Container Garden

Last weekend was Hyde Park's annual Garden Fair. I stopped by to get plants and compost, and by the end of the day my summer container garden was ready to go!

This year I'm trying cilantro, basil, lettuce, spinach, and (forthcoming) tomatoes. I also bought a wildflower for the butterflies. I moved my other plants outside to enjoy the sun, too!

Top: basil, lettuce

Bottom: cyclamen, jade, pothos, spider plant with creeping charlie

A caterpillar got to my first two lettuces! Hopefully they'll bounce back

From left: pothos, spinach and lettuce, nodding onion, spider plant

My pretty balcony!

Cannes Film Festival 2012

Diane Kruger

Photo credit: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty

Kylie Minogue

Photo credit: REX USA

Nina Dobrev

Photo credit: Venturelli/WireImage

Diane Kruger

Photo credit: AKM-GSI

Kirsten Dunst

(flaked by Kristen Stewart)

Photo credit: Timm/Face to Face

Zac Efron

(flanked by Nicole Kidman and Matthew McConaughey)

Photo credit: EPA/Stephane Reix/Landov

All photos via People.com

Dressy

Naomi Watts, looking stunning, at a launch party in London

Photo credit: Fred Duval/Getty
Image via People.com

Things That Are Making Me Happy Today

1. Coffee (This is pretty much always on a happy list, but it does make me happy!)

2. Checking things: Pinterest, blogs, email

3. Stretching

4. My wonderful mother

5. No work on Tuesday, followed by no work next Monday due to NATO. (Work is literally half a block away from McCormick Place, where the NATO meetings are being held. I couldn't get to work even if I wanted to.)

What makes you happy today?

Met Costume Gala 2012

Carey Mulligan

Photo credit: Steven Lovekin/FilmMagic

Shiny! I love how confident she is in this dress, and her eye makeup

Cate Blanchett

Photo credit: Larry Busacca/Getty

I love this! It's definitely a bit weird, but the mermaid tail (hem line? bottom?) looks good on her

January Jones

Photo credit: Larry Busacca/Getty

She has defnitely worn something similar before, but I like yellow on blondes

Jessica Alba

Photo credit: Larry Busacca/Getty

Just lovely. Is there anything she wears that doesn't look good on her?

Katherine McPhee

Photo credit: Larry Busacca/Getty

I very much like this dress, but the there's something about the bust that looks a bit odd to me...I think it's the wide shoulder straps

Rihanna

Photo credit: Andrea Renault/Polaris

I love this too! I'm very interested in women who can wear full length, long sleeved dresses and still look sexy. It's a nice change, and very classy

All images via People.com

On the Bright Side

1. Green Festival Chicago: I went yesterday; lots of free samples of products and tasty food, and also had my portrait drawn by an artist from Project Onward, an organization that promotes the creative growth of artists with mental and intellectual disabilities.

2. Thunderstorms

3. Yummy breakfast with my lovely friend

4. This picture:

Resolution Update #4

Resolution #1: Be good to my body
Result: 58%, poor

A. Go to the gym once a week: 4/4 (100%)
B. Stretch once a week: 2/4 (50%)
C. Drink one glass of green tea a week: 1/4 (25%)

I was on vacation the first week of April, and then had to get back into the swing of things...

Resolution #2: Be more mindful
Result: 56%, poor

A. Write in my journal once a week: 4/4 (100%)
B. Meditate once a week: 1/4 (25%)
C. Only spend one hour on the internet every weekday, at home: 7/16 (44%)

Guilty again...

Resolution #3: See a movie a month in theaters
Result: Success!

Last month I saw Think Like a Man. It was your typical chick flick, everyone-ends-up-happy-with-a-boyfriend-at-the-end type movie; the only difference was that Michael Ealy was in this one. YUM.

Resolution #4: Buy one piece of clothing a month
Result: Success!

Yay for new clothes! I went to Target last weekend and picked up a cute green stripey scarf and new green cardigan.

Resolution #5: Read two books per month
Result: Resounding success!

I was feeling nostalgic for some of the books I own, and decided to re-read the last half of the Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging series by Louise Rennison. Here we go: Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers, Startled By His Furry Shorts, Love is a Many Trousered Thing, Stop in the Name of Pants, and Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?. They're the diaries of a teenage English girl navigating boys, friends, and school, and are VERY silly, but VERY funny. I recommend them if you're interested in that sort of thing.

While on vacation I read another children/young adult book titled Tuesdays At the Castle, by Jessica Day George. I found this book in my local bookstore and it looked lovely and had all the right tropes: magical castle, young heroine, evil usurper, etc. It was good and kept me entertained, but it wasn't awesome. Again, another good read if you like this sort of thing.

Resolution #6: Keep track of my finances via Excel
Result: Success!

The good news is that I spent slightly less than I did in March, but more than I did in February and January, with eating out being the biggest category.