Some Outside Shots

Here are some more recent pictures of the yard, and Samantha. :)

A flower that popped up last week out of nowhere! :) So bright and happy and PINK!



GRASS IS GROWING and filling in the bare spots! We are SO excited! Matt's vision for a GREEN backyard might actually come true!
Praise the Lord for cleaned up yard debris and especially for much needed rain!


The hanging planter I filled with clippings from the yard (fern, ivy, elephant ears, etc.).
Still going and still growing!


Sammy surveying her yard.


Samantha hunting for lizards among the logs and sticks (from a dead tree we took down). The sticks used to be a neat stack, but the stack was the FIRST place she would run when we let her out. In her attempts to wrangle a lizard, she has managed to completely dishevel Matt's hard work! But BOY does she love to hunt lizards. :) I think she would literally spend hours in that one spot if we let her. Only, it's made her slightly neurotic. Now, even if a stick moves because she paws it, she is *convinced* there is a lizard there and stands guard, pointing, just waiting to make her move. It's pretty cute to watch. :)

Gardening and such

Yesterday, two of these popped up in the back yard....

And this weekend I took various plants from the backyard and filled this hanging planter (its original vegetation all died while we were home for Ruthie's wedding)...

I took some elephant ears, some ivy, some fern, and the purple things. :) They all seem to be propagating quite well around the yard, so hopefully they'll make it and fill in my hanging basket, too!

Then I planted some things in the corner we cleared out. We decided the chain link isn't our favorite look now that we removed all the overgrowth. We're devising a plan.... but in the meantime, here's what we have in this little spot (we're taking it one spot at a time).

I'm not sure I have the greenest thumb ever. In fact, this sign I found on clearance at JoAnn's just about sums it up for me (and so it is hanging on the lanai now).

If I can't get anything to grow/stay alive, I guess I'll just stick to flowers like this (another JoAnn's clearance find).


:) But let's hope I can get some real things to stay perky!

Front Door Flowers

Today I had a coupon for Home Depot for "buy one hanging basket of flowers, get one free." While there, we decided to get a few more plants to spruce up the front door (especially with the baby shower next month). While I don't have pictures of the hanging baskets yet, here are the front door planters. These are also the ones I hope to switch out (the vessels themselves, not the flowers--I would transplant them all) to something more our "style." The grape clusters just aren't doing it for me. ;)

There is an end in sight!

When we first moved into our house, the yard was SO overgrown! We are finally at a point that the "clean up" efforts seem like they will come to a close. Sometimes I wondered if we'd ever get there! Here are some pictures of the progress we made this weekend. :)

plants we bought for one of the cleared spaces

Look at that! The debris piles are REALLY shrinking!

We took out really scraggly bushes on either side of the front door. I would like larger, not "grape cluster" planters for this area, and I waited all of last year for when they would go on clearance at the end of the season.... it's like it stays so warm here that never happened. So we might have to just bite the bullet and get some on sale (instead of on clearance).

A dead tree we cut down (with the kumquat tree in the foreground and palm to the right)

Some Virginia Creeper-like thing had climbed all the way up to these branches from the ground! I yanked it down--that stuff drives me CRAZY!

Yes, Virginia...

...Matt & Becca DO have grass.

Errr, well, okay. Matt & Becca have grassy spots. :)

On Sunday we ate lunch on the lanai (which I cleaned on Saturday while Matt picked kumquats). Sitting out there and having the lanai all cleaned up made me wish the yard was cleaned up too. After lunch I decided to begin raking. You might think "palm tree" when you think Florida, and while we do have a palm tree, we live in the more northern part of Florida where you have plenty of pines and other coniferous and some deciduous tress as well. When I saw year yard nearly 2 years ago for the first time, it did not send the message "days' worth of raking and bagging leaves." Oh, but it does now. :)

While Matt picked more little orange fruits on Sunday afternoon, I raked and bagged 7 bags worth of leaves and pine needles. Seven. That might not sound like a lot to people with large lots, but in Florida? Small lot, palm tree Florida? I'm not kidding! And that was less than 1/2 the yard! I won't admit how long the leaves had been piling up (I don't know the last time I raked, but I DID mow last year.... does that count?) , but I had just had it. This afternoon I raked and bagged 5 more bags. The whole back yard (except for the little corner outside our window, which I left because it was dark/for comparison's sake in the photos/due to blisters, has been raked and bagged! On Sunday I also used the blower to get leaves off the driveway and to blow leaves off the yard and into the natural area in about 1/3 of the front. Whew!

Now onto pictures to prove this amazing feat! :)

Part of Sunday's bags

Looking to the right from the palm tree

I know it's blurry, but look! You can see GREEEEEEN grass!

