see ya, november!

So the long-awaited Thanksgiving holiday was everything I'd dreamed it would be-- long and relaxing and full of family and food. Really, what more could a girl want? I had so much fun playing hostess and Statham Tour Guide Extraordinaire to my grandparents and dad. We spent Wednesday through Sunday morning in Augusta and did little more than eat, sleep (I took 2-3 hour naps EVERY SINGLE AFTERNOON. How I survived work today without one is a miracle), chat, and hang out/clean at my brother's new house. He closed on his first home on Wednesday morning! Similar to us, he picked a nice, new-ish (2005) foreclosure in a very nice neighborhood about 5 minutes from our parents' house (haaa suckaaahhh) (just kidding, I would love to live 5 minutes from my parents. Seriously). The house is in great shape in general, but it was DIRRRRTY! As in...heavy indoor smokers who left the place REEKING of their vice...silly string everywhere, including the TWENTY FOOT CEILINGS in the great room. Umm...had to hire professionals with scaffolding to clean up that hot mess. But other than that, he's going the DIY route and took advantage of lots of fam in town to help out!!

So here's his new place!! Very nice-- much larger than our house...but then, so is his income. Ha!



Here's my pretty mama, vacuuming baseboards.

Jake patching holes in the kitchen as Poppie supervises and takes care of Goliath.

When we weren't over there, we just hung out at the parents' house. Whenever Lola took a break from running like a mad dog in the backyard, which wasn't often, she would take the opportunity to look super cute in the beanbag. Once, Goliath joined her-- this is the closest I've ever seen the two of them without World War III starting!!

So I thoroughly enjoyed my six days off. Unlike my co-worker, who waltzed in to lunch today proclaiming how rested and ready to work she was after the break, I could barely convince myself to crawl out of bed today. I am counting the minutes until Dec. 23, which is the next day I get off! Luckily I have other things between now and then to look forward to...starting with DECORATING for CHRISTMAS!! Wahoo! And SHOPPING! I decided to take advantage of our sad empty "nursery" and make it happy by setting up a wrapping station in there! That way I have a nice space to wrap gifts and don't have to put everything away every time I wrap something. I'm excited to start using it!

And, just in the interest of Keeping it Real here, this is what my guest bedroom currently looks like. I'm horrified to admit that I have let it come to this, but I've been going through all my decorations and putting up what I can (we don't have our tree yet) and somehow it's just not the neatest of procedures. But I don't want to put it all back away because I hope to get our tree this week! So this is the messiest that room will ever be....and I'm putting it here for all to see. And I hope you like my poetry. :)

Well, time to get back to decorating and listening to my beloved Mariah Carey Christmas CD. That is definitely Matt's favorite part of the Christmas season...the man GROANED as I pulled out my Christmas CDs!! What a Scrooge!!!

one day more!

One more day of work, that is, until my super fabulous, long-awaited, ultra wonderful Thanksgiving Vacation begins!! I am only moderately enthused, as you can tell. On Monday around 5:00 my dad and grandparents should be rolling into Statham and I am SO EXCITED!!! We will hang out here until Wednesday morning when we'll head to Augusta to join my mom and brother and his girlfriend for the rest of the weekend. YIPPPEEE!!

So all I've been doing this week is planning and cleaning and planning my cleaning and cleaning my plans (???)...and...yeah. Not such the socialite this week, but how could I be when there are baseboards to be scrubbed and a new and fabulous cleaning product to be bought? May I introduce you to the latest member of my personal (and always growing) Swiffer family: The Swiffer Dust and Shine:

Sorry for the poor picture quality...couldn't Google Images do a better job of alerting you to which picture would be the best for ganking and putting on your blog? Geez. But alas, I am too lazy to try another one, so you will just have to go to Target on your own and purchase a bottle of this fabulous product. Dusting everything in my house was nothing short of pure delight due to the intoxicating scent of this stuff. I got the "Allergen Reducer" flavor (they also have a variety of Febreeze scents and flowery smells) and it smells like heaven ought to. It has seriously made me consider taking up huffing...isn't that what it's called when you get high off of aerosol stuff? Whatever, I'm just saying. You should buy this stuff, it smells awesome. And it's safe to use on laminate floors, which I'm pretty excited about.

