My New Garden

As you know, I recently moved into a home. I love my home, but I hate that the seller's stopped weeding when they put the house on the market six months ago.  I think I may have some of the world's tallest weeds. I may call the Guiness Book of World Records.  Here are some pictures of the flower beds around the house.

I'm not done. I might be 30% done with weeding. There's just so much! I also need to find a good mulch to put out in the beds.

Before:

Two areas for growing veggies...once I reclaim it from the weeds.

 After (only some sections done):

Close up of Veronica

Elderberry

Hydrangea

Creeping Baby's Breath

Butterfly Bush

Rosemary, Basil, and Spearmint

Cilantro and Parsley

Tiger's Eye

The Breville Smart Oven

This is my new favorite small appliance! 

The Breville Smart Oven is probably the best toaster oven ever. Breville earned both Consumer Report's and Cooks Illustrated's highest marks, excelling in every category.

Our experience has been the same as both the reviewers above. The toaster toasts evenly and perfectly. The interface is so easy to use- something I truly appreciate. The ease of use makes it so easy for my husband to just go and heat something up. The oven is also pretty.

The toaster oven is not just a plain toaster oven, but a convection oven, which makes cooking in general more even and efficient.  The toaster has the following features: toast, bagel, roast, bake, pizza, reheat, broil, cookie, and warm, and they have each rack position labeled! There's also a button for frozen, which allows the toaster to adjust the cooking time if say, you store bread in the freezer. Such a breeze! The oven is also large enough to fit a 9x13 sized pan. You could bake a cake in there if you wanted. I even roasted two Cornish game hens- they came out really well considering I didn't have a thermometer to check the temperature.

The only downside to this appliance is the price tag. It's about $250 depending on where you buy it. Save up and treat yourself. You won't regret it.