Golden Labs and Gardening

Both Curtis and I grew up with parents who were (and are) amazing gardeners. So I always envisioned when we had a house I’d have a large vegetable garden and yard to play in. But when we moved into our house and it was already beautifully landscaped we didn't want to rip anything up to plant a big garden.

But every year Curtis focuses on making our lawn as perfect as it could possibly be and slowly we’ve added new plants, a small herb garden and are making the yard our own. My project for this year was roses. There was an existing rose garden when we moved in, with several plants, but they weren’t the big roses that smell amazing like my mom has. So we planted nine new bushes this year in pots on our deck and around the yard. Roses such as Mr. Lincoln, Dick Clark and Double Delight, that should smell amazing. I’ve been trying to learn all I can about pruning and feeding and I’ve given them a lot of love. No flowers yet, but I have my fingers crossed that as soon as the sun comes out on a regular basis, the rose buds will too!

Gardening Tip: It’s important to drink a margarita while tending to and admiring your rose bushes

About the time I was starting my rose project Jenny D. did a giveaway on her blog for a gardening apron that she made herself – she’s super talented! So the whole point of my ramblings is to show off my darling apron and introduce you to Jen. She has a personal blog that I love following, but she also just started a new project: Girl Has Thyme.

Girl Has Thyme is all things gardening from the view point of a regular person (not a master gardener) learning the ropes through trial and error. I’d recommend following it if you have any interest at all in playing in the dirt! Her posts are both entertaining and educational. She’s also a genius in the kitchen, so I have a feeling good recipes will show up from time to time as well.

And for Golden Labs, well it’s really just one golden lab: my number one boy Murray. He’s my side kick, jogging partner, hiking buddy and comes to work with me … anyone who knows me, knows I’m obsessed with this 80-pound furry blond bundle of joy. I couldn’t love this dog more. But the reason I’m writing about him is to give a long overdue shout-out to Haute Apple Pie.

Haute Apple Pie is a group of three ladies contributing to one awesome blog. It’s mostly about good food, but there are home DIY projects, parties and personal stuff thrown in as well. The design and format is, what in my mind, I hope Beauties and the Feast will become. Awhile back they featured a Double Dose of Pet Accessories giveaway and Murray won!

His new “dress” collar came from Rogue Collars. Anyone who has dogs knows that stylish dog collars are grossly over priced (and suckers like me are willing to shell out the dough) but these collars are super cool because they’re homemade, very couture and only $11! Sure beats the plain ‘ol collar you’d buy at Petsmart. Murray picked out the brown harlequin collar and boy does he look handsome in it!

And his fancy tag is from Make Your Dog Smile. It was a hard choice, but he went with the Scout Tag. It worked… Murray is smiling, real big!


Day to day he still wears his awesome “no stink” collar from Dublin Dog. Because when you have a dog who spends as much time in rivers, lakes and salt water as Murray it’s important to have a collar that doesn’t stay wet and grow bacteria, plus one that’s easy to rinse off. Dublin Dog has just that product and they rock!

Thank you to Jenny, Haute Apple Pie, Rogue Collars and Make Your Dog Smile for such generous giveaways!