So our weekend has been pretty low-key, but we've enjoyed hanging out at home and gearing up for a week of being surrounded by people. Since we're both introverts, sometimes we have to really mentally prepare ourselves for the emotional drain of day after day of 24/7 people!! But I am so excited to do it!

I also just addressed my Christmas cards and have every intention of driving 10 minutes up the road to Bethlehem, Ga the week after Thanksgiving to mail them. I mean, living 10 minutes from Bethlehem...it seems like it'd be a crime not to get that Bethlehem postmark on my Christmas cards. So I hope that everyone who receives them pauses to notice that. :)

Oh yeah! I meant to mention that I did give in and buy some Mr. Clean Magic Erasers since so many people swore by them . So far I've used one of them and I have to say...I was impressed, but not blown away. I used it to clean the microwave (YUCK chore) and then several doors/doorframes/baseboards (how do those things get so dirty?? YUCK.). It did about as good as regular cleaning spray + a sponge in the microwave, but did a really good job on the door stuff...however, it died pretty quickly. It just got really dingy and started falling apart after like 20 minutes...so that was disappointing. I guess I felt like it was a little too expensive to only last 20 minutes! Anyway, I still have one more, so what should I use it on? What will really wow me? What displays its magical powers the best? And is the Magic Eraser Mop worth getting? Oh my gosh, I am such a sucker for cleaning products. LAME.

SUYL: Pets

There was no way I could pass up a Show Us Your Life dedicated to PETS!!! As you well know, as a married-but-childless couple in our *ahem* mid-twenties (I can still say that, right?), our world frequently revolves around our fur baby, Lola. We adopted her in late September of 2008 and she was about 8 weeks old and of indeterminate breed. As the Humane Society we adopted her from put it, she was destined to be yet another Georgia Black Dog...apparently there's lots of these mutts running around! She stole our hearts (although we'd been planning to get a dog for quite awhile...she wasn't an impulse purchase or anything!) and we took her home and just prayed she wouldn't be too huge.



Here's the day we brought her home. Awww.....

Oh I'm sorry, is the cuteness making your heart explode?? Yeah, me too. Here's a few more for good measure.

This must have been a few weeks later...she's bigger. And her ears got more and more lopsided!!!

Last Christmas. She LOVED laying in front of the fire and hogging all the heat!!

At Watson Mill Bridge State Park in January. We take her on all of our family trips!

And here she is, fully grown, a few months ago, dragging me on my roller blades. :) Big dogs are useful for things like that. And thank God she never got that big...she tops out around 50 pounds. Fifty pounds of the softest, silkiest fur you have ever felt. Fifty pounds of pent up labrador-something jumping on you when you visit our house. She's very smart, but the not-jumping thing is really not her forte. Yet.

Obviously I could go on and on about Lola for days...but that's probably not necessary since nearly all of my blogs do include her in one way or another (I notice that the Lola category seems to have more posts than any other!). What you may not know about me is this: I have another pet. The red-headed stepchild, so to speak... (what an awful expression, by the way...)

Quite a few years ago (approximately 2003) my roommates-at-the-time and I adopted a pair of teeny baby kitties that had been abandoned at a local vet's office. We wanted a pet and when a friend who worked at the office told us about this boy-girl pair of siblings, we immediately fell in love with them and adopted them. I mean...look at these pics from their first few days in our lives. How could you NOT love them?!?

We named them Aidan (the orange one) and Nadia (the calico)...palindromes, you may note. They were the sweetest things. As the years went by and roommates moved in and out, it ended up that I was the one left with them. They spent the first 3 years of their lives living inside our townhouse, but when I moved in with a friend who was allergic to cats, they got a quick introduction to being outside cats. This worked out pretty well for Aidan (the orange boy), but after a year or so Nadia got adopted/kidnapped (a fine line there) by some neighbors who took a liking to her. I couldn't get too mad...they actually took her to the vet and let her sleep inside (even while she was still mine!), which is more than I can say for myself at that point. :)

This was probably in 2005 or so. They were the cutest pair ever.

