The World's Ugliest Yard

Let me start out with: When we were house hunting years ago, we had been renting a house with a swimming pool. This are gets hot during the summer. My husband thought it was the ultimate need to have a swimming pool. I didnt. I thought it was the ultimate need to have a decent backyard and a family room. He won.

Unfortunately our pool is not heated. And I dont swim altho I do like a pool - but I have minimum temperature degrees for the water. And over the years we have lived here, the weather has changed a little bit.

As our kids got older, they used the pool less and less. Especially since it wasnt heated.

Our dogs have always loved it.

This the stump and all the roots my husband was determined to dig out yesterday. One of the first years we lived here we started going to the annual Harvest Festival. And at one of the smallest and quirkiest wineries (the first few years it was great to go there later in the day - by that time the wine maker had been sampling enough of his wine that he would take people on a free barrel room - about the size of most garages! -tour and give out FREE barrel room tastings! Alas, it is not like that anymore....Anyway, all the wineries have other things going on at their sites. And this one had a nursery with plants. And since we had (and still have) the ugliest yard, we bought some.

This bush was the last one left. And my hubby started hating it when he found out that pruning it released this noxious cloud of something that would get into his lungs and make him wheeze and cough for hours....we hired someone and thought they understood to get rid of it....all they did was cut it back.

So since it hasnt bloomed yet (and it was truly lovely when blooming) hubby decided it was time for it to go.....and probably a good thing when we encountered these roots! Some of the root system is probably still in our neighbors yard and in the field behind us! But at least it hadnt gotten to the pool yet!

This house started out with 5 - YUP FIVE!! - palm trees. We had one cut down. At a very reasonable price. But after the guys discovered all the nests and rats and all in it- the price wen sky high. So we only cut the one down. We tried Craigs List - free if youcome dig it out and cart it off (the 3 in the front yard are prettier then this one) but no takers.

The fence the ivy grows thru and pops the wood and ruins the lattice....That reminds me, I need to email the school again...

My lilac bush in the back which will not be touched. But that section to the side is where we took out the 3 rose bushes that had turned into a forest!! And over where the blue barrels are is where we are going to make a container/raised veggie garden.

Ow! OR I hate ivy!

Spent about 4 hours in the backyard this AM. Cleaning up weeds and all.
We have the world's ugliest backyard and absolutely no idea how to make it better without spending thousands of dollars on it.

You can tell it is spring, when there is green back there - cause it means there are lots of weeds!
So we got rid of that. Cut back a lot of ivy that is always growing thru our fence from the %&$#$#$&^ school behind us. Also pulled up a heckova lot of ivy runners.

Hubby dug out a bush he hates. And that took forever becuase it had the biggest roots I have ever seen - especially since the cirumference of the bush wasnt that big! That end of the yard had some of the biggest ivy roots I have ever seen.

We are going to build a container/raised bed for veggies. And then build out and up the narrow little bed along the back fence. I am envisioning some small rose trees (since we can grow roses very well) with maybe some sort of ground cover.

I reluctantly pruned my lilac bush - apologizing the entire time. The dog and the birds are still mad at us for taking out the old rose bushes that had run rampant. Not sure what we will eventually put over there - one idea at a time!

My hands hurt so badly and my neck and my back....

Bras For The Cause

Boy - the time if flying by - Easter is over - it will soon be Mother's Day! And my Bras For the Cause Walk! Am decorating my bra ....and have seen photos of some people who have been doing this walk in SO CA for several years - and boy, are they creative!!!

If you make the photo larger - maybe you can read it - but this is exciting to see this banner!

I dont know - I keep reading the ticker that they are hoping to raise $100,000 and they are capping the walkers at 500!!! So they might not take any walk ins that evening.

We are doing a raffle at work - we have 5 baskets to raffle off - several of us put together different baskets for this raffle - and most of us have bought tickets cause we want each others baskets!

Easter

Connor in our Easter Egg hunt

Jack mad at me for taking his photo

Jack checking out the eggs he found...

Big boy Luke!

Well, we really appreciate the purchase I made of the Kitchenaid stand mixer last year! And the outrageously priced pasta attachment we bought this year! It made making pierogies so much faster - maybe 3 hours compared to 8+ hours in the past!!!!!! So guess I wont be taking the attachment back after all....

So we were able to go watch t ball on Saturday and find a European deli which had excellant sausage (even I liked it!)

I took a photo of the table, with the Easter baskets, on top of my gorgeous 'new' tablecloth and somehow I must have deleted it! Found this gorgeous tablecloth and 6 nakpkins at the thrift shop for $20 - and turned into an Italian mama and put plastic over it and it was perfect for Easter. Looks like dozens of the same linen/embroidery (with flowers) hankies interspersed with lace squares and then a lace border. Will have to post a photo later.

Yay!

My internet withdrawal is over!
Took my laptop in Monday and they told me the harddrive was gone....not fixable...nothing retrievable. Thank goodness I had all the important things saved to an external hard drive. Now it is just details I will have to re-create.

And yesterday hubby brought home a new laptop for me....boy, my other one was truly a dinosaur! I am still getting to know this one and am loving it - altho still struggling with the bright red color.

And so far I have only heard a minimum of "I told you so"s!!!!!

You know how I hate March now?

Well, April isnt going much better.

Friday AM I woke up to find a dead laptop. Crashed. Burned. Unable to bootup or down or sideways.

So there wont be much posting for awhile and yes, I am having internet withdrawal!