More GREEEEEEN!!! :)

This is to compare... this is the side yard (and a crazy pooch) still covered in leaves. The whole yard used to look like this.

PLUS, I cut out as much of the seam allowance as possible in the thumb of the oven mitt and cut a slit in the wrist, and it's actually functional! I'm not going to give it as a gift, but right now it's on display on top of our fridge. It's a great hubby-swatter. :) Hehe

If you're tired of the cold, come visit! We are in bloom already!
(this one obviously "coming soon")

Lastly, we recently received this in the mail.
I already asked off for it, and I can't wait to come home in May! Not only will we be coming HOME, but we'll be come HOME to CELEBRATE and REJOICE in Ruthie getting hitched!
I can't wait, I can't wait! :)


Ooops... lastly (for real) you can never have too many Sammy pictures. :)

Snapshots

The new dining room chandelier

Sammy (looking around for Charis, I'm sure) :)

Front door

New mums

Sammy where you're sure to find her if she thinks you're not looking!

Another Yard Update

Here are pictures of the planted aztec (monkey) grass! :) Also, there are a few shots of the little irises poking up that Jane gave us from Knoxville. :)

Memorial Day

With our extra time off from work (and together) today, we accomplished several things around the house. While Matt mowed the front yard, I scrubbed the kitchen grout. Yes, if you have followed our blog from its inception, I have done this before. But, being new to homeownership and fix-it-yourself-ship, I did NOT know you have to re-seal grout after you do anything abrasive to it. So, my nice, clean, white grout had turned grossly dirty. I've kind of divided the kitchen floor into thirds, and I completed the first third today. It's amazing how much brighter the kitchen seems with such a small detail accounted for. Just a minute ago I sprayed the grout I cleaned with sealer. It's supposed to last a couple years! I'm sure hoping so!!

After I scrubbed and Matt worked on the yard, we went out for a few errands. Sammy's collar broke at the beach (thankfully, we had brought her harness along with us as well), so we went to get her a new collar. I picked pink this time, because SO many people thought we saw a boy--between her name and her blue collar, it was an easy mistake to make. We actually got the wrong size yesterday, but we exchanged it for the right size today and even got a $1 refund in the process!

Then we stopped by Lowe's. We were deciding if we wanted to get a fan for the kitchen (Lowe's and Home Depot both had deals on fans this weekend) or the grassy accents for the front walkway we had seen on sale at Walmart the night before. We decided to go for the fan, but then we found the grassy accents on sale even cheaper than at Walmart, and for more than 1/2 of the price we paid for one several weeks ago when we were deciding between two varieties! Then the fan was cheaper than I anticipated, so we ended up getting both for about the price we had budgeted for one fan! Hooray! Matt also let me get a few marigolds for our front pots. We had planted some lily bulbs in them, but they have turned out to be some gargantuan variety that is way too tall for the pots. So, I planted the marigolds, replanted the lily bulbs into the ground, and then set out the "Aztec grass" we bought along the front walkway. I only had enough potting soil left over to plant one Aztec grass in the ground so far. But here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what it will look like. There's also a picture of the fan we picked for the eat in part of the kitchen.

Matt's trunk stuffed with plants!

The front walkway layout (and you can see the new marigolds in the bottom right corner)

This is the other kind of grass accent we were considering... but we liked the variegated better. After I took the lily plants out of this pot, I put the extra grass in instead. :) Matt says our front walkway now looks like we're monkey grass fanatics, since I even potted some, but I like the splash of color. :)

P.S. We have officially been homeowners and in this house ONE YEAR as of this weekend! I hope to post some before/after side-by-sides this week to show how far we've come!

P.P.S. The end of school year, though stressful and crazy, is much LESS stressful and crazy when not preparing to close on a house (as we were this time last year).

P.P.P.S. Happy 2nd anniversary to Lee & Amanda! :)

Week in Review

(updated 4.16.2007)

(a picture of Sammy, for good measure)

Okay, since I was not-so-great about keeping the blog updated this week, how about a little "week in review" action...

last Sunday: Easter!! I gave a recap of this two posts ago, but in general, we were very thankful to have some "Gainesville family" from church invite it to share Easter lunch with them. We rejoice in God's provision in faithfulness in even the small things, like Easter lunch, but most especially for Jesus!

Monday: I also posted about last Monday two posts ago. The kids did a great job of jumping back into the swing of things, and the week was off to a good start (although we had such a great spring break, we were wishing for more).

