We finally finished the yard! Yay!!

Friday I went to Lowes and got the rest of the flowers and got some for the backyard too. A couple of days ago Elaine would not stop barking no matter how much Steve told her to stop. He gave up and brought her inside and put her in her kennel. The next morning when he let her and Gizmo out he found the hibiscus plant that I had gotten for the deck had been knocked over and eaten. We are thinking that Elaine was barking at some critter and keeping it off the deck. When he brought her inside, the animal must have gotten on the deck and eaten my plant. I was really upset because 1) it was kinda expensive and 2) it had 5 blooms on it that were about to come out. I bought a huge terra cotta pot to put it in so that it can’t be knocked over anymore and that will hopefully keep this from happening again. After repotting the hibiscus, I planted a rose bush next to the deck and a jasmine bush in the back corner of the yard. I am super excited about the jasmine. Once it blooms it should make the backyard smell really nice! After working on the backyard I moved to the front. I only got through planting the geraniums before the sun went down.

Saturday morning Steve and I got up early and got back on it. I finished planting the rest of the begonias, spread the left over dirt and then spread the mulch. Steve collected a bunch of stones while the house was being built. We used them as decorations in the flower bed. After we were done it seemed like something was missing; we decided that a birdbath would look good and some solar lawn lights. Off to Wal-mart, Lowes and Home Depot again! We got the birdbath from Home Depot and just one light from Wal-mart so we could see how it looked before we decided on them. Here is finished product:



The begonias are the ones in the front with no flowers. We had to prune them right away because they were wilting from sitting in the garage for so long before being planted. They should come back pretty quickly though. Other than that I am really happy with the finished product and so long as everything lives it was totally worth all the work!

Owning a home is hard

I have been working in the yard for the past 3 days and am so tired! We are re-doing the landscaping out front. It is times like these that I think maybe our apartment wasn't so bad after all.

Friday I had the afternoon off so I decided that I would get a jump start on things and get all of the flowers. I went to Lowes and got Knock-Out Rose bushes and Begonias in various shades of pink along with some lawn edging to keep the grass from growing into the flowerbed. As I was looking around I saw that the Hibiscus trees were on sale so I got one of those for the deck. I also found some window boxes that could be hung on the railing of the deck so I got those and some Annuals (Feather is what their tag said) in a bunch of different colors to go in the boxes. I was so excited about the plants for the deck that I started working on those as soon as I got home. While I was working I realized that I didn’t have enough potting soil so I ran up to Home Depot and got some more. While I was there I found some super cute pillows too. The deck is really starting to look fun!





Saturday we woke up later than we wanted to so we tired to hurry through the last few errands we need to run before getting to work. We let the grass grow way too far into the flowerbed that the builders created so we went bought an extension to Steve's weedeater that would make it a tiller and then went to Geo Growers for some organic soil. We got home around noon and got busy. First we pulled some bushes from the flowerbed that the builder put in. We decided to pull the ugly bushes that were around our utility box and put these ones in. Then, while Steve was tilling the flowerbed I was moving some Lillies that have really sprouted away to each side of the garage. When I first planted them, there were only 3 flowers so I put them on the left side of the garage; now I have over 10 so I moved some to the right side of the garage to even things out. As Steve was finishing his first pass of tilling, the tiller stopped working. He had hit a piece of brick buried in the soil and it had logged itself in-between the blades and we think that caused the gears to burn out. Ugh! We had to pull the rest of the grass by hand. This took the rest of the day. Around 6 we started getting really tired so we planted the rose bushes because they seemed to be drooping, cleaned up all of our tools and called it a day.

Sunday morning we got up at 8 and head back outside. It was freezing!!! I continued to pull grass while Steve started digging the trench for the lawn edging. At about 10 I was an icicle so I came inside and made us breakfast. Steve finished the edging and then came in as well. After breakfast we read the paper and got ready for Shawna and Oliver’s wedding reception. It was so pretty! It was exactly what I pictured an afternoon wedding to look like. After the wedding we headed back to Home Depot for more lawn edging and it was back to work for us. As I was planting the begonias I realized that we had made the new flowerbed bigger than the old one and needed more flowers. I decided to line the front of the flowerbed with them and then find something else to put between them and the rose bushes. I got through almost all of them before it got dark.

