Oh my gosh, update!

Okay, let's see...since last we talked it's been really nice outside (and really tornado-y!) and I've done a ton outside. Ben's dad came to visit and help with some little fixes that we couldn't figure out, couldn't find help with and were too cheap to hire someone. The biggie being fixing our saggy floor. The shower in the extra bathroom has had a leak for years and became a slight mold issue and caused one of the beams underneath the floor nearby to give way a little. And once they fixed that, our back door no longer closes correctly and the deadbolt won't work. Still haven't figure out that one yet, but soon! Ben and his dad also cleared out most of the junk the previous owners left behind: three doors, an outdoor table (kept), empty boxes, and a keyboard w/ stand (broken, unfortunately). They also: replaced the rotting crawlspace door, cleared out the culvert, rigged the gate to stay open when we need it open and hauled a lot of dirt and mulch to the house. Hooray!

Ben and I then bought our first lawn mower, about which I learned yes, you want a self-propelled mower. I also had to learn how to turn a push mower on; my parents had a riding mower for their yard and cows for the pasture when I was growing up. Learned that you can't easily tell your backyard is overrun with weeds if you mow everything low enough...haha.

I finished cleaning up one flowerbed and mulched it, and the weather has kept me from finishing the other :(

My daffodils finally bloomed like crazy!

Planted my very own first real gardenia! Hope it can actually survive here. And Zoey helped.

Also got some other interesting plants, a fuchsia:

And some strawberries in hanging pots.


So excited about these!

Finally finished our picture wall, for now...



And I did a lot of cleaning. You can finally walk into the extra bathroom now that I've taken all the tools out and put them away in the shed. Straightened the bathroom closet quite a bit.

But in the last month there's also been a lot of life getting in the way. We've had three severe weather days, two of those were bad enough to get into the bathtub. Between the two of us, we were sick for three weeks, which cancelled our trip to Austin and SXSW. Found out we have a huge carpenter bee problem (which also meant finding out what a carpenter bee was) and I'm trying to fix it right now. And this guy escaped into the neighbors yard briefly...

Which doesn't sound bad, except Ceti turns into a feral lion when he gets a little taste of freedom. That pitiful look is only after he tried twice to bite a hunk out of me and was screaming like a bobcat for ten minutes! Ben had to come home from work to get him. And of course when he gets there, Ceti just walks right to him and lets him pick him up. 

In better news, Ben got two job opportunities recently. One with a company in Nashville that would mean less pay, but it wouldn't be retail and it would be a set schedule. The other would be with his current employer. The store in Huntsville recently lost their general manager and Ben has already applied. I'm kinda hoping for Huntsville to happen because it would mean a lot more money than he makes now, he would have some control over his schedule, and we both have friends there. Franklin's great, but I don't really know anyone here except Ben's family and friends. Even my boss is Ben's old college roommate!

So that's what we've been up to lately. Hopefully, I can start balancing completing projects and blogging about them!

Hello, Sun!

Today was b-e-a-utiful! And you can bet your sweet bippy I took advantage of it. Let's see...

I pruned a few shrubs, including two very neglected forsythias.


Before



After

I know it doesn't look that great, but you'll just have to trust me on this. It had to be done! These two shrubs were beginning to get big enough they were touching the house, growing even more shrubs, and half of them were dead. I was really afraid to prune these guys since I've never really pruned anything except for a couple of box shrubs at my parent's old house. I had to take out any branches that were 3/4" or thicker, anything touching the ground, anything dead, and anything that was really criss-crossed. (And, boy, do these suckers get tangled!)

I also fertilized the front yard, but Ben tells me that the "grass" that I like in the yard isn't grass at all. He said the nice looking stuff is actually the weeds and that really scratchy stuff is the real grass. Herumph! If that's really what crabgrass is, how strange is it that I would prefer a yard full of it? I hope he's not right and it's just two types of grass in our yard.

And the thing I'm most excited about, I got some edging stones for the flower bed! Now that I'm thinking about it, there's no flowers in it, so should it be a shrub bed? Anyhoo, the edging really makes a difference, see?

Before. This is only half of it, forgot to take a picture of all of it before...oops.



After!

Ahhh, such definition! I wasn't such if I should get these or the red, since we'll probably paint the house one day. I'm hoping that either they'll go with whatever colors we choose, or if they don't we can stain them if we have to. But for now I'm loving them! Now the flower bed just needs some work and maybe even some flowers.