Last day of freedom

Well, today is my last day of freedom before I go back to work. I have thoroughly enjoyed my summer off and was really glad my husband convinced me not to pick up a summer job. I definitely stayed busy enough getting everything done around the house and really loved having so much time to spend with my husband, parents, animals, everything.

Today I rescued a cherry tree, so it's time to start researching them. My local garden center has a TLC section for plants that have seen better days and after this summer, the section was pretty full. I found this little cherry tree for only $7.99, originally $39.99. She has a lot of dead branches but the stem (trunk?) seems sturdy enough and still has some leaves trying to grow. I gave her a pot with some nice rich soil and placed it in a cauldron so the water can slowly soak up into the roots and give her back some life.

The pink hallway is also officially gone! We purchased a telescoping rod ...thing...from Home Depot as well as a corner and edge piece that could be screwed onto the rod. We actually managed to get the entire entrance way using this method without having to get up onto a ladder. It looks fantastic and so open and clean.

We also replaced the outside light fixtures, so I will have to get pictures of those to post.

Getting the Grill

Today was fun and exciting :) For the past two weeks or so my parent's have been offering to buy Scott a grill, but we haven't told him. Today we woke up and went shopping under the guise of getting shoes for an upcoming wedding as well as some odds and ends for the house. We purchased new lights for the exterior of the house, filters for our AC system, and got some great ideas for flooring for the dining room and kitchen.

We ended up at Sears and brought home this baby. Scott could not have been more thrilled when we told him that we were taking home a grill today.

Of course seconds after we got the grill into the garage the skies opened and we had our second crazy thunderstorm of the summer. 70 mph wind gusts, torrential downpours and lots of flying debris.

Let's see...so Scott rides his motorcycle to work and we get storms, we buy a grill and we get storm...what else can we do to bring some rain to our poor parched land?

Pictures pictures and more pictures!

This is going to be a very heavy picture post so be prepared!

We will start the post with a picture of my dog, because I love to show her weight loss progress to the world. The cool thing is how her coloring is changing as she loses the weight. She is actually starting to show the classic Catahoula Leopard coloration which is so beautiful and fantastic.


My flowers are also blooming like crazy. The VA heat has finally calmed down a little bit and they are thriving. Here is a far view of the front of my house and a close up.









These flowers are the 4th generation from seeds that originally came from George Washington's flower garden at Mount Vernon. I interned there one year and they let me gather about 10 seeds. Well, those seeds grew and gave me 30, then 30 more, etc. I've collected about 60 seeds so far this year which makes me so thrilled. We are going to be using the flowers for a lot more of our landscaping next year.



My yard has also turned into a major hotspot for birds lately. We have a red house finch some cardinals, chickadees
and doves.




















We also had a crazy storm go through my area the other day. Of course it came through the day my husband rode his motorcycle to work. We had 70 mph winds and a fast downpour. At one point I heard a loud CRACK and looked in the backyard to see this




That was once a 40' dead tree which was covered in poison ivy. To get an idea for scale, my garden to the right of the tree is 4' by 4', and the pine trees behind it are about 20 feet.









And just for kicks here is one of my favorite pictures from our vacation to Maine this year.