Last night I went out to finish the begonias up but it was windy and cold again so I didn’t. Hopefully tonight the weather will be nicer so I can finish up. Friday I am going to buy geraniums to fill in the rest of the flowerbed. I am not going to take pictures until we are done so keep your fingers crossed that it will be Friday!

Praying for good weather

Steve, my dad, and my grandpa built a deck in our backyard this week.



It took them 2 days. My dad said the hardest part was the walkway from the patio to the deck itself; they re-did it 3 times. I helped a little. Mostly moving dirt from the holes they dug to other holes in the yard dug by Elaine. I also made the fountain myself. It is that stack of 3 flower pots towards the left. You can find the instructions on Casasugar.

We got the furniture on Saturday from Wal-mart.



It is not quite as bright as I wanted but I plan to spice it up with some cute throw pillows and an outside rug. You can't really see them but we have lights around railing that make it really nice for sitting in the late evening. If the weather stays as nice as it has been I plan on sitting out there every night!

Omigod!

This post is kinda long; I actually did a lot for once! Friday Steve took me to see Legally Blonde the Musical.



I loved it! It was my first time ever going to a musical/play and Legally Blonde is one of my favorite movies so it was perfect! I was surprised to see so many younger people there. It was slightly annoying actually. That is my only complaint. The music was great, super upbeat and fun. The stage decorations were amazing. You almost forget you are watching a play. And the costumes!! O.M.G. Her pink sparkly shoes were phenomenal. I was totally memorized by them. I have been trying to find out who makes them so I can get a pair for myself! No luck so far.

Saturday, we ran errands. Well, I did. I dropped Steve off at Third Base to watch the OSU basketball game with some friends and then went to the mall and to BestBuy to return some stuff. While I was out I finished up his Valentine’s gift. I got him a panoramic picture of the OSU football stadium online and needed to get it framed.



I could have bough it already framed, but $150 was a little more than I wanted to spend considering I just spent that on his birthday. So I got just the picture for $50. Guess how much it cost to get it framed? $167!!! For the frame alone!! WTF?!?!?!?!?! And that is with a 50% off coupon! I had no idea how much it cost to get stuff framed. So much for saving money I guess. That night we barbequed and did our taxes. More annoyances. Steve and I decided that we would apply for the first-time homeowners’ credit so that we could pay off my car. As we began to do our taxes, we realized that we were going to have to pay taxes on the sell of his town home last year. That took the whole $7500!!! We keep having to tell ourselves that at least we are not having to pay. It is super depressing though. After that we watched season 3 of Entourage.

Sunday we got our first delivery of the Statesman. I love the Sunday paper! Mostly because I like to find all of the good deals in the ads. BestBuy was advertising the Wii Fit so we got dressed and headed straight over. As we were walking in we saw a lady walking out with one and another lady walking towards the register. I was kind worried that maybe they were all gone already. Luckily there were a couple left when we got to the aisle so we grab one and a cute pink cover.



After that we went to Rudy's for lunch and then to go see our second Oscar movie – Benjamin Button. I liked it but I don’t know if it is what I would consider Oscar quality. It was really long, and Steve had a hard time staying comfortable so he kept shifting in his seat. If you haven’t seen it, I would wait until it comes out on DVD.

When we got home we painted the bathroom finally. We comprised on the color – I got to use my dark purple if I only did one wall. It was probably a better idea because I do my make-up in there and I don’t want the color to bounce off the walls and make me use too much or too little. We painted the wall that the shower and tub are on. Since it was just one wall we got the small can of paint. It wasn’t enough so we ran out and couldn’t finish. I am going to get the rest of the paint tonight and finish. I will take pictures and post them later.

I think this will be a good week. Work is finally starting to quiet down, and Sharla’s happy hour and my party are giving me something to look forward to. Hope everyone else has a good week too!