Wanted: One Outdoor Oasis

Hello friends,

I have been in the middle of an Appliance Apocalypse here, so bear with me.  After six long weeks, we finally got a new dishwasher, so the dry dishes in my sink no longer resemble a house of cards.  But immediately after that, our air conditioning went on the blink, resulting in the financial equivalent of another new dishwasher to repair it.  And on top of that, my washing machine decided to join in on the fun. 

Thankfully, my repair skills seem to have solved the washing machine problem.  Apparently, unplugging my washing machine essentially wiped its memory clean of all technical problems. 🙂

With the onslaught of warm weather, my mind is turning to outdoor projects, and in our case, there are many.  The yard was overgrown when we bought the house a little over a year ago, so we’ve avoided it long enough.  This year we’re going to try and whip it into some sort of shape so that we can maintain it vs. always trying to keep up with it, if that makes sense.

Let me illustrate.  Ordinarily, I love anything tufted.  Except when it’s my lawn.  And yes, we do have a lawn service.  Actually, we just canceled our service and hired a new one.  For obvious reasons…

What makes it worse, is when you look next door and see a lawn like this:

And then we have the mulch beds.  Truly.  Embarrassing.  I want to put a sign out in the yard that says, “This house isn’t abandoned and we do care about our home.  The lawn is a work in progress.  Thank you for your patience, and please don’t report us to the Homeowners Association.”  I sprayed all of the weeds with Roundup, and I’m getting quotes from landscapers for a serious spring clean up. 

On the positive side, this scraggly lawn does provide me with these, so it’s not all bad.

So, while I’m waiting to get my lawn whipped into shape, I’m dreaming of lovely outdoor spaces.  For things like outdoor dinner parties and warm summer get togethers.