Organizing and Yard Work

Ok - I saw a shirt at Walmart a week or so ago that said something to the effect of "wives do real work, husbands do yard work."  Yeah, really?  No... not when your husband is super busy and it is such a beautiful day! (For those not from Utah, you may be confused, but yesterday it snowed and this morning when Eric left for work it was in the 30's... but this afternoon it was upper 60's so I just HAD to go out!) Besides, my mother-in-law gave me 4 pairs of gardening gloves for Easter (she knows I love to garden) and so what excuse did I have to stay indoors after my indoor project was done? None!

So, first today I organized the "Laundry Room." (Don't be confused by the name, we don't actually have a laundry room, but we like to fool ourselves into thinking we do.) I'm clearly terrible at "before" pictures, but here is an "after."


Then I started working on the yard. First I mowed the lawn and then as I went to put the lawnmower away I realized just how many weeds we had on the back patio. Yuck! How had I let them grow so much? So, since I am still able to bend over, I got out my trash can and started pulling weeds. (This way I can justify using weed-killer for the rest of the season. Genius, no?) Again, no before pictures, but here's the can full of weeds (it doesn't look like much, but when you think that all this grew in the cracks between the pavement that is our patio, it turns out to be a ton!)











Look at how nice my patio is now... (that is sarcastic, this is a terrible patio, but at least it is weedless!)




Then I began the long task of pulling all the dandelions out of the front yard. By that I mean crawling around on my lovely (obviously a past-tense adjective) hands and knees and pulling out all the heads. This worked really well last year - after a few weeks of pulling heads they stopped popping up. But this year I started much later and so we had a TON of dandelions! At first I wondered how on earth we could have that many, but then I looked over at my neighbor's yard and realized his yard was simply a giant dandelion... the seeds blew from his yard. Every once in a while I think to myself, "one day, I will go weed Calvin's yard..." but it never happens. (don't be fooled into thinking I'm a saint or anything, my reason for weeding his yard would be purely selfish - so that his weeds stop creeping into my yard!)  I have a picture of the bag and pumpkin filled with dandelion heads and some pictures of my yard. I no longer have a yard that is the eye-sore of the neighborhood (my neighbor's yard excluded because his is obviously more of an eye-sore than mine ever was)... at least for now. Tomorrow all the dandelions I missed will be popping up and my work will begin again, but today it looks great. (unlike my poor knees and hands)

  

 This poor plot to the right of the door is where I weekly shovel out cat turds... I have no idea how we're going to get anything to grow there this summer - everything we planted last summer died thanks to cat urine. *sigh*

No, I did not plant the tulips - I have no idea why they are kind of all over the place. Once they die I will tear out the tops and put in my own flowers! The lilies are from my students and I am super excited for my DayLilies to bloom!!!

 

 And now I am simply waiting for Eric to be on his way home so I can start the Mac and Cheese that I planned for dinner (recipe courtesy of the "Cook Yourself Thin" website my sister-in-law, Kelsey, told me about). My wrists are pretty sore so I am hoping that I don't drop too many things while I'm cooking!