Tuesday-Thursday: I can't think of anything particularly outstanding about the middle of the week, honestly. :) We went to work, we did our jobs, we came home to the sweet Samantha... very "lather, rinse, repeat" kind of days. But, we are thankful for the work that fills them and the home we come home to--with each other (and Sammy). :) In short, I got some field trip details lined up, sent home report cards, passed out class and spring individual pictures, finished up (almost) our animal unit, began 4th grade math. :) The week started off chilly, but by the end of the week I could finally wear some of my fun, new spring clothes (acquired over spring break at the outlets, etc.), hooray!

Friday: The weekend!!! Hooray! We were reallllly ready for it after being spoiled with spring break (Matt said spring break was so good, he felt like we were on our honeymoon again). I left ASAP after school--I promised myself I would. :) I enjoyed some time relaxing, and then I ran some errands (just a few). I also stopped at an estate sale down the street, but nothing caught my eye. Matt came home, we had our traditional Friday night dinner (we've moved from pizza to Publix brand lasagna (like Stouffers)--we eat 1/2 on Friday for dinner and 1/2 on Saturday for lunch). I think we mostly relaxed after that. I fell asleep on the couch (big surprise), and Matt woke me up to drag me to bed a little while later. :)

Saturday: Yard day! We had a lot of fun working in the yard, even though it became quite warm! I think the high was pushing 90 on Saturday. As Matt has dug up roots and other assorted items in the back yard (with Sammy's help at times... she has unearthed some unusual things like a ceramic rooster head), he came across many, MANY rocks! We (he) ended up piling them in the back yard. Our front yard also had assorted rocks scattered about the "natural area." We've been trying to decide what to do with the "natural area." Basically, there are two theories on its origin (according to neighbors). Theory One: the dirt in our yard became "spoiled" during construction and has therefore become largely inhospitable to grass. Theory Two: We have a LOT of shade from all our wonderful trees, and St. Augustine grass prefers more sun than our trees allow. Whichever theory is correct, we've been brainstorming low-cost ways to tidy up the front yard and make the natural area look more intentional. I asked Matt if we could place rocks as a border around the natural area. He did this to a bed around our kumquat tree, and I really liked the effect. He wasn't so sure about it, but we gave it a go. We lugged rock after rock after rock to the perimeter of the natural area. It took several hours of carrying heavy rocks (and Matt even tossed some once we used all the ones already in the front yard.... it was the fastest way to move them from the back to the front), but we really like the finished product. It is a VAST improvement, if you ask me! Here are some pictures below:




After placing the rocks around the front, we still had more rocks left! So, we lined the garden-y sides of the back yard as well with rock borders. Now we are contemplating adding some green accents along the sidewalk in the front. We are thinking about using this:


Eventually, we want to take out the bushes to the right of the front door (if you're looking at the front), and plant Japanese boxwoods along there (same as the low hedges on the left end of the front side of the house). I also hope to find two big planters at the end of the season (which is admittedly a LONG way off down here), so I can have some pretty flowers on each side of the doorway next year (we might keep the current ones, or possibly find something different).

After all our yard work Saturday, we cleaned up and ran some errands. Then we went out to celebrate our 1.5 year anniversary! It wasn't really until Sunday, but we have small group Sunday nights. We used a gift card and had dinner at Chili's (mmmm, chips & salsa), and then we puttered around Lowe's. We made a lot of all the things we'd really like to do to the house, and then priced all of them. :) Now we can make a master plan. I was particularly THRILLED to find out white interior doors are only $25 each! After dreaming at Lowe's, we stopped at Sonic and used another gift card to grab some dessert. Matt chose a lemonberry slush and I had a chocolate cream pie shake. Yum! It was a great evening together are a morning of hard work together. :)

Sunday: We went to church, followed by a thrilling lunch at home of left overs from the night before. :) I worked on some lesson plans, we played with Samantha, I vacuumed.... really exciting stuff. :) Then we stopped to get a birthday cake for small group; one of the guys had a birthday last Thursday. Unfortunately, he and his wife didn't make it to the group that night, so we had cake without him!

Monday: Today! Back to work we went. :) We both had good, productive days. I am all caught up on grading and ready to tidy up some places in my room that are starting to bother me (I just want to streamline a little). On a side note, Aqua is still amazingly alive! Even after spring break! The kids still love to go look at him, watch him swim, and watch him blow bubbles. :) He's been fun to have around, even if I do hold my breath most mornings to see if he's still alive. So far, so good (thanks, Lord!).

I guess that's about all for us for now. We hope your week is off to a good start! We praise the Lord for you! :)

Love,
Becca

More later

Guest bed complete with brown sheets, brown sateen stripe bed skirt, and throw pillows

Yea! Something we planted has bloomed! Here's a lily! :)