The Weekend in Review:

I've spent quite a bit of time sewing since my new machine arrived. My latest creations are as follows:


A new shirt for myself that was a nightmare to make and therefore has a lot of wobbly lines and went through many seam rips. Ted's comment was "Well, you're still learning!" which really meant "Oi. Don't wear that in public." Oh well. E for effort.



Ethel checks out the new cat bed I made the kids



Morty settles right in


And a nightgown for Bella. Toddler clothes are fairly easy so she is getting spoiled with presents from Aunt Weazie as of late.

Saturday was spent cleaning the house while Ted did yard work. It's been hot as hell down here (as it's been pretty much everywhere else) and we haven't had rain in ages. Ted and I decided that trying to keep our lawn alive was wasting more water than we could stomach and our yard is basically burnt to a crisp. We probably could have done a bit of a better job with the bushes and trees, but even with watering they still are looking like this:





I've basically given up until the fall. So has everyone else down south. You need to have a boatload of time and money to try to keep a green lawn in this heat.

We also put our wedding invitations in the mail on Saturday! I wanted to do a crazy photo shoot with a veil on and such, but Ted wouldn't participate. He did come to the post office with me to drop them off though, so at least we did it together. Even if I didn't get to wear a veil. :)

We had a BBQ Saturday night with a few friends and had an absolute riot. It cooled down enough in the evening to sit in the back yard and we chatted away for some time. Our friend Justin marinaded some awesome chicken and watermelon was consumed in large quantities. It was a great time.

Today was spent lounging around, though we did actually shower and go out to dinner and the bookstore, so that's not bad for a lazy Sunday.

And now for the obligatory self portraits:



Trying to get T-Bone to smile. It worked!

Hope y'all had a great weekend too...

First Mow Results In Casualty


The Mower

We broke out our brand new lawn mower yesterday and fired it up without any problems. While Ted put together our new tool chest for the garage, I took the lawn mower for its first spin around the yard. I had my Ipod on and life was good. The mower purred like a kitten and cut like a dream. I made my way around the back of the house and got to work on some of the lusher grass back there. While making a pass over a particularly high area, a rock flew out from under the mower and broke the back of the house! Busted right through the vinyl siding and the insulator board. Yipes.



I broke the house.

I cut the engine and made my way to the garage to tell Ted. We stood there staring at it for a bit. Ted made note that we don't need a security system anymore, as you could break into the house just by busting through the walls. He has a point, though I have a feeling our neighbors would be a bit suspicious of anyone breaking a hole in the wall of our house. I think we'll keep the security system for now.

Now I need to look in one of our "home repair" reference books and figure out how the hell to replace vinyl siding...

After the lawn mower incident I decided I better stick to some indoor work, so we got busy organizing the garage. This was one of the most fulfilling organization projects to date! We had "arranged" the garage after the move, but things kept piling up and we never felt as though there was truly a "place" for things. Now that we have a lawn mower and wheelbarrow and weed whacker in there too, we really needed to organize a bit better.


Before

Before


We got a nice big set of shelves and a sweet tool chest from Lowe's. I also went back later on and got a piece of pegboard and all of the hooks that go with it along with some other specialized hangers for our gardening tools. I have to admit, I had a riot organizing last night and didn't want to stop until I was done. I finished up just in time to catch the end of Zach Braff's monologue on SNL. Score.


After!

The Gardening Center

The Sports Center

Our new fabulous and much needed shelves

"The Workshop"

I worked a little in the yard today putting down some more grass seed. Ugh. So many rocks. I hope we see a bit more growth. Comparison pictures will be posted in a couple of weeks! Fun!

Visitor Season Has Ended

Unfortunately for Ted and I, the visitor season has ended for us. We ended on a high note, however, as Ted's mom and step-father were in town over the weekend. It was their first visit to see us down south and their first in-person glimpse of the house. It was great to have them in town and great for Ted's mom to be here on Mother's Day! We spent the majority of the weekend lounging about the house, mostly in our pajamas. It was great to just sit around and talk. There was terrible rain this weekend which spoiled any plans for outdoor activities, but we had a riot just the same.

We got an early wedding gift as well...a new grill! Ted and I have been eyeing grills since the weather started getting warm down here. I'm not sure if Pam and Jerry new how much we were dying to have our own grill, but they surprised us by taking us out to get one on Friday night! We got a sweet Weber grill from Lowe's. We haven't had a chance to fire her up yet, but we stocked up on grill-ables at the grocery store last night, so I have a feeling that the time is coming to give it a test run!




Oh, the things we'll grill!

Goodbye, dear Smokey Joe! You served us well, but will not be missed!

In Lawn News, Ted and I have been noting that "it looks like we've grown some grass" as we walk past the front lawn these days. There are still some patchy spots, however, so I wasn't sure that much had grown at all since our seeding a couple of weekends ago. Then I looked at the pictures! My goodness! We've had some serious progress...