So for the past 3 years or so it's been just Aidan, and he still lives outside. It took us almost a week to capture him after we moved this summer...he's very skittish and only came up to our porch in the early morning and evenings, so we had to keep going back until we got lucky and caught him!! After we moved him to our new house, he disappeared for a few weeks, but as he always seems to do, he found his way home eventually. He now lives in the lap of luxury on our front porch and flowerbeds and spends most of his days roaming the woods behind the house. He and Lola have a love-hate relationship fueled by curiosity on both of their parts, so they both spend most of their time on the look-out for one another (although Aidan never comes inside and Lola is never outside off a leash). A favorite pastime for both of them is for me to open the front door (leaving the glass storm-door shut and locked!) and let them stare/bark/hiss at each other for hours on end.

So that's my family. Matt, Erika, Lola, and Aidan. What is it with people naming their pets person-names, anyway? Obviously I fall into that category, but seriously. If you didn't know they were pets, you could easily think we had 2 kids!

Join in on the fun-- do a blog about your pets! It was very enjoyable to browse through millions of pictures trying to find the *just right* ones to post! I could probably actually make a coffee table book or something out of all the kitty/puppy pics I have...somehow we just don't take as many pics now that they're "grown." Baby animals (and humans) are just so much cuter!

exclusive

First of all, I would like to state that, for the record, I had a good day today. AT WORK. I enjoyed my job today. I was smiling when I left work.

I need to get that in writing so that on other days where things don't seem quite so shiny, I can look back and remember that some days, I like it. So it's worth noting.

Now, moving on.

Apparently I am pretty hot stuff.

You may have suspected this for quite some time, but in case there were any doubters amongst you, I think what I received in the mail this afternoon should close the case.

A large black envelope. About the size, shape, and thickness of a wedding invitation. Who would send a black wedding invitation?, I wondered to myself. Oh, a black wedding invitation addressed to me...using my maiden name. My confused mail-lady wrote a big question mark next to the maiden name...bless her heart, she thinks I've been a Bates forever. But that's not important to our story. I can't wait to get inside and see what awaits me.

Well, it's not a wedding invitation. Thank goodness.

It is the verrrrrry exclusive invitation to get my very own Visa Black Card.

*gasp*

In case you're not aware of what all this entails, let me just tell you. It's all written right here on the lovely black invitation, so I'll just copy it for you. My personal commentary will be italicized like this.

GET YOUR EXCLUSIVE BLACK CARD NOW.

*Limited Membership
*24-Hour Concierge Service [okay, I'm intrigued. So you'll come to my house, day or night, and be at my beck and call? You've got my attention, Visa.]
*Exclusive Rewards Program [second time they've used the words exclusive. I'm feeling special!]
*Luxury Gifts [like what? a yacht? a 12-carat diamond from Tiffany's?]
*Patent Pending Carbon Card [ummm...why? So that eleven billion years from now, archaelogists can carbon date it and determine that I was a very important person?]
*Annual Fee $495 [WHAT???!! This better be a pretty sweet yacht, then...]

Those are some pretty convincing bullet points. Let's see what else they have to say for themselves. And I quote...

For those who demand only the best of what life has to offer [definitely sounds like me], the exclusive Visa Black Card is for you. The Black Card is not just another piece of plastic [yes, I believe we established already that it is carbon...]. Made with carbon [ahh, there it is], it is the ultimate buying tool.

The Black Card is not for everyone [hence the use of the word "exclusive," I suppose...]. In fact, it is limited to only 1% of U.S. residents to ensure the highest caliber of personal service is provided to every Cardmember. [that's why I needed to blog about this...I'm guessing the rest of you average joes are in the unlucky 99% that weren't offered this exclusive card. They must not have enough concierges to go around.]

Become a Black Card member today and enjoy our 24-hour world class Concierge Service ready to assist you with all your business, travel and leisure needs. [examples of my needs: Business-- "hey Concierge, could you wipe the snot off that kid's face?" Travel-- "Concierge, would you please confirm our reservations at my mother's house for next weekend? We want the guest bedroom with the most recently laundered sheets, please." Leisure--"Concierge, would you please map the most efficient route between yard sales in my extremely rural community? Thanks..."]

So while I obviously have a great need for this Black Card, I'm going to have to go with a no thanks, Visa. I'm not sure what formula you used to determine that I was amongst the 1% eligible for this (could it be my steller credit history with my one other credit card? the one with an average balance of $50 that is paid in full every month? clearly, I'm the type the credit card companies want!). You almost had me with your tempting offers of butler service (is that what a concierge is?) and luxurious gifts, but that $495 fee was a real turn-off. You must think I'm made of monies, and I'm not. If I were, why would I need a credit card? Wouldn't I already have my own team of butlers following me around? Let's think about it, Visa.

