Sunday, November 29, 2009
Never
We are never getting a cat. And not for the reasons you might think, or that I might have originally mentioned. I'm watching two kittens for a friend of mine. She's either finding new homes for the kittens, or a new place for her to live. Anyway, I thought it would be kind of fun for the kids since you know how I feel about animals belonging to me. It's a disaster. The kittens are fine and not a hassle at all, but boy, it's sure traumatic for Kember. They are just kittens so they startle at loud noises, and don't really like it when Kember tries to hold them. She has to chase them and it just scares them. Kember, right now, is crying hysterically for some reason. The kitty won't let her hold it, it ran away, it isn't ours...I believe all of those reason have caused quite a few tears today. She doesn't understand that she just needs to leave it alone and eventually it will warm up to her. Kember got a horsey toy for one of the cats to play with and the cat smelled it but wasn't interested and Kember started crying again. Lots of crying today...whole bunches. If this is what happens if we ever got a cat, never...not worth it at all.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Before/After
I've had requests for a blog about our new lawn (I love it...it makes me extremely happy) It's taken so long because so much else has been happening and I wanted to give it it's due. So, I'm expecting lots of comments all you people. Here is an overview of the process of our getting a new lawn. This is a picture of what it looked like when we bought the house.
Nice, eh. Mostly weeds, and the pokey kind too. The kids wouldn't play on the grass at all. What is the point of having a lawn if your kids won't play on it? Anyway...so the next project was to fix the extremely ugly tree in the front of our house. I don't love it, but we only chopped half of it off because that is the only shade we get so it needed to stay for a while. It looks loads better now that it's half it's size..JPG)
Then we tackled ugly bushes lining our driveway. Granted, we haven't done anything with this area, but that is because we are going to extend our driveway to make a two-car garage. So, it's still ugly, but the ugly bushes are gone as well..JPG)
Next, we killed our lawn. Yes, this was on purpose. I don't have a great picture of it, but we didn't need one. Dead brown grass is dead brown grass. Although it was surprisingly hard to kill. Even after we thought we killed it all it kept coming back. Never use Bermuda grass. It's actually a weed, and illegal to plant anywhere in Utah, except St George. Anyway, dead ugly grass. Rather pokey too.
Next, we tilled and pulled up the dead ugly grass. This step would not have gotten done if it wasn't for Scott, Carol Lee, and G&G C. Whew...it helped us soooo much. Thanks.
Dirt. The kids loved it. Really loved it. This stage lasted awhile because of time constraints. But after much raking, more killing of the noxious weed, leveling (which never really leveled), more raking (thanks Grandpa C), messing with, changing, and breaking multiple sprinklers, laying electrical lines for lighting, etc. it was time to lay the sod! 
Can I just tell you how wonderful it is to live on the street we do. The sod got delievered Friday afternoonish. Around 4:30 there is a knock on my door and it's my neighbor wondering if we are laying sod that night. I tell him that we are going to make a small start, but really hit it the next day when family gets there to help. He says that he and his family are ready to help and will be working on their yard until Dan gets home. Holy cow. He and his family come over, more neighbors come over and two hours later (quite possibly less) my front lawn is done. I would also like to take this time to mention what a whimp I am. His wife was hauling and dumping and laying sod and I felt rather foolish not helping (although in my defense I did have the kids, and I was making Cole's B-day cake) so I picked up some sod to take to Dan, and dropped it. Yep, couldn't even lift it. Muscles, I don't have. Anyway, it was awesome. I had planted flowers a day or two before, and it just looks great. My sister called after I planted the flowers and wondered why I was planting flowers in October. Well, it was 80 degrees. Why not? We just barely started the Fall season here. Plus the flowers were way cheap at Wal-Mart, and if I had new grass I wanted the rest to look nice as well. And so here (drum roll please) is the finished result.
Nice, eh. Mostly weeds, and the pokey kind too. The kids wouldn't play on the grass at all. What is the point of having a lawn if your kids won't play on it? Anyway...so the next project was to fix the extremely ugly tree in the front of our house. I don't love it, but we only chopped half of it off because that is the only shade we get so it needed to stay for a while. It looks loads better now that it's half it's size.Then we tackled ugly bushes lining our driveway. Granted, we haven't done anything with this area, but that is because we are going to extend our driveway to make a two-car garage. So, it's still ugly, but the ugly bushes are gone as well.Next, we killed our lawn. Yes, this was on purpose. I don't have a great picture of it, but we didn't need one. Dead brown grass is dead brown grass. Although it was surprisingly hard to kill. Even after we thought we killed it all it kept coming back. Never use Bermuda grass. It's actually a weed, and illegal to plant anywhere in Utah, except St George. Anyway, dead ugly grass. Rather pokey too.Next, we tilled and pulled up the dead ugly grass. This step would not have gotten done if it wasn't for Scott, Carol Lee, and G&G C. Whew...it helped us soooo much. Thanks.Dirt. The kids loved it. Really loved it. This stage lasted awhile because of time constraints. But after much raking, more killing of the noxious weed, leveling (which never really leveled), more raking (thanks Grandpa C), messing with, changing, and breaking multiple sprinklers, laying electrical lines for lighting, etc. it was time to lay the sod! Can I just tell you how wonderful it is to live on the street we do. The sod got delievered Friday afternoonish. Around 4:30 there is a knock on my door and it's my neighbor wondering if we are laying sod that night. I tell him that we are going to make a small start, but really hit it the next day when family gets there to help. He says that he and his family are ready to help and will be working on their yard until Dan gets home. Holy cow. He and his family come over, more neighbors come over and two hours later (quite possibly less) my front lawn is done. I would also like to take this time to mention what a whimp I am. His wife was hauling and dumping and laying sod and I felt rather foolish not helping (although in my defense I did have the kids, and I was making Cole's B-day cake) so I picked up some sod to take to Dan, and dropped it. Yep, couldn't even lift it. Muscles, I don't have. Anyway, it was awesome. I had planted flowers a day or two before, and it just looks great. My sister called after I planted the flowers and wondered why I was planting flowers in October. Well, it was 80 degrees. Why not? We just barely started the Fall season here. Plus the flowers were way cheap at Wal-Mart, and if I had new grass I wanted the rest to look nice as well. And so here (drum roll please) is the finished result. And here is the finished result with the lighting that Dan worked really hard on.
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