just a few little things ...

I miss blogging and I just realized today what has kept me from writing.

I'm always taking pictures, but I kept thinking I had to have something BIG to share for a blog post.

We have been working on several big projects for a couple of months.

None are finished, but I decided it was okay to share just a few little things going on around here.

Trying to stay ahead of the weeds has me working in the garden every morning.

The red chair was sitting beneath the living room window, but the Matilija poppy plant has grown so huge that the chair was hidden.

I like its new home because it can be seen from the street.

All the gardening has me bringing greenery and flowers into the house - this is the first time I have put potato vine in a vase and I love how it climbed up the candlestick.

I made some changes to the front porch

 in anticipation of the 4th of July.

The changes I mentioned involve shrinking the amount of furniture in the house and moving things around to create an illusion of space.

The door in the guest room had a table in front of it, but that's now in our bedroom.

There was a huge armoire I used for crafting on this wall, but it is gone and our bedroom seems so much bigger.

And now that I shared a few little things,

I'm going to hit post and head over to read all my favorite blogs.

From 6 to 7

On Friday, Steve and I walked around Carpinteria, a cute little beach town north of us, and I snapped a few pics with my phone.

My iPhone 6 died recently and I was using my new iPhone 7 camera.

I had heard that the iPhone 7 camera is pretty good, but it wasn't until I began editing that I noticed the quality of the photos.

With my iPhone 6, if I tried to crop just a small portion of a photo, everything looked pixelated, but I don't have that problem with the iPhone 7.

These cottages were photographed about an hour after the yellow house - the fickle June weather can turn a blue sky into a white sky in a matter of seconds.

I had a lot of fun editing the photos because zooming in and cropping gave me such different views - I had no idea there was a red flower when I was shooting the photos.

I love the color combo of aqua, yellow and purple in this garden.

You can just barely spot the American flag hiding behind the greenery in this pic.

I didn't even realize I was getting a patriotic shot - I just held my phone out in front of me and didn't really see what details I was capturing.

My eye was drawn to the aqua house and I didn't even notice the palm trees.

And that white roof of the porch completely escaped me.

Nor did I notice the French doors.

Several streets were lined on each side with jacaranda trees, but this was the only shot I could get without cars.

That lawn doesn't look too well cared for, 

but cropping took care of that problem.

What drew me to this house in the first place was the white picket fence and the pretty windows.

Purples, reds, yellows, pinks -

after a rainy California winter, the whole town of Carpinteria was in full color and my new phone did a great job of capturing it.

I took this photo in our garden and I snapped the beach photo on a bike ride yesterday.

I have a feeling I'll be using my phone a lot more than my Canon.

Now I'm headed over to link up with Pam of Everyday Living for her Gardens Galore Link Party.

I hope you link a garden post of your own.