So, it has been a little over 5 years since we moved into our house.  When we first bought it, all the rooms were hideous colors and the kitchen was in desperate need of a make over.  Well, we took care of the color issue for the most part.  We still need to paint the office, but since that will be Jack’s room in a few years, he can pick the color when he moves in.  The kitchen is still God awful, but that’s just not in the budget right now.  One of the biggest projects I wanted to tackle when we moved in was the front and back yards.  In the front yard we basically have a shit load of jasmine bushes and some ugly bushes.  Part of the year we have some lilies that bloom.  I hate lilies!  Well, the other day we were out trimming the ugliest of the ugly bushes.  It is the one that happens to be totally blocking the kids window and is taller than our house.  Anyways, rather than trimming, I said what the hell and just started cutting it down.  I guess that was the jumping off point.  We have finally fixed our sprinklers so hopefully our lawn will come back nice and pretty.  We will most likely have to throw some seed out there too since our lawns have never actually looked good.  The next step will be to take out the dreaded jasmine bushes.  Don’t ask me why we decided to do this in the middle of summer when it is God awful hot, but hey, at least it’s getting done!!  I think one of the hardest parts is that we only have so much room in our yard waste cans and we don’t really have a way to haul a big load down to the dump so we are just doing a little at a time.  Now we just need to decide what do do with all the empty space we will have.  It is already nicely edged with some pretty bricks.

For the back yard, this will be an even bigger project!!!  In the fall when it starts to cool down, we are going to tear down the “sunroom”  This is a “room” that the previous owners built by using two carport frames, some tarps, some plywood, and some lattice.  Oh, and to keep it from leaking where it is butted up against the house, they used pool noodles.  I shit you not.  They actually used pool noodles!!!  Up until now it has been fine for storage, but it is starting to leak and it has always looked like we were living Arkansas with a guy and a banjo.  Soooo, come this fall, it is coming down!!!  In its place I will be building 4 raised garden beds.  I’m really excited about teaching the kids all about where our food comes from and maybe it will encourage them to actually eat something if they grew it.

The backyard is also home to a dead lawn that Lunchbox uses as his shitter.  Well, we are thinking of just tilling it all under and putting down some fresh sod.  when we moved in the lawn was sort of green, but it was mostly weeds that got mowed down every so often.  I’m hoping we can get the dog to take his business elsewhere, but that may be hard.  To finish it off back there, I was thinking of doing a playhouse for the kids for Christmas.  Shhhhh, don’t tell Pat!!!!