sunshine times eleven

we had a positively blissful weekend.  in eleven parts:

1. i learned that wd-40 can fix almost anything.  cases in point: we spent 20 minutes trying to screw a fresh blade onto the lawnmower but it kept sticking - lathered it all up with wd-40 and voila!  also, scott ran over a sprinkler head with said lawnmower, and it turned out that he broke not only the head, but also the plastic stem that connects the head to the sprinkler lines a foot into the soil.  part of the stem was broken off inside the little junction, and pliers alone weren't able to unscrew it - add wd-40, though, and scott had it off within minutes.  (which was doubly awesome because then we didn't have to pay the sprinkler guy to come out and fix it for us.)
2. i found my broom after 3 weeks of being without and was able to give my floors a good sweeping - the dust mop just can't do everything.
3. we finally caved and signed up for trugreen.  we have just had a super weedy yard, to the point where if it had been a week or so since scott mowed, i'd be embarassed to be seen out there even picking up mail because of all the dandelions.  scott's opinion was that trugreen is an unnecessary expense and we can do it ourselves, but as we currently don't do anything about it on our own, i figured that we need some professional help to get our lawn on the right track, and we'll see next year if we want to take it from there.  sadly one of our next door neighbors doesn't do anything about her weeds, so i'm not sure how much good it'll do with all of her weed seeds still infesting our yard ... but it can't hurt.  their first visit is today.
4. we got wally's oil changed and tires rotated for a grand total of $23.xx!  since we faithfully take all of our service to firestone, they sent me a gold club membership for free in the mail a few months back which entitles me to free tire rotations (although i'd get that for free from the tire shop we use anyway), and i got a coupon for a $20 oil change from the back of a grocery store receipt.
5. we turned the heat off on saturday morning and haven't had it on since then - plus we had the windows open all weekend and got to enjoy lovely warm, sunny smelling fresh air.
6. i finally got my vegetable garden planted!  two cherry tomato plants, one regular tomato, one zucchini, one yellow squash, one green bell pepper, and one red bell pepper.  i also finally took back my dead basil plant to home depot and got it replaced with a living one, and picked up some petunias and moss roses for my front porch planter.  i feel sort of like an odd mother hen over my little veggie garden now - i got home after dark last night (had dinner with some girlfriends) and went outside to check and make sure my little plants all survived the crazy windstorm we had yesterday, and this morning got ready earlier than i normally do so that i'd have time to water my garden before leaving for work.  we'll see if i keep it up for the next two months until they start to give us fresh produce.
7. i had a $30 pre-paid gift card as a rebate from buying my contacts lenses earlier this year, which paid for my flowers and veggies - i bought some miracle gro, too, though, and paid maybe $8 out of pocket!
8. we enjoyed chicken tikka masala with naan for dinner on friday night, and grilled steaks to go with fresh corn on the cob, steamed artichokes, and baked potatoes on saturday night.  (sunday night we had salad.)
9. we watched the last king of scotland on saturday night which was intense but really good.  sunday night post-suns victory we caught up on our tivoed episodes of lost; we still haven't seen the series finale - sniff sniff - so don't ruin it for us!
10. i went grocery shopping on sunday and actually stayed on budget with groceries this month!  i guess dave ramsey's cash method really does work.
11. i made a mid-may resolution to like yard work, and so far so good.  i don't naturally love working in the yard - i see the benefit of it, but when i think of things i can do with my free time, yard work just doesn't ever spring to mind.  similarly, i've historically had the same attitude with things like reading the bible and exercising.  i see the benefit and i know i should do them, but i just have other things i'd rather do.  i found that once i put my mind to enjoying them and seeing legitimate benefit in doing them, though, it's not as much of a struggle.  so, i'm going to attempt the same practice with my yard.

okay, in retrospect, it sounds like we had a very work-ful weekend.  which i guess it was.  it was also just so gloriously peaceful and sunny and warm, and we got to enjoy being outdoors and didn't have any outside obligations (other than that scott had to go in to work for a few hours sunday afternoon).  it was nice, and oh-so relaxing.

