Quick Update

 

  

So I had to travel for work the last few days.  I really dislike (dare I say ‘hate’?) that part of my job, but I can’t do anything about it.  I like having evenings to do my own thing and my mental state deteriorates pretty quickly when I’m stuck in “work-mode” for days on end.

Knowing that my weekend would be shorter than usual, Friday after work I got right out into the yard.  I raked up a bunch of old dead leaves and trimmed the bejeebers out of the evergreen bush near the back gate.  I discovered that there is edging between our yard and the neighbors’ yard!  The bush had grown pretty far over the edging, and the neighbors’ grass had grown pretty far into the bush, so you never would’ve thunk that there might actually be some borders under there somewhere!  I pulled much of the grass that had encroached over the edging, but there’s still work to do on that. 

(Before)

 

(After)

We also got  some things done on Saturday and on Sunday morning before I had to go.  On Saturday, I finished painting our three remaining main level doors (and door jambs) white!  They look SO nice and clean now.  We also switched out the brass hinges to ORB ones to match the doorknobs.  While I did that, Hubby was SUCH A SPORT and he sprayed/swept out our filthy garage.  It’s  much better and cleaner out there now, and he even installed a few more hooks etc to get things hung up and organized.  What a guy! 

Then, Sunday morning we got up a little early so I could tackle some yard work.  I laid down weed cloth on one side of the deck and planted seven new perennials that arrived last week from Spring Hill nursery.  (More are coming next week, which is perfect because the seven didn’t go as far as I’d hoped….!)  Spring Hill isn’t paying me or anything like that….but if they wanted to send me some free Zone 5 plants, I wouldn’t object 😉

We’ve had some bad wind so I had to reinforce the “fabric staples” with the rocks we dug out of the tree holes.  At least we’re finding uses for them!

I planted (in case anyone cares):  three scabiosas, one “Little Business” red daylily, one pink coreopsis, one black-eyed susan, and a “wonder of staffa” aster.

After that I pulled some serious weeds in the raised veggie bed for a while, and then gave up and just turned over all the soil with a pitchfork and raked the weeds out that way.  Much easier!  Then I covered the raised bed with weed cloth as well (which needs adjusting after some major wind last night) and had to call it a day.  See those broad-leaf weeds in the picture?  I think those are called plantains, and holey buckets, those things had clearly been growing ALL WINTER and probably all last summer as well.  I had to PRY their huge roots out with the pitchfork!  The one on the right had a big fat root that was about 10 inches long!  I actually carried the dirty bugger into the house to show Hubby 🙂  Sorry no pictures…I was in a hurry =/

   So I need some more fabric 🙂  I didn’t say I FINISHED this project, did I?

Meanwhile, Hubs was re-hanging the doors and priming the bases of our kitchen cabinets (so that the laminate quarter-round trim can go in and we won’t really have to worry about being super precise around the trim when we paint the cabs.)

And that was it.  All we could do over the last four days. 

I have a lot of work-related catch up in the evenings this week, and this weekend we’ll be removing carpet, laminate, baseboards, and of course moving lots of furniture.  Luckily it seems we found homes for our used flooring, so the new owners should be coming over this weekend to take it all off our hands 🙂

Our new floor is installed Monday-Tuesday!  Our new dishwasher arrives Weds!  It’s all just very exciting 🙂

And the first tulips have bloomed, so for a little cheerfulness, here ya go!

One little red one in the middle…..

And some pretty multi-colored ones along the walk!

Have a great day!