A Saturday of house stuff

Turtle had Saturday off (a rarity) because Memorial Day was his regular day off. His company offered yesterday as a "trade" and he took it. It was awesome to have two days off together.

We went to two places and looked at their stoves. There's really not much to say about the shopping experience, since there's not much selection. Basically you pick a company and a size. Maybe a color if you want a fancy door. We'll be going with matte black, thankyouverymuch. So really all we have to decide is the WHEN. When to order/buy and when they'll come out and do it.

Besides the wood stove shopping, we also hit up a local farm market (not a farmer's market) and a nursery. Got some whiskey barrels and plants to put in the front of the house. We got two of the red cedar ones (looks just like the one on the right).


We're partial to New Guinea Impatiens, so we got some of those in hot pink and light pink, but we also got some grasses to put in the center. Turtle says it's good for "height." They are on either side of our walkway, right before you go up the steps to the porch. Next weekend, I hope to lay down more of this black plastic stuff (it blocks weeds) so that I can finish the landscaping in front of the house. I hope to be able to extend the front bed and put down mulch, as well as doing a few other things, similar to this picture below...

My parents have these Belgian blocks (the white/grey rectangles closest to the grass) along their flower beds and walkways at their house. They ended up buying too many a few years ago when they installed the blocks, the remainders being left to sit in a pile on the edge of their property. They said that we could have them, which is a fabulous little gift! I would love to put them all around our yard, but it's not so important to have them in the back just yet. The front of the house and the left side (east side) would be a better start.

Speaking of the east side, since that's almost done, we have a new addition. Our neighbors gave us some irises yesterday so we planted those in front of the chimney. We plan on moving the existing irises from the back yard over here, too. (Just as soon as I find out when it's OK to transplant them, haha.) The hydrangeas that we planted are still doing well, and I'm taking a hydrangea class next weekend! I think we'll end up making the back yard's flower bed area (it was never really fully landscaped) into a vegetable garden of sorts. There are two tomato plants there now.

I figured out what the stuff popping up around the basement door was--it's some kind of daisy! I saw the exact same plant at the nursery yesterday, and last night I checked ours--there are buds starting already! Very exciting.

If this weather would decide what it's doing--it would be wonderful. It's hot, but one minute it's cloudy, then it rains...then the sun comes out...then it goes away. I just want to finish working on the house so it looks nice, but it's difficult when the weather won't cooperate!