ... lazy, sunny days with the dogs.

... one of my favorite magnolia photos now framed and hanging in the bedroom.

 

It's shaping up to be a great month. 

Weekend Pretties

From my new "In The Garden" collection.

Enjoy the weekend! 

Happy Memorial Day!

For sale to a good home here (without the logo) to remind you to celebrate life every day. ;)

Technical Difficulties

Since running into maintenance issues last week, Blogger has been struggling to restore full functionality to all blogs on its network. If you have run into trouble while trying to access the blog or the comments section (or noticed that your comment got deleted from the most recent post), I apologize but please know that this problem is out of my control. It is frustrating for me as well! I have not been able to log-in or post a picture on some occasions, hence the lack of posts. All I can do is wait for these issues to sort themselves out (hopefully by Monday or Tuesday at the latest) and ask that you bear with me. Thanks.

In other news, our garden has grown by leaps and bounds since the last time I posted. We went from little potted sprouts to into the garden in about three weeks time. Pretty darn good. Now if only these thunderstorms could stay away for a few more weeks so that our poor little tomato plants don't get pummeled by the rain, we'll be in good shape!

 

And speaking of gardening (and April showers bringing May flowers), I will have lots of new pictures to add to the Etsy shop very soon. If you want a sneak peek, check the Facebook page and leave me some feedback!

Up and Up

Lots of promising things popping up in the greenhouse right now. Fruits, veggies and flowers are sprouting up everywhere.  We are lovin' it.

Dreaming of Butterflies

A couple of photos from the Butterfly Show at Krohn Conservatory this year. There are more here on the Facebook page.  I am hoping to go back at least one or two more times before the exhibit ends next month. (Such a cool thing when they land on you, too.) If you're in the Cincinnati area, it's definitely worth checking out. Just make sure you charge the camera batteries before you go! ;)

Hello? April? It's me, Olivia.

April has certainly been quite a busy month for us!  Please, please, please excuse the lack of blogging. It's not because I didn't want to, trust me. We've been preoccupied with birthdays (mine and a few friends), home improvement projects that go from five minutes to five hours, weddings (congrats to Jacq and Steven!), taxes and just general stuff. Plus, I've been adjusting to my fantastic new job and schedule!  That has been the best part of it all for me. I finally feel like I got my life back.

So here are a few snapshots to sum it all up! Happy April!

Magnolias at Dusk

  A growing collection of new photographs available later this week in my Etsy shop as the warm weather continues. Check out the rest of the collection here on my Facebook page.

Some new art.

I finally got to use one of my Groupons to CanvasPop last week. I bought it about six months ago and really waited til the last minute to use it because I had a feeling I would want to use it on a picture from our cruise -- and I was right.

The picture looks so good hanging in our living room nook that Tim just shakes his head in disbelief and says, "If I didn't know you actually took that picture and I was there with you, I'd swear that was fake." 

Thanks, Tim. Music to my ears. :)

(If you are interested in purchasing a photographic print of this picture, it is listed here on my Etsy site.)

DIY: Authentic Homemade Rum Cake

Shortly after we returned from our cruise a few weeks ago, I got another craving for some rum cake (imagine that).  So one evening, Tim and I went searching on the internet for good, homemade rum cake. It took a little patience and persistence but it paid off, because eventually we stumbled upon this wonderful little food blog and this one post about making authentic rum cake! The only problem was that we had to do a little converting for the measurements but after that it was smooth sailing.

The taste-testing during the process was a lot of fun. ;)

About an hour later, this is what you end up with after the glaze is poured.

 

 

 

It took a while for the glaze to absorb but the best part is eating it while it's warm!

In case you are interested in making this delectable little delight, I will include some of the conversions that we did:

Cake:
8.5oz Milk
3.88oz Butter
11oz  Flour
1/4 c  Rum (we used Meyer's Dark Rum)

(I know that doesn't cover all of the conversions but they just happened to be the only ones that I wrote down at the time.) 

We realized about halfway through that we were out of vanilla extract so we substituted with 1tsp of mango-flavored liqueur instead. We also omitted the nuts at the end -- just a personal preference. Either way, as long as you stay pretty close to the recipe you will end up with an AMAZING cake that is just so indulgent you won't believe your tastebuds.  Trust me.