goodbye spring

we had a very productive weekend if i do say so myself: we actually installed both of our new toilets ON OUR OWN relatively quickly and with no problems - wow!  we took scott's truck in to get the snow tires taken off and squeaky brakes checked out.  we got our outside water turned on so that our roof guy could come fix the masonry on top of our chimney (that was supposed to be monday, but it's on hold for now due to cold and rainy weather - not great for what he needed to do).  we installed my new bird feeder "kit" that i got with birthday money (thanks, mom and dad!) and hung up my also-newly-acquired seed feeder and hummingbird feeder.  we got another estimate for landscaping work, and while the whole project is going to be a little pricier than we initially realized, no better time for it than now, so i think we're going to go for it.  i spent yesterday examining the landscaping plan we had done last year and trying to figure out how much plants and trees cost.  we also enjoyed the lovely and sunny spring weather with a walk, grilling, and much relaxing and movie watching.  please note that as i write this, our lovely spring weekend has disappeared into a chilly and overcast week - complete with a snowstorm last night/today.

the drive-in on friday night was fun in my mind and a little disappointing in scott's.  it was chilly on friday night, so we took wally, laid down the seats, and camped out in the tailgate ... but unfortunately that means that we were looking through the rear window which has big black defrosting lines across it.  it didn't bother me at all, but scott wasn't thrilled with the situation.  scott thought the theater was dumpy and the radio quality staticky - i thought it was a normal drive-in.  combined with the 40 minute drive and our 1:15am return home, i don't think we'll be making the drive-in a weekly destination, but i relatively sure i'll be able to convince scott to take me back by next summer.  movie reviews: "how to train your dragon" was cute, well done, fun, and i highly recommend it!  "iron man 2" wasn't quite as amazing as the original, but it also started after 10pm and both of us were falling asleep by the end, so i don't know that i can give a realistic review.  (saturday night's movie-at-home - thanks to our blockbuster rewards card and a free old-movie monthly rental - was john grisham's "the firm" from 1993, back when tom cruise was successful and un-crazy, and 17 years later the movie is still pretty fabulous.)

mulch, take two

my wise husband listened to my mulch research and reminded me that we have a few trees yet to be taken out this year and were hoping to have a landscaper pull out the existing rock and weed barrier (and dirt covered rock and weed barrier along the wall in the back yard), which is going to add up.  so, the mulch plan is that we'll clean up the rock in the front, put the rock back in over new weed barrier and potentially add some fresh rock over top, and do mulch in the back yard without weed barrier (to make it easier to have lots of plants and flowers growing there).  whew.  i think it'll look better, particularly once we actually have bushes and living things in the midst of our rock, and have everything cleaned up a bit.  price-wise i do like the plan better than paying $1000 just for mulch ... especially when our tree guy came back with an estimate of $1100 to finish taking out our russian olives and dead aspens!  sheesh.  we'll be getting some second opinions.

mulch

one of the big things i'd like to change with our landscaping is the river rock we have going on in our yard.  rock seems to be a big thing for landscaping in colorado, and i kind of get that because it never needs replacing, doesn't require water, and doesn't blow away ... but it's just not pretty.  maybe i say that because i'm a midwesterner used to lush growing things and rich dark dirt, but as much as inanimate ground covering can say cozy and homey, mulch just says it to me and rock doesn't.  rock is fine in moderation, but i don't love it as a covering for the 800 or so square feet (very rough estimate) that it is currently occupying in our front and back yards. and that's not including the side yards!  since our rock is old and desperately in need of removing, washing (to get out all the weed seeds), and replacing the weed barrier under it bare minimum, we're trying to balance wants, price, and, to a certain extent, environmental impact.  research thus far reveals:

• river rock
• cost:  free.  even if we needed more to cover thin spots, there's always some for free on craigslist.
• pros:  only cost is to replace weed barrier underneath.
• cons:  we (i) don't love the look.
• wood mulch
• cost:  about $300.  consumer reports says wood mulch averages $1.50/cubic foot, recommends wood mulch 3" deep, which over 800 square feet would require 200 cubic feet of mulch (according to gardenplace.com).
• pros:  up front inexpensive replacement option.  if used without weed barrier, provides organic material to the garden as it decays, which neither rock nor rubber mulch do.  no need for weed barrier as with rock, but weed barrier can help the decay problem and thus mean less potential upkeep cost.
• cons:  needs a top coat of mulch each year or so to replace decayed/blown away stuff - averaging an extra inch of fresh mulch every year would cost about $100/year.  bugs love decaying wood mulch, and i don't love bugs.  environmental impact depends on source of mulch (ie, cypress mulch is bad, pine mulch from colorado potentially neutral).  if use weed barrier, mulch decay on top of barrier can provide material for weeds to grow on.
• rubber mulch
• cost:  about $1000.  lowes.com has .8cf bags for $8/each, consumer reports recommends 1.5" depth, so 100 cf total would require 125 bags.  we also have a 10% off lowe's coupon that may work with rubber mulch, so that could bring the cost down a bit.
• pros:  doesn't blow away, run off with heavy rains, or fade.  guaranteed for 10-15 years.  made 100% of recycled tires.  no need for weed barrier, and bugs don't like the stuff.  no annual upkeep.
• cons:  expensive out of pocket (although after 7-10 years the rubber mulch would likely pay for itself).

