Doodle is a Funny Word.

A post about our most recent yard adventures is forthcoming. This has been a bit of a crazy week (I know, again???) so it's been hard to form coherent sentences. I think it might be best if I wait and proof that post when I have a better grasp of the English language don't you?

In the meantime I took a break and doodled Brian and I as cartoon people:

I have some plans for these doodle-rific doppelgangers, I think it will be fun.

Also, I'm headed to Boston this weekend to see some of my best friends on the whole planet! Fairly excited about that. I'll try to make sure the yard update is posted before I go.

Musings on Trees

Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post, but it's called 'Musings on Trees' and not 'Epic Photo Montage on Trees' for a reason...

So I'm going to be working in the yard tonight. TRYING to make some progress in the 'make our yard not look like crap' department. I'm going to focus on the following:

- Weeding. Again.
- Edging and tilling the entire front planting bed
- Pulling out the 3 hostas on the front of the house (I've tried to save these, but they didn't react well to the sudden onslaught of the sun when trees above them were removed, and I don't think they're coming back)
- Digging extra dirt out of the hole in the middle of the yard (we had a stump pulled from there) putting it against the house to help with our grade and spreading some grass seed there.
- Pruning the roses on the south side.

I doubt I'll get it all done but I'm going to try. I want to plant a tree soon, and maybe the shrubs I've been thinking about as well. I want to put a smallish decorative tree in front of the house on the south end - the side away from the garage. I'm thinking weeping cherry right now, but I'm also considering a redbud or a flowering dogwood. Any suggestions would be awesome! Apparently it works well to plant trees and shrubs in early fall around here so I'd like to do that so we'll have some flowering and such next spring.

And the shrubs I want are dwarf burning bushes, probably 2 of them. I don't know if I'll be able to find them this year though.

Wow, just... wow

So this has been one heckuva week! Mostly, it's related to car trouble and the most frustrating series of days ever! We had a lovely weekend at the lake, and returned home Sunday feeling pretty good. I was convinced I'd get to work on decorating the bedroom this week, but boy was I in for it...

Monday on my way home from work (around 7:30 after running some errands) I noticed my car was making a smooth grinding noise, it started at about 40mph and got louder as you got faster. It's quite loud on the freeway. So I made an appointment to bring it in to the shop before work Tuesday. Brian went with me, and took me to work from there. Yes he is awesome, and no, I won't share.

About midday they called and said the noise was because my tires were trashed and my car really needed an alignment which was what caused them to get so worn. I said fine, new tires is a safety thing, go nuts. I drive a 10 year old Saturn by the way, it was also my first car. Then during the day my graphics card in my work computer fried (yay working from a machine without the capabilities I need to do my job for the next 2 days!) and my sandwich I'd bought for lunch was inexplicably wet... so by then I was feeling dandy. When we went to pick up my car at 5:30 they told me a little something while I was paying. Apparently when they tested the tires they noticed my wheel bearing was making some noise and is wearing out, also the tire support on the right side is rusting through and that won't be worth fixing in a car as old as mine. Well, I figured I would be buying a new car in the next year anyway, so I said thanks and left.

Guess what I heard when I got on the freeway? Yup. same noise. It was the bearing all along. So now I had new tires and a car that was still making a crazy noise and was apparently going to fail at some point because the structure is rusting out. Yay.

I called the second I got home but they had already closed, so we went back to the shop this morning and I raised a stink. Why didn't they call me about the bearing/support? Maybe I would have said fix that not the tires? Why would I want to put new tires on a car that apparently, I've got to get rid of soon? Why are you trying to lie and say the tires were causing the noise YOU heard? That last one is totally impossible btw, the grinding is that loud. So after 20 minutes of being angry with them they agreed to see what they could do.

A few hours later they called and agreed to put my old tires back on and refund the money for that part of the repairs they did. Yay! I mean, now I'm going to be driving on crappy tires and have the noise and other stuff still wrong, but I get a substantial piece of money back and now I can go shop for a new car... without emptying my savings first!

Still sad about the whole thing though, I like my Saturn :'(

The Battle Continues...

This has been one heck of a summer for trying to set up any kind of landscaping! Once the trees were pulled and the rain stopped it rocketed to 90+ degrees every day. Oh, and we still got a bunch of storms anyway.

So with this, it's been a struggle keeping our pots on the front step alive and the weeds at bay. Our yard had been sorely neglected for years before we came, and unfortunately improvements have been slow. We did not get it mulched this year which is part of the weed problem, but also they got a head start!

I'm almost embarrassed to show these pictures because they really show how we've done NOTHING this summer. But remember, we did get a bunch of trees pulled in June. Now, the image on the top is what happened in the week between weeding sessions. The one on the bottom is after an hour of weeding:

There was more that was weeded in that hour, but you get the idea. One week! That's all! The knarly looking thing that's still on the far end there is actually a rosebush that was getting choked. I think it will be ok. The roses over there need pruning but are doing quite well.

The other issue is of course our flowerpots. In ONE night they went from this:

To this:

 

WTH??!!?? When I came out of the house Tuesday morning I almost cried. They'd been doing fine all summer (I had to break up a fight or two between the strangler vine petunias and the begonias but other then that...) and in one night they both just died. And it really doesn't look like it was painless...

So I got the tallest mums ever instead:

It's almost time to pull out the late summer/fall wreath too! Brian won't let me yet though. In other but related news I got new garden gloves and I love them:

Do eet!

Nothing exciting today, just a reminder to get out and vote!!! Remember, if you don't, you have no right to complain about who wins! /endsoapbox

Also, why have my planter pots on the front step died very suddenly and for no apparent reason? Just curious...