So...anyone out there jealous? Anyone actually a Black Card member and you want to share stories of your luxurious gifts and concierges? Anyone want to front me $500/year so I can experience it?...I promise I'll blog about all my luxurious experiences!!

unsolicited advice.

I've been meaning to mention this for weeks now-- I know no one asked, but you all need to know about the super awesome company I discovered and used for my Christmas cards!! I just wanted to do the (not very creative) photo card thing...you know, long skinny pic of me & Matt, pre-printed message on the back, done and done. So I priced them on Shutterfly (my go-to website for anything photo-related) and a few other places and discovered they were MUCH more expensive than I'd imagined! So after a few hours of searching Google, I happened upon Vistaprint. I'd never heard of it (them?), but after perusing the options and the prices, discovered it was seriously a fraction of the price of anywhere else. So since it was only early October, I decided to take the plunge and order my cards from this random webpage...figuring that if they turned out to be crappy, I still had plenty of time to get more made somewhere else!! Also, they had some SUPER cute & unique designs. So I made them, ordered them, and they were here (along with 300 address labels) in about a week and a half. 40 cards/envelopes and 300 address labels for TWENTY BUCKS, kids. I'm not even joking. I couldn't believe it. I will spend as much on the POSTAGE as on the cards! (As a reference point, every other webpage priced cards around $1.25 EACH) And they look really good...not cheap or anything. Anyway, I'm not going to post what they look like (it needs to be a surprise for you to look forward to in the mail!) but I promise they're cute. I just wanted to give some props and recommendations for yall if you're looking to get your Christmas cards (or baby announcements, or whatever) going...I figure I talk trash about plenty of companies (Comcast, anyone? Hey there, Mark!) so I may as well give equal time to companies that rock!

Check out Vistaprint! And no, I'm not being compensated for this glowing review...but if anyone from Vistaprint happens to read this and wants to pay me, I am certainly willing to discuss that. :)

therapeutic (and a story about weed)

First of all, I want to thank everyone for their wonderful comments on my previous post. Your kind words and honesty have really made my heart happy this week. Katy said "I think you've facilitated something very therapeutic for your readers!" and I agree-- it has felt really good to just unload and be honest and find that most of you can relate to that! So thanks for that.

I sometimes think about the difference in my life now and my life several years ago, before I was married and working full time. I think that one of the [few] things I miss from back then is the honest and open friendships (and abundant hang-out time) I had with my girlfriends and roommates. THAT is therapeutic! In my current life, I really never just hang out with girls. If I do, Matt and/or their husband is usually there too...which means its not really a chick hangout time. :) But what do you do? I work til 5, come home, cook dinner, spend a precious few hours with my husband, and that's it-- that's a day. I live so far away from town that grabbing coffee at night or something isn't really an option (oh yeah, I go to bed at 10pm...cause I'm cool like that)...so I really miss out on the whole hanging-out-with-a-friend thing. And I guess I miss it. So maybe that's why blogging has become so important to me...it's my surrogate girl time.

But anyway, my current week is going much better than my last one. I've actually felt genuinely positive nearly all week long, so that makes everything seem better. I've had some chats with my bosses, so I feel like work is a little better...and I keep re-reading all the sweet comments on my last post, and then I have LOTS of things to feel happy about!!

In other unrelated news, I did some decorating in my laundry room last night. Yes, I really am that cool. We'd bought these photographs and frames a few months ago and then never hung them up. They were intended for either the dining room or the kitchen, but since we could never decide on the perfect spot for them...they just sat on the floor. Anyway, last night I felt determined to actually hang them somewhere and the laundry room is just this depressing void (that you walk through every time you enter the house from the garage) and I thought it could use a little decorating. So there you have it!

If you can't tell, the photographs are all of different fruits. I think they're pretty. :) And please try not to gawk at the embarrassingly large collection of Swiffer products up on the shelf. I have a problem. And/or I shop at Sams.

And now for my story about weed(s). I'll admit, I made it singular in the subject line because I'm a Google Analytics freak and I was dying to see how many people would come to the blog by Googling 'weed.' They are going to be so disappointed!!!