honestly, my gut instinct is to go with the rubber mulch - put in something environmentally friendly and low upkeep and be done with it.  clearly that sort of out-of-pocket outlay of cash requires some input from scott, though, so we'll see what he says!  i dubbed tomorrow a homey day - cleaning, mowing and pulling weeds, finishing laundry, grocery shopping, calling the tree trimmer/landscaper for an estimate and the masonry guy to set a date to fix our chimney, and maybe making a lowe's trip to get the water rebate toilets (and maybe mulch, and maybe light fixtures to add on the back of the house).  here's to productivity and trying not to sleep in too terribly late.

green thumb in training

i planted my little herb planter garden last night!  i planted from plants this year - maybe next year i'll brave seeds, depending on how this year's expedition goes.  we now have cilantro, sage, sweet basil, onion chives, and rosemary growing in a lovely green planter.  it's a little more crowded than i thought it would be, so i may have to separate them at some point.  again, we'll see.  i'm so excited for a summer full of tasty cooking, though!  especially the basil and rosemary - yum.  i saw an article a few months ago suggesting that you cut long sections of rosemary, strip the herby leaves, and use the wood as skewers for kabobs.  i'm not sure my rosemary will get big enough for that this year (it's a perennial, so hopefully i won't kill it this season), but how lovely does that sound??

when our friends jordan and miranda moved to minnesota, they gave us their railing-mount plastic planter.  i dumped out the soil last night, cleaned it up, and am spray painting it the same cappucino color as our shutters, with plans to mount it on the iron railing in front of our front door with some pretty flowers in it!  i have a notoriously brown thumb, so i'm not sure how my forays into gardening will go, but i'm mildly optimistic.  i also have plans to start a mini garden in a bare patch in our lawn next to the back patio - cherry tomatoes and zucchini are currently what i'm planning, but i may branch out.

oh, after pictures of the roof project are finally posted on facebook!  (as well as an early look at my gardening attempts.)

overview

ooh la la, a non-bargain-hunting post!  as i find the boundaries provided by numbering things comforting, i'll do list form (also to keep my verbose narrative in check):

1. we officially have our camping reservation for yellowstone in august!  plus, i spent the morning reading my frommer's yellowstone guide, and i'm getting steadily more excited.  there's just so much to see and do, i'm starting to wish we'd planned more than three to three and a half days there.  our campground is near the grand canyon of the yellowstone, and near the upper and lower falls, which are two of the things that i'd most hoped to see.  it's going to be challenging to balance getting out and hiking and experiencing the nature of the park with driving and wanting to see everything because it's all so cool and beautiful.
2. whoops, went onto facebook to find a link and got totally distracted!  our friends zach and casey, who were our first friends in denver, are moving to africa to work with friends at the recreation project.  their website explains it better, but basically uganda has tons of kids (and adults) really emotionally scarred from the history of war in their country and from being forced into fighting, so they're building a ropes course and sports rec leagues as a sort of recreational therapy, to help the kids channel their aggression and competition and passion into constructive things, and help build leadership.  we went to a fundraising bowling night last night to see them before they leave.  (we haven't seen them as a couple in ages, and casey and i haven't hung out since we both left our first apartment complex, but scott and zach still play poker, watch football, and do the occasional sports team together.)
3. in celebration of being alone in the office today, i had a diet coke with lunch (which i just finished drinking now, four hours later - i'm a slow drinker), and i've totally got the post-caffeine jitters.  i hate that feeling.
4. scott and i pulled our first weeds of the season yesterday.  we do have some more to do, but thankfully it's way less bad than last year - i'm hoping that if we start early, we can keep it under control and not have a thistle forest in our sideyard by mid-june.  we're also planning to call our tree trimmer who also does general landscaping work to get a bid on taking out some dead aspens and pulling out one of our dead-bush-and-dirty-river-rock areas so that we can start making our yard look pretty.  (it desparately needs new weed barrier and bushes, and we're debating whether to clean up the river rock or switch it out with mulch - either the traditional wood stuff or the rubber stuff.)  we're undecided how much to do ourselves vs hiring someone else to do ... it's just so much easier to write a check to someone else, but also obviously more costly.  also, we're excited to start re-planting trees this year!
5. tonight is my last night of tutoring gerardo.  (actually, not tutoring - it's the end of year celebration/dinner.)  he's ending 5th grade, which means that next year he starts middle school.  whiz kids is thinking of opening up a middle school tutoring site in the area since there are so many 5th graders moving up, but i'm not sure if he'll continue with it next year.  we shall see - it could be my last night with him ever, or i could get three more years!  (when i asked him about it last week, he said that he wants to not do it so that i can stay with the elementary school kids and tutor his little brother, who'll be in first grade next year.  how sweet is that??)

