Whatever I Feel LikeGosh!

Rob and I had a productive day today. When I woke up, Rob was already outside moving topsoil to the area that got messed up from the gravel and sand. He planted grass seed and watered it real good while I started transplanting some wild hosta into a pot. The hosta was growing way in the back of my yard among our big ivy patch and turned out to be quite a lot larger than I thought it was. It ended up filling a huge pot, a place in my flower garden where other types of hosta are, and I started a new area for another piece of it. Sweet! The hosta in the pot was wilted pretty bad tonight, I guess it’s in shock. The one I put in my garden is doing fine, though. I hope the one in the pot survives okay. And how lucky was it that I had some big, wild hosta growing in my hard? I’ll take pictures tomorrow maybe.

I also planted some coleus and petunias in rectangular ledge planters that are on the back of my deck, repotted my African Violets with African Violet potting soil, and added a new, smaller Peace Lily to an existing one that wasn’t doing so well. I still have dirt under my fingernails, but hopefully it will be worth it when my plants all start taking off.

Hey - guess what we did this weekend! Give up? Okay, I’ll just go ahead and tell you.

We put in our own brick Pavers patio! This has been a project in the works for quite some time. I believe we dug the hole for it over a month ago, and circumstances just didn’t allow for it to get done until this weekend. It was a lot of work - Rob and his friend Kevin, and my dad did most of the back-breaking work themselves. I helped out where I could, and so did Colleen (Kevin’s wife), and the kids, and my mom. I forgot to take a picture of the backyard before we started digging… and once the hole was in. So my first picture is when the rock was about 1/2 in the hole.

Did you know you have to dig at least a 6 inch hole and fill it with rock and sand before you can lay a patio? I didn’t. There was 3 tons each of the rock and sand, too - that’s a lot of shoveling! And before we could even begin, Rob and the boys had to bail out water from the hole that had accumulated over the weeks from rain. It smelled like a freaking swamp in my backyard for a while - so glad that is gone. Of course, we got the stinkiest sand ever made - and the swamp smell has been replaced by raw, rotting seaweed or something. Not quite sure what is in that sand, but it stinks.

Anyway - here are a couple of pictures - the rest are on Flickr.

Here’s the hole 1/2 filled with gravel:

Here is the gravel all done:

Here is the sand all done:

And here is the (almost) finished product!:

I haven’t had time to blog for a few days - I’ve missed talking to you guys. There have been a lot of things that have happened, too, that made me think, “Must blog this later!!” I’m sure I’ll forget half of them. You’ll just have to take my word for it that whatever I forget to tell you was awesome and thrilling beyond belief.

I’ll attempt to do a little recap. Let’s see - on Thursday night, we went to see a pre-showing of Shrek 3, courtesy of a vendor at work. I wasn’t too impressed with the movie, it was mildly entertaining, but I think it’s definitely time to retire the series. It usually is after the 2nd or 3rd rendition of things, anyway. Still, it was fun to do something a little different and my parents got to attend, as well. They came over to our house afterwards and we had coffee and hung out for a bit.

Friday was a crazy day at work - seems to be turning into the norm lately. I won’t go into all those details. Connor had a sleep over for his summer camp - it’s an initiation for all of the disciples (Jr. Counselors) - so we dropped him off and Rob, Aric and I went out to dinner. Afterwards, I went to a desperately needed meeting.

Yesterday, I got up early and drove to my mom’s. My mom, my sister and I then went out to the commissary and BX to get some shopping done. It always takes a while to get that done. We left at 9:30 and didn’t get back to my mom’s until almost 1:30. Then we had to eat lunch and get all the groceries out of my mom’s car and into either my car, my sister’s car, or my mom’s house. After that was done, my mom and I drove to Home Depot to get flowers and pots for my back patio. At 3, we finally made it back to my house where Rob, Ed (my BIL), my dad, and the boys had been working in the yard. Ed came to our house with a full-sized backhoe to help us finish digging the hole where our Pavers patio is going.