So far the best thing about winter is I DON'T HAVE TO CUT THE GRASS EVERY WEEK!!! Although I love mowing...we have a HUGE yard and it had to be cut almost EVERY week or the weeds start growing like eleven feet tall (barely even an exaggeration). Anyway, I guess since we've had a few freezes, apparently the grass and weeds barely grow. SWEEEEEET. However, I happened to be walking in the backyard the other day when I noticed this BEAST. Before I reveal the beast, let me show you what most of the weeds in the yard look like (I swear this is what 90% of our "grass" is):

Okay. It's ugly, but fairly innocuous, right? Not so much this new guy. Take a look at what decided to spring up about 10 feet off the back porch:

Hmm...that looks different. What's with the whitish things on every green leaf?? Also note that this sucker is HUGE...easily a foot and a half in diameter. Upon closer inspection, you will find that the whitish things on the leaves look a little more like THIS:

In case you still can't tell, they're these HUGE, SPIKY THORN THINGS. I'm sorry I lack a more scientific name for them, but I touched them with my own bare hands to verify their hurtiness, and I can promise you they passed the test. If an unsuspecting person walked barefoot (or barepawed, as the case may be) on this sucker, they could lose a foot!!! I'm serious! This is the scariest thing ever and I'm not sure what to DO about it because it's too pokey to pull up! I guess I could always mow or something. But I'm open to other suggestions. And I do NOT want it to reproduce! Any botanists out there?

So there you have it. I apologize for the let-down to all of you who came here hoping to learn how I found therapeutic weed or something. This is just my regular, somewhat boring life, and these are the things that happen to me...decorating laundry rooms and being astonished at weeds. :) One day when I'm busy chasing my three-or-four kids around the house and never getting a moment's rest, I will look back on this blog and long for those easy, carefree days of decorating and yardwork (or not doing the yardwork, as the case may be). But until then...

...I couldn't think of how to finish that sentence. But I DID think of one more thing! I am making a list of Christmas movies to watch between now and...well, Christmas. Maybe New Years. Any off-the-beaten-path suggestions? Or they can be on-the-path suggestions. I don't have Netflix anymore, so I have to be able to find them at a video store (or somewhere online for FREE, or just on TV) easily. I plan on starting watching them soon, because I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!! Okay, peace out.

optimistical

I've decided I'm not as good at blogging when I'm not feeling optimistic. Generally I like to think of myself as a positive person. Lately, that's not always true. My job stresses me out. My lack of ability to get pregnant stresses me out. Being stressed...stresses me out. Stress makes work harder. Stress affects your ability to get pregnant. This is a vicious cycle. It's hard to find the silver lining sometimes. Sometimes, dangit, I don't even want to find the bright side. Often I'd rather be sad and bitter and bratty. And I guess that's okay, in moderation. But it doesn't really feel very me.



So I'm trying to hard to be the me I tend to act like I am. Does that make sense? I usually act like a happy person. Oh, except last week at work, when I cried in front of God and my bosses and coworkers and everyone pretty much all day every day. That was fun. Let's all just forget that happened, shall we? Let's focus on the good things in life. Let's think about the time last week that I walked into the dining room (where the back door is) and noticed the blinds looking like this:

Call me crazy, but I practically fell over laughing. I wonder how that happened?? How on earth could that little peep hole have appeared? What one foot high person could have wanted to look out that window?
She looks pretty guilty to me, folks. Guilty guilty guilty.



So last Saturday I had a yardsale with my across-the-street neighbors. Have I mentioned how much I love my neighbors? They're awesome. So the Shipleys are this couple in their 60s or 70s and they're pretty hilarious. MaryAnn had been saving up things for a yardsale for awhile and asked if I wanted to join in. I didn't have much stuff since we got rid of a ton of things prior to moving, but I found a few things I could bear to part with. So we sat out on the most bipolar November day in the history of time and had ourselves a little yard sale.