putting off cleaning

walden it is! in thinking of names for the forester, i had been circling around trying to find something naturey, or foresty ... i was trying to think of famous forests and thought of the schwarzenwald (black forest) in germany, but felt it too multisyllabic, thought of the word wald (pronounced "vald" auf deutsch) which means "forest" but it was too foreign, thought of thoreau and walden pond in passing through the walt whitman thing, but nothing was sticking. then my dad (i assume the steve is you, dad? i don't think i know any other steves who would read my blog and comment) left the comment: "For a name, how about Walden? Brings to mind Thoreau, Walden Pond, and quiet contemplation. A forest can also be quiet and contemplative. Hmm, isn't "wald" the German word for forest?" yes! perfect! thank you for bringing it all together for me. so, walden it is, wally for short.

other highlights of the weekend ... on friday night we watched "fireproof"! it was actually really good - it certainly had a fair amount of cheesiness, but i thought the story it told made up for that. if nothing else, it did a great job portraying real marriage and how necessary faith is for true reconciliation and growth. scott liked it too, and afterward thanked me for making him watch it. (we watched "the wrestler" a few weeks ago, which i just found very depressing and lacking hope, so scott told me i could pick whatever movie i liked next time around - i said "fireproof", and scott groaned.) i can't guarantee you'll like "fireproof", but if nothing else, i think it gives a good perspective and food for thought. (christianity today has a good review of it here.)

yesterday was some errands in the morning, followed by a lot of yardwork - doing little bits and pieces at a time, it's easy to forget in the meantime quite how much work there is to do ... but there's a lot. especially since i think we'll just have to pull out all of the river rock in the front, pull up the 40 year old weedbarrier, get the area cleaned out, and just start over. we're still debating mulch vs. washing out and reusing the existing rock. i like the look of mulch, but we already have the rock, and if you use wood mulch, you have to remulch every year, which gets pricey. we'll see. i decided yesterday that while the landscape designer gave us a 5-year plan, it'll probably be more like a 10 year plan. also, i decided that we can never move since we will have things here exactly as we like them ... and i'm never doing this much work on a house again. if we have more than 2 kids, they'll just have to share rooms. sorry, future children.

last night, we headed up to boulder to meet scott's good college friend loren and his wife jess for dinner and hanging out. they're full time missionaries with campus crusade in central asia, in ft. collins for the summer to help with some training; it was really fun getting to catch up with them and hear all about life and ministry over there. then this morning was the ground breaking for our church's new building, so the service beforehand was a lot of vision for the church and new people at mission hills sharing what god's been doing in their lives. it was really neat, and very encouraging. we stuck around for the lunch/hang out time after the ground breaking, which ended up being really fun - a lot of our friends were out of town or just left early, so we ended up getting to catch up with several couples that we know but don't see often. it was a good time!

i really need to go work on getting the house cleaned up a little bit ... scott's dad's flying in thursday night for them to start their roadtrip out to omaha (for the college world series) on friday, and i don't think he'd appreciate the current mildewy state of our bathtub. also, our entryway somehow invariably becomes a magnet for stuff, so we probably have 10 pair of shoes scattered around there, plus a few bags, some books, paper towels, and tools from putting in our new wireless doorbell. yikes.