The plan was to grill out for dinner and while my mom and I were starting on the flowers and pots, I heard my dad and Rob discussing the state of the grill. It was decided we needed a new one so Rob and I headed to Lowes to buy the new grill. When we got back, we immediately had to start cooking and getting things ready for dinner. We had my parents, my sister and BIL, and Rob’s best friend and his family over - it was a full house and we had a really nice time. Rob whispered into my ear at one point that he really loves when we have everyone over. I do, too, but I wish I could get over the thing where I see all the faults in the house the whole time people are here. I need to just relax and enjoy everyone’s company and not worry if they are seeing the dirty floors, the pictures hanging a bit crooked, the storm doors that need replacing, etc.

Oh! I was going to add “our white trash backyard” to that list, but we had something else exciting happen yesterday. Friday night, on my way to my meeting I saw a truck for 1-800-GOT-JUNK and I decided to check them out when I got home. It turned out to be a real blessing - they came yesterday and took all of the old wood sitting in piles, a bunch of branches and debris, just general junk from our yard. They do all of the work and clean up, too - at a really reasonable price. I was impressed! So our backyard is starting to get a little better. There is still so much we need to do, but we’re getting there one step at a time.

And now it’s Sunday. Our plans for the day include yard work. I want to get all of our planted areas weeded, filled in with new dirt, etc., and possibly transplant some Hostas to different locations. I think Rob and Aric are going to do some mowing and edging. I might even get some more annuals to plant - we’ll see what the day brings. I also have to do some work - not looking forward to that. So much to do, so little time.

Consider yourself caught up!

I freaking rule.

When we first moved into this house, there was ugly wall-to-wall carpeting through out with a ceramic tile foyer area by the front door. Underneath the carpeting was beautiful hardwood floors, so we ripped all the carpeting up, but left the tiled area by the foyer because we weren’t sure what the floors would look like underneath. Rob tried to get a tile up at one point, but only ended up breaking a piece of it off and there was another layer of linoleum underneath. So for almost the entire past year, we’ve lived with this ugly foyer area that drove me crazy. I hated walking into the house and seeing the floor a mess, even if it was mostly covered with a throw rug.

Today at lunch, Grace peed there (she still has pee accidents by the front door if we don’t get to her in time. WHEN will that stop????) and when I was cleaning it, I noticed the pee was just seeping up through the tiles (ewwwwww). I started to lift it, because I could tell it was loose. Sure enough, those top tiles came right up. I started pulling up the second layer of tiles, too, and they were coming up with no problem, too. The hardwood underneath looked to be in reasonable shape, so I was excited to get home tonight and finish the job.

As soon as I got home, I finished getting all of the tiles up as well as most of the adhesive on the floor. It only took me a little more than an hour. The floor is still a little sticky, I’ll have to get that all cleaned up this weekend, but I don’t think it will be too bad. I’ve got a throw rug over it now in the mean time. The wood is in decent shape - there will have to be a couple of boards replaced eventually, but right now it looks a million times better than the old tile area did. I’m thrilled!

Now if we could just get Grace to stop having accidents!

[tags]hardwood floors, puppy house training home improvement[/tags]

I went to bed early last night - I think it was a combination of not getting enough sleep all week and then taking Grace for a walk followed by some playing on the trampoline that did me in. Have you ever jumped on a trampoline before? This was my first time and I didn’t realize how much fun it would be! I was also surprised at how tiring it was - I think I found my new workout for my legs. Getting to sleep at a decent hour meant I was up bright and early this morning. I have turned into such a morning person, too. The kitchen is completely clean and sparkly, the first load of laundry is in the washer and the dishwasher is going, too. All of that was done before 8 AM! I’ve spent the past hour online just trying to get caught up… it’s a daunting task, and I’m cutting back on more things every day now that I’m not online as much any more.

We’re going to have near perfect weather this weekend and that makes me happy. Our plans are to work out in the yard - there’s a lot of work to be done out there. It’s going to take us a few seasons to get it where we want it, I’m sure. The previous owners apparently spent about zero time outside. That’s okay, we get to mold and shape it how we want it now. Thank goodness Rob got that promotion so we can afford all the things we want to do!

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be hitting the sack early tonight, too - from sheer physical exhaustion and contentment. I’m looking forward to it.