Ray and MaryAnn made fun of me all day because every time they turned around I'd changed clothes, but SERIOUSLY. OK when we went to set up at 8am it was in the mid-30s, so I was wearing jeans, boots, a fleece, and a heavy coat. As we sat out and the sun warmed us up, I gradually lost the coat and fleece. Then I went inside and swapped the boots for flip flops and the long sleeved tee for a 3/4 sleeved SCOOP-NECKED tee. The scoop neck ended up being a bad choice, FYI. Three hours later I'm burning alive in the jeans and go back in to dig out some shorts. Another hour or 3 passes and I realize my whole chest is beet red...thanks, scoop neck tee. Several people asked why I didn't apply sunscreen. Funny how that didn't really cross my mind when it was THIRTY DEGREES AND ICE COVERED MY FRONT LAWN that morning. Anyway, it may seem like I'm complaining, but really the weather was beautiful and I'm not a bit sad about getting a little tan to start my winter off with!! 8 hours of yardsaling later, I was $13 richer...so I don't think I'll be quitting my day job anytime soon. But I did have a lot of fun!

Have I mentioned my grandparents are coming for Thanksgiving? As in, COMING TO MY HOUSE!!! I am so incredibly excited. They will arrive on the Monday evening before Thanksgiving. I took off Tuesday & Wednesday so I will have lots of time with them before we head to Augusta to join my fam. In order to prepare myself for their arrival, I made a somewhat detailed list of things to do before they come. In case you're wondering what it's like to be me....this is it:


And don't worry, I went over every single task with Matt and pointed out the check-off boxes and made sure he understood it was a Family List and not just for me. :) I'm sure he is THRILLED that my grandparents are coming!



Last but not least...have I showed you pics of my piano yet? I think not. It's been fun having it around and I'm slowly figuring out how to incorporate it in my decorating. I got the big vase that's in the center of the shelf thing yesterday at Kohl's and made the stick bouquet all by myself! I think its cool and creative...if you disagree, keep your opinion to yourself. :) I'm focusing on the positive things, here!!

In case you can't tell, that upper surface (above where the music is sitting) is mirrored...so that's the wall behind me and the camera flash reflecting in the mirror. It was hard to get a good picture. Anyway, I'm still trying to decide what to put on the wall above the piano...but I thought the sticks did a good job of filling some space!

So these are some of the good and fun things going on in my life. Sometimes I have to just do a mental review like this to remind myself of all the things there are to be optimistical about. And yes, I add extra word parts to the end of words just because I feel like it. I think it adds a lot to the word, actually. Optimistical. I could even spell it optimystical and that would take it to a whole 'nother level. A level I'm not even sure I can handle, so we'll leave it as it was originally.

So what are you feeling optimistic about lately? Holidays? Getting a Christmas card from me? [note: that is a perfectly acceptable thing to be excited about] Coming over to help me check things off the "Nana and Poppie are Coming!!!!" list?? *hint, hint*

lately.

I don't know why I've been so bad at updating lately. I certainly find time to read blogs...a couple weeks ago I actually started reading this one girl (a stranger, of course)'s blog from the beginning. Um, and she started it in 2005. And she writes several times a week. So, that took me quite some time, but I'm glad to say I finished the drill in true stalker fashion...without ever leaving a single comment. :)

Anyway, a lack of blogging does not necessarily mean there's a lack of things to discuss...those things just may not be interesting to anyone but me!! First of all, I was happy with the trick-or-treating turn-out last night. I have been looking for to trick-or-treaters for the whole month and was glad that the cold rain didn't seem to deter a good many people from stopping by. There were a few really cute kids, but a surprising number of middle school-aged kids that didn't even dress up-- boooo on you, punks! There were a few groups of older kids that were all decked out and I am happy to give those guys candy-- but you need to at least put forth the effort to dress up!! My friends and I dressed up in super elaborate group costumes well into high school (like being the whole cast of Star Wars my junior year...I was Queen Amidala, SCORE) and it was awesome! Anyway, I did give candy to even those kids that didn't dress up...the way I see it, I'd rather give you a candy bar than have you come back later and vandalize my home or yard...indeed.

I haven't uploaded or posted pics in awhile, so I have a random assortment here just waiting...let's see...

Remember when my parents came up to visit for the weekend? We spent all day Saturday braving the freezing cold wind and rain and working on the landscaping in the yard. My mom brings up tons of plants from her own yard to transplant...but we ran out of bed space and had to create several new and/or expanded beds to have a home for everything! It was hard work but very worth it-- although most of the 'new' flowers have since bitten the dust due to some early freezes, Mom promises they will come back and be