Click on the photo for a larger view


We'll have to do another seeding this week or weekend (along with some mowing and weedwhacking...we won't get lawn of the month if we keep going like this!), but there has been some definite growth!

Last, but not least, some more pictures of the cats being nutty.


"Fragile." He must be Italian.

Ted Wields Multiple Gardening Tools Over the Kingdom of Weeds

We spent a lot of time in the yard again this weekend. We cruised the garage sales on Saturday trying to find a lawn mower or weed whacker, but were unsuccessful. We stopped by Lowe's and picked up a cordless weed whacker and sped home to charge that bad boy up...the portions of our lawn that are growing were getting unruly. While Ted was busy taming the weeds, I was raking up the straw and rocks strewn about the yard. And are there rocks. Billions of them. Some ginormous. Most, just annoying.




It was another gorgeous day today, so we decided to get some more done in the yard. The ground here is super dry and our grass has come up very patchy. We've been encouraged by our neighbors to "keep at it," proclaiming that theirs looked just like ours when they first moved in. They all have fabulously luscious yards now, so I think we'll take their advice. We were off to Lowe's again this morning and the two of us watered and raked and seeded the bald spots on the lawn. We also got some "seed accelerator" that seems to be some sort of fertilizer. That went on the lawn too. Then we watered and watered and watered. We'll need to be pretty strict with our watering schedule over the next couple of weeks and see if we can get this grass to grow. I'm not sure if there is any rain the forecast, but that would help too.


Ted shows a rock who's boss

Hulkin' it.

Happy homeowners still enjoying the novelty of yard work.

Portrait of the bald spots

After the seeds and fertilizer

I finished some sewing projects this weekend too. I made some scrub caps for work and some gifts, but also got a chance to make a small cushion for the deacon's bench my dad made me when I was a girl. I'm in love with the fabric and have some more on the way so I can make a table runner for the coffee table with it. Yay!


Donnie K's creation gets some TLC

Weekend Projects

It's 77 degrees out and I just came in from an afternoon of planting. It's the first really nice weekend we've had in a couple of weeks and we didn't have any plans today, so we took a trip to Lowe's and Home Depot to get supplies for two projects we've been wanting to do. As you've seen, we've acquired a number of plants in the past month as birthday and housewarming gifts. It was time to get them planted! Ted has also had his eye on a woodworking project for a couple of months and decided that it was time to get cracking.

Once I got home with the top soil and mulch, I realized that some of the plants we got won't do well in the front of the house because they need some shade. I had to pop back out to the store and find a few things that would do well in full sun.

Everyone in the neighborhood seemed to be out today doing yard work, so we chit chatted with Nathan and Rhonda next door. Nathan had just finished with his tiller and offered to let me use it for my project, and I gladly accepted. Our soil is made of clay and rock, so digging is a nightmare. The tiller worked like a charm and I was done in about 10 minutes. Awesome.


Green Thumb Weazie 1, Tiller 0

Meanwhile Ted got busy building his wooden magazine holders. He wants to make a work bench that he found in a magazine too, but decided to start off small. He's been sawing and hammering for a couple of hours and they look adorable so far. He still needs to sand and stain them, but the "building" portion is complete. I think he should go for the bench tomorrow!






It's about 5:30 now and I've grown tired of yard work. I ran out of mulch and still have some plants to put in the ground, so I'll have to pick back up tomorrow. I think it looks pretty good so far though! I bagged the idea of a raised garden bed because I found some instructions and it was going to be a major production and a major expense--neither of which I am in the mood for anytime soon. I've been dying to get the front yard "finished," so I'm glad I didn't wait any longer trying to save $ for the raised bed. Hopefully there will be more progress to show tomorrow!

Arbor Day!

My parents got us two red flowering dogwood trees to add to our yard! Ted and I "walked the yard" together and decided to plant the little guys to the left of the driveway to give some sort of border between our yard and the neighbor's. I was all gung-ho about planting them yesterday, but it was a bit chilly outside and I soon discovered that the shovel I bought wasn't going to dig through the rock we have in our yard. I made multiple trips back into the house pathetically shouting "planting things is hard!" up the stairs to Ted. He was busy with his own work though, so I gave up and watched a movie instead. I felt inspired on my way home from work today because of the nice warm weather, so I stopped off at Lowe's and picked up a pick axe. It worked like a charm and I had the first tree planted before Ted got home. He helped me with the second one and we were done before I knew it. What seemed to be a daunting task after my first attempt yesterday was actually quite fun and I'm looking forward to doing some more landscaping in the near future. I think our little dogwoods look adorable and I can't wait for them to bloom. Now, I just hope I planted them correctly and they will grow in our crazy terrain...


Our two new little friends

The obligatory "before" shot

The don't call me "Green Thumb Weazie" for nothin'!

Getting a drink

Planted and ready to grow!