long weekend

bah! i had to stay at work until 5pm, and i was not a happy camper. just me and one coworker most of the day, and then he left at 3:30 ... the last call that came in was at 1:15 (out of 5 calls total all day - two of which were solicitors, and none of which were important). however, for the next three days ... FREEDOM! hoorah! tonight we're cleaning the house, tomorrow a.m. is helping friends move, tomorrow p.m. we're hosting an event/bbq for our sunday school class, then sunday and monday no plans! (except for likely yard work.)

even better: tonight for dinner, i'm making finally making a lemon pepper shrimp scampi with orzo recipe that i've been moving around the calendar for two months now.

free trees

intriguing! i was googling around just now see if there are any tree giveaways in the area, and while i didn't find any that apply to me, i did find a website called www.freetreesandplants.com. while i'm an optimist, i'm also a skeptic, and immediately thought it seemed too good to be true - particularly since they use "sheltered workshops" with disabled workers, so in addition to cheap plants you also help workers with disabilities - but i think it actually is true! (i googled the website names and found a few gardening boards that mentioned having success with it.) for an $8 processing/shipping fee (per plant), they'll send you "free" trees, shrubs, perennials, bulbs, whatever. they seem to have a pretty good selection, as long as you're not too terribly picky. i'm guessing the plants are pretty small, but i might be willing to give it a shot!

the plan

isn't it pretty? slightly overwhelming at first glance, i know, but let me see if i can give you a little walk-through.

along the very back is our lovely new retaining wall, and directly in front of that you can see some sort of ghosted circles - those are our russian olives. for existing plants, he drew an "x" in the middle, for stuff he wants us to add, there's a "+" in the middle of the plant. fluffy (deciduous?) trees are circles, evergreens are more star-shaped, and the bigger the circle, the bigger the tree - the circle represents the diameter of the mature tree canopy at the fullest point.

what else ... the covered patio and shed on the side are already there, and the sidewalk from the patio to the front of the house is not - it runs through what is currently a very weedy rock bed. seriously, there have got to be 100+ giant thistles in there. (we're working on that.) the front yard shape is pretty much the same as what we currently have, and the back yard is similar, but curvier. the front stoop isn't nearly that cool right now - he wants us to remove the iron railing along the front of it, move it up flush with the front line of the house, and add steps down the front with a little pavestone pad to make the front more accessible. pretty much any plant that is labeled is something he wants us to add, and i think most of the lines showed up where he pointed from the name to where the plant goes. (let me know if you have any other questions.)

and then there's the price sheet for the plants, which i think is downright comical. we did get a few coupons for free plants from the nursery, but i think we'll maybe do the plants in the front yard this year, and save the back yard for next year. he also wanted us to mulch the front - it's currently rock - and we're definitely debating the merits of that. on the one hand, we already have the rock, but on the other, the rock is way full of weed seeds (which is hard to remedy), and we'd have to pull it all out to replace the 40 year old broken down weed barrier underneath anyway. we'll see.

fresh start!

hello, new blog!

i really feel as though i should have something spectacular and inspiring or earth shattering to say to break in the new site, but really, i've got nothing. on to business as usual, i suppose. our landscape plan came in the mail last night! i meant to bring it to work today to scan, but in my usual rush to get out the door in time to get to work three minutes late, i forgot it on the kitchen table. tomorrow, i promise. i still like the landscape plan, and i also like that i feel free to swap out plants as my aesthetic tastes and pocketbook desire - for instance, he suggested a globe blue spruce shrub where we had taken out the ginormo pine tree in front of our house, to compliment the blue spruce tree we have growing on the other side of the driveway. i get it, but i'm not sold, so last night i was looking at things like dwarf boxwoods online.

along with the landscape plan, though, came a price sheet for the plants he recommended ... $3800. just for the plants and trees! labor for them to plant the plants is another $2400. that doesn't include removing the current plants and rocks, or laying a new weed barrier or edging or buying/laying mulch or anything like that. a) he recommended a heck of a lot of plants, and b) i think their prices are a smidge inflated. we stopped at home depot last night, and as i was looking around to get an idea for prices (this was before the nursery's price list came), and i saw an autumn blaze maple, which was a tree he'd recommended for the front yard. home depot's price was $60 - the nursery's price was $450. granted, the nursery gives you a one year warranty with the purchase of their plants (two if you pay them to plant them), and maybe there's a size difference in what you're buying ... but by my calculation, i could buy seven home depot maples for the price of one nursery maple. i'm just saying. so i think we'll be shopping around for the plants we decide to go with for now.