Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Sweet Glorious Rain!

I went outside at 6:25am this morning and it seemed a bit darker than usual. In my foggy state I just thought "well, the days do get shorter" but then I heard thunder. I looked up to see a nice coverage of gray rain clouds blowing around in the sky.

I went in to watch the news and saw this wonderful line of rain working it's way across the west side of 820 and toward my house. By the time I left for work the ground was wet and there was a light sprinkle.

HOORAY!

It pretty much rained on me all the way to work but the coolest part was as I merged to a northbound route from eastbound I realized I was centered between big bright sunshine on the right and super dark rain clouds on the left. It was quite a site to see the buildings all lit up in the sunshine with the dark cloudy backdrop.

Then I saw a full arched rainbow shining colorfully against that dark background.

It was wonderful!

Monday, July 28, 2008

Long Vacation

Well I've been on vacation since the 19th and I'm back to work today. I spent last week at my parents' house on the lake and I am SORE. It's all good though. Being sore from tubing is awesome. I have at least 7 bruises too. As Dad said, "Living on the lake is hard." :)

I feel like I need to get back to business now. My head is full of projects, to-do lists and ideas. I'm going to write it all down to make more sense of it so I can empty my head a bit and get more organized.

There is still a lot to do in the house:

* It occurred to me this morning that we have a ton more storage space in the kitchen than I realized. There's a space on top of the cabinets where my grandmother kept her cookie jars. We've got lots of dishes we don't use everyday, along with smaller appliances that will fit up there nicely. So the kitchen will need some reorganizing.

* The bedroom needs to be finished in regards of painting. I also need to thin out my clothes and pack away the winter things. I should have done that months ago but it will be hot for many months more so I still think it will be a good idea to get those things put away.

* The hallway needs some major touchups. The paint peeled really badly when we pulled the tape off of the molding.

* The dining room hasn't even been started even though we have the paint colors chosen and bought.

* There are boxes in the living room that still have stuff in them that need to be dealt with. I'll be weeding through those again to donate some things that I thought I wanted to keep a few months ago when we went through them the first time.

* The closed in porch area is looking ratty again too. Things get stashed in there too easily. I want to make that room nicer. To brighten it up, I even thought about painting the wood paneling. We also need to finish the laundry area. The pipes are and dryer duct is an eyesore and we have plans to add shelves in there to hide them and also be useful for laundry needs.

And then there is the yard. This is all just stuff that needs to be done. I haven't even gotten to all of the things I want to do for me. There are a myriad of things I want to learn, I'd love to get a real garden going, install a rain water collection system and start a compost pile. I also just bought a bunch of patterns to make clothes, some for everyday wear and some for belly dance costuming. I've also got the urge to start being creative again with painting and drawing.

Oh yeah and I'd also got to find the time to loose 70lbs and change my entire eating lifestyle.

Some days this all overwhelms me and other days I'm glad I've got the energy and passion to want to do so many things. This is where the list and good planning comes in so I can take things one day at a time and eventually I'll get some things done that need to be done and along the way, do other things that I want to do.

No wonder I'm so tired at the end of the day. My brain is full tilt.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Update

We got a couple of things done this weekend.

First, I remembered that my Aunt told me she had an abundance of Lily Turf next to her garage. She said I could have as much as I wanted, so I returned the 5 I bought from Lowe's earlier last week. I'm thrilled to be able to use free plants!

Secondly, I went ahead with laying the small pavers and planting the Mexican Petunias. I'll transplant the Lily Turfs in the near future.

Mexican Petunias

Thirdly, we spent an hour outside laying the first row of extension we have planned for the existing porch. This row is made up of 4 2'x2' pavers that match the porch that my grandmother had laid many years back. The rest of the pavers to follow are 16"x16". We have them but it'll be a few more weekends before we're done with that project.

2 More Feet

Slowly but surely!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Gardening

Oh holy cow. I thought the gardening bug already bit me but I was wrong. Earlier this year I bought a book about garden designs in Texas. I looked at it initially and thought it was a great book with great ideas but for some reason none of it really stuck.

I picked it up again this week and man oh man do I get it now! I've realized that most of the plants I bought at last year's plant sale (at the botanical gardens) are perfect for Texas. Most of them are used in this book's layouts and most of them are perennial. That's what I wanted! I bought stuff willy nilly last year and this year I'm learning that they are exactly what I should have bought. Also most of the bulbs that were existing in the yard that need to be thinned are mentioned in the book too, so I've got an abundant supply of the perfect plants to transplant and put in new beds.

You'd think that I would already know that the plants that have done great in my yard are great for Texas, but to be validated by this book just lights me right up. I've got garden designs flying all over my brain and I'm already trying to figure out how to adjust my budget for the fall sale that I know is coming.

In the meantime though, I did buy some plants for the bed I started earlier this year. I had to get those irises in the ground but after I did, I didn't mulch and other than watering, didn't do any more tending to them. So this past weekend I cleared out all of the weeds and mulched the hell out of it.

Irises

So far this week I've bought 12 long skinny pavers to put between the mulch and the curb so if it rains the mulch won't wash away. I also bought 5 Lilyturfs and 4 Mexican Petunias. The Petunias will go around the front of the light post and the Lilyturfs will go around the back side. I'll adjust the existing irises back and more clumped together.

I'll update with pictures after Sunday!