Busy, Busy, Busy

Hello all! It has been crazy lately. First of all, we have been very busy in the garden. Scott got the lawn mowed a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who do not have bermuda grass, you may not realize what a pain this is the first time of the year. You have to "scalp" the grass to promote green growth, and because it is so much dried up grass, we always bag it. We took about 8 bags of grass to the inert landfill this time around! Then, we went to the Grower's Outlet out here in Loganville and got great deals on some very pretty plants for our gardens. There are pictures that I will add in. Also, Lauren and I got together one evening and did some container gardens. I had my hanging basket from last year, which had been in the back yard and she had a long pot that she had from when they were in Kentucky for Seminary. So, we planned to get together and create our masterpieces and it was quite fun! Scott and I went to the store to get a shepherd's hook for the front garden, and the only one we liked had two hooks and two detachable ones as well. So, I ended up doing two hanging baskets! I am quite pleased with them. Lauren seemed pretty happy about hers too! I got all the stuff we purchased at the Grower's Outlet planted one day when my boss let me off early (I also received some spider or ant bites that last for over a week and a sun burn, but that's part of it, I guess). This weekend, we worked on staging the house and purchased the stuff to do 7 more container gardens: 3 for the front porch and 4 for the back porch!

Secondly, we have been working really hard to get our house ready for the professional photographer that is going to come. We really like the girl who came out to help us stage the house. Her name is Tasha Moody and she owns her own business called The Simply Staged Home. She had lots of good suggestions and she was really nice. I know that you will all be surprised, but Scott and I are pretty cheap. I have been wanting to buy things like greenery to put in various places since we moved into this house in 2004. But, whenever I look at the prices, I think "no way". It's so expensive! Well, a lot of what you need to stage a home is fake greenery, plain white, cream, or taupe towels, and lamps. Most of our towels are colors because I like colors. So, I have been going to all the stores like TJ Maxx, Ross, Old Time Pottery, Hobby Lobby, and Garden Ridge and spending lots of money on all these things that I was too cheap to do before. And, it hurts, I am telling you. The good part is that we will have all this stuff to make our new house look nice in a month or so (praying that it's God's will).

Right now our house looks like all the rooms threw up into the living room because we have been pulling things out to go to Goodwill and storage and putting it all in the living room. By the way, does anyone want a dark (almost navy) blue large Bible cover? I bought one to go on a Bible that I wanted to buy Scott for Christmas a few years ago, then, I could never find the right Bible, and now, his Bible is smaller than the cover and he doesn't even use a cover! So, let me know soon, or we're taking it to goodwill!

Once we get everything done, we'll post pictures. I haven't taken pictures of my container gardens yet, so I'll post those later!

Lastly, my hard drive died last week! Scott came home on Monday and got home before me since I went somewhere after work (shopping, I think) and was studying for his Cisco exam. He tried to print a notecard and it didn't work. So, he looked at my computer and the hard drive was mostly dead. So, he pulled as much stuff as he could off the hard drive and went on Tuesday at lunch and purchased a new and improved hard drive. Luckily, we had just made a back up on March 15, and a lot of the files were able to be recovered, so I didn't lose that many pictures. I am just thankful that I have an in-house IT guy! And, he is good-looking on top of all of that!

Here I am after all my hard work. Yes, that is dirt all over my face. It itched and I had to scratch it...but my hands were dirty...so that's how that happened. I attract dirt like a tv attracts dust!

Here is what I planted out by the mailbox. There are "Miss Huff" Lantana and a Clematis to climb up the mailbox post. I hope it does really well!

Here is the front garden on the right side. The left side is pretty full, as long as the calla lilies I planted last year come back. But, over on the right side, I planted gladiolus (the tall things in the back), daylilies (I think they are going to be pink), and pink zinnia. In the hanging baskets, we put a fuschia geranium and wave petunias around that. Those big green things lining the walk way are De'Oro lilies. They are HUGE this year! I can't wait until they bloom! Oh, and I also planted a clematis under the shepherd's hook. I hope it grows fast!

This is an up-close picture of the clematis that I planted under the hanging baskets on the shepherd's hook.

These two pictures are what I did in the back yard (I took them before I put in pine straw, so it looks a little ugly). We planted that crepe myrtle 2 years ago, but it hasn't grown much because of the drought. But, in front of it, I planted the same daylilies as up front and some gladiolus.

So, just look at that picture at the top! Who wouldn't want our house? Don't you want to buy it?