Going Private

We've been getting some weird comments on our blog lately so we're going private. If you email me your email address then I can add you to be able to view our blog. I don't know if it has to be a gmail account to work. Email me your email address even if it's not a gmail account and I will try and add it.

What we've been up to....

For the past month each Saturday Blake and I have been working diligently in our front and backyard. Our backyard isn't landscaped and it has a dreadful drop off to the perimeter fence. To make this less severe we've been building a retaining wall to build up the slope and then we'll be able to sod the backyard. The front yard did come landscaped but I've moved a few plants and planted some new ones to spruce it up.




We did have the smallest strip of grass when we moved in, but we decided to make it wider with some more sod.



As you can see we have a few different colors of sod right now. The kind of grass is all the same, but the age of the grass is different. We'll be fertilizing it this week.



We have the Verizon box and sewer box on our property. So I planted some hydrangeas and a flower pot in the area to lessen the look of them.



Before-not to many plants. Just our maple tree and burning bushes by the front door.


After-a mini rhododendron, azalea, and a few ornamental grasses later

Backyard pictures to come in a few weeks.

The little things in life....

Lately I feel like when it rains it pours...and not just because we live in Seattle. I haven't been feeling to well the last few weeks. I thought it was just the stomach flu that was going around, and Blake thought it was stress, but when it wasn't getting any better I thought I should go see my doctor. The one great thing about my internist is she is very thorough and never overlooks any possibilities of what could be going on. The downside to her is that she sends you home with homework. I had 6 things on my homework list this time. I won't bore you with all the details about the list, but the number one thing read no dairy or wheat products for 2 weeks. My first thought was "how hard could that be?!" So today was day one. My morning started out with oatmeal with no milk. It was okay. Then for lunch a salad; not to bad. Then for dinner, well since I had practically nothing that was wheat and dairy free but another salad I chose to have some lentil and potato curls. They were actually fairly good but seriously this sucks! I stopped by Trader Joes on the way home and was able to find some rice pasta and rice tortilla shells that didn't look half bad, but the loaf of bread was a different story. It looked like oversized croutons. The lady tried to convince me that the bread wasn't all that bad, but I could see right through that lie. Just when I thought I had accomplished day one without any wheat or dairy, I was informed by Blake that my red vines that I was so happily consuming this evening had wheat flour in them. I thought he was joking at first, but believe it or not there in the ingredients it was....the dreadful WHEAT FLOUR. I never realized how unpleasant celiac disease was until today. Hopefully my celiac panel will come back negative so I can go back to enjoying the foods I love. I'll keep you posted how it goes.

Going green isn't always easy!

We've been in desperate need to purchase a lawn mower, so I finally convinced Blake to come with me to pick on out. We've talked a lot about the pros and cons to self propelled mowers, electric mowers, and the momentum mowers (you determine the momentum and they don't require fuel). So there we were standing in Lowe's comparing prices, and I decided I definitely wanted to purchase the Fiskars momentum lawn mower. Blake tried to talk me out of it saying that I would probably hate that it doesn't have a bag to catch the clippings, but I insisted that it would be better because we're reducing our carbon footprint, and that the clippings couldn't be that bad. Boy did I eat my words! First of all the momentum portion of the mower is a lot harder then I had anticipated it. Blake soared through the lawn without a problem, but it was a little more of a challenge for me. Also because our grass had gotten so long the clippings went all over the driveway. Solution to the problem....keep moving the mower and don't stop because it's hard to get going again, and the solution to the grass clippings going everywhere...vacuum them up with the shop vac. Growing up my mom used to vacuum up the leaves in our grass with her shop vac and it used to embarrass me when the neighbors saw her doing it. Don't worry not only did I do what I swore I never would, but I also felt a little embarrassed when someone drove by so I would act as if I was vacuuming out the car and then return to my grass clipping task when they weren't looking. The end result of the grass was beautiful. We're going to continue to use our momentum mower and not through in the towel quite yet. Who knows I could get really strong from mowing the lawn, and grow to appreciate all the things my mom taught me; even the crazy things.

Tricks of the Trade

My mother in law filled me in on the best kept secret...how to get your whites really white, as in no armpit stains, or dingy whitish t-shirts from them being old. I must admit I was slightly skeptical at first, but this is genius and it works so well. After I tried it I was so excited that I went searching the house for more whites to beautify. The recipe is:

1 gallon of hot water
1 cup of powdered dishwashing soap
1/2-3/4 cup of bleach

Put the ingredients and your whites into a plastic bucket and soak for 1 hour. Once the hour is up put the clothes and the water the clothes were soaking in, into the washing machine and wash with hot water on the white cycle. Don't add laundry soap to the clothes. I know weird right?, but I'm telling you PURE MAGIC!

Trip to Utah

I recently went back to Utah to visit some friends and family. Two of my college girlfriends had babies over the past few months, so I flew into Utah from Seattle and our other college girlfriend flew in from Minneapolis to have 5 days of girl time. It was so nice to see the new babies and for the 4 of us to spend time together. Our last night together we went to the Legally Blonde musical. It was great! Maybe we all thought that because we all love the movies, but the musical was surprising better than expected. While being in Utah I was also able to visit some family and spend some time with them. It was nice to see them and it reminded me how much I miss living closer to Blake's siblings and our niece and nephews. I guess we'll have to visit Utah more often.

How ugly are these headbands?!!! We had fun doing a little headband fashion show in Forever 21