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!

Wood stoves in June

It's 83 degrees today in our neck of the woods...and we're going to look for a wood stove today. GOOD TIMES!

We have a fireplace already (which had never been used in the 7/8 years this house has existed), but we know that stoves burn better and heat a home more efficiently than just a fireplace. Plus, I have "connections" to all the free wood I could ever want. So thanks to our tax refund, we'll be able to fund this upgrade.

More to come, post-shopping.

This time, a real post

HELLO everyone!

It's 6:30 am and I'm up, drinking a smoothie, and blogging. Usually I'm still asleep, trying to catch a few more winks before the alarm BLARES in my face. I was up before 6 today. I haven't had any coffee yet. I have a load of laundry in the washer. This is too weird.

I think, after being so helpless for about 6 weeks, because of the cast and pins, my body and my spirit are thinking "LETS GO!!!!" Over the long weekend, I accomplished so much around the house--a little bit of cleaning, a little bit of yard work. It was really nice.

So what's been going on with me lately? Or, should I say, since I broke my hand? Haha. That's about 6 weeks worth of stuff...and it wasn't all too exciting.

I can talk about gardening, since it is spring and a lot has been going on...

At first, there was a feeble attempt at weeding the eastern side of the house. I had to sit on my butt to pull the weeds, since I couldn't put pressure on my left hand. That was interesting. Turtle helped, but he's really not into weeding. So by last weekend, the weeds had returned and looked terrible. We'd planted two hydrangeas on that side of the house just after Easter, but you'd never know it since the weeds were encroaching....and fast. Last weekend, I weeded a bit, then Turtle and I laid down some black plastic/paper stuff that is supposed to help keep weeds at bay. Then we put down mulch on that side of the house, over the black stuff. Let's see how this goes. There's nothing else planted over there right now, besides the hydrangeas, but I like the minimalist look. Plus, the mulch makes that side of the house look SO much cleaner/neater than it did prior to us doing ANYTHING. Have I mentioned that the previous owners (POs) didn't do much landscaping??

In the front of the house (north side), there were a bunch of shrubs and bushes, such as azaleas and rhododendrons. There were also these two barberry bushes. I don't know if you've seen one, but they aren't really that nice. Also, they have PRICKERS. Not fun. I don't know why someone would plant these--they must have been cheap. The front porch needs to be painted and we wouldn't have been able to do so, because of these nasty guys. Turtle and his dad pulled them out a few weeks ago, and now the front of the house doesn't look so...choked? We also discovered that one of the bushes is indeed a smaller lilac variety. I LOVE LILACS and was so excited to find out what that deliciously smelling plant was! Over this weekend, I weeded the two beds (there's one on either side of the walkway up to our house) and pulled out all of the rocks that the POs had used as a border. Not really my style (they were just random rocks they found in the yard), plus they hadn't done a good job of maintaining the border, so the earth was starting to shift and go OVER the rocks. We plan on extending the bed that's on the north east side, so that the two beds are even. I like symmetry :-) Not sure about what we'll plant...we need something that's lower to the ground, since there are bushes already there... But it'll be a fun challenge to figure out what to plant.

In the backyard (south side), there's not much, but along the garage wall, I noticed that there were some green things popping up. Two weeks ago, they blossomed into IRISES! Very pretty deep purple ones. Turtle's dad gave us two tomato plans, and we stuck those a few yards down from the irises. Last night, I noticed that they already have flowers!!! There's not a real garden there...but the grass didn't really grow, and it looks as if the POs had tried to start some kind of bed? I don't know...we plan on turning it into a bed of sorts. Probably for vegetables. We wanted to do a HUGE veggie garden this year, but there's just so much to do when you have a new house that we decided to wait until next year. Probably a wise decision. There's also something popping up around the basement door...it's thick and really green. I think it might be echinacea, just looking at the dead stuff from last year, but we'll see. This is the best part of being a new homeowner, looking to see what surprises unfold in the garden! We also have a deck in the back, and I'm not going to plant anything around or near that since Turtle and his dad have some work to do on that, first.

The west side of the house is mostly the side of the garage, which faces the main road. It is desperately in need of a power washing. Very green. (Our house is beige) I don't think we'll be planting much/anything there...it's very shady and damp.

The grass is getting greener. When we first moved in, it was mid-fall and things looked pretty bleak. We had many comments from the neighbors! Well, I don't know if Turtle has a green thumb, or we just care more than the POs or what, but we've actually gotten COMPLIMENTS on how the lawn is looking! We do have a lawn service that comes every few weeks to put down lime or some fertilizer, but everything else is on us. I'm not 100% keen on having a service...but the pesticides are at a minimum and things lawn-wise were pretty bad. Maybe next year we won't need it?

ACK! Time to go get ready and get off to physical therapy before work. Yes, they have hand PT. My hand is still pretty stiff and I can't extend my pinky all the way, but there's hope. And exercises. Lots of them.

I wrote a ton about gardening and there's so much more to talk about that's been going on around here. Hopefully I'll have more time soon to hop back over...work is busy and the fact that a lot of stuff is now blocked doesn't help.

I am back!!

The pins were removed yesterday and I'm slowly regaining feeling and movement...

Very slowly.

Typing is still hard, but it's much easier to do it when the splint isn't tapping the caps lock or the tab or any other keys. Which really sucked and was why I was mostly typing with one hand, even though I had some of the fingers on my "bad" hand free.

So I have much to share, but I can't do it all today. Including: how nice people were to me, how weird total strangers were, my doctor crush (hee), things I could do while I was incapacitated, what I really wanted to do, etc.

One bad note: while I was recuperating, work blocked all web mail, most message boards, blog stuff, etc. That means no more updating at work. I know, I'm there to work, not to mess around, but everyone takes a break!

I guess I will have to scribble notes down during the day and try to update at night? We'll see. I have missed blogging, and have tried to keep up with everyone in my follow list, even if I couldn't comment readily.

See you soon!

I'm okay!

still can't type long posts, which i do miss since i'm quite the chatterbox...but just wanted to pop back up & say hello.

for those who are friends with me on FB, i can do more of that, since it is quick stuff. twitter has been ok too. everything else is really hard. so much to say, in words, but i can't do it...yet!

i really need to take some notes...i said i was gonna do it, and i didn't.

surgery was a bit difficult but they were able to fix my hand...a few weeks in a cast w/some rods in me...then rods come out & hopefully back to old self!

quick update

I am having surgery on my hand tomorrow--simple procedure to wire the bones together. I'll be in a cast for a few more weeks but this operation will allow my hand to heal stronger.

I miss blogging--there's so much I've wanted to write about & talk about...and it's so hard when you've only got one hand with which to work.

I'm going to try & keep some notes about life while I can't type well--hopefully these will be used later on for other posts.

See you soon!

last post for awhile

i am typing this one handed so excuse my typing, i broke a bone in my hand on thursday night and now have a splint like cast on my hand. its hard to use it for typing, so i have to do it all with my good hand. thankfully my good hand = my dominant one, so i'm not totally helpless, lol.

i'll be back soon. if you pray, please pray that its a full recovery w/ no surgery--i have to see a hand specialist next week b/c i broke it right before the holiday and all specialists were closed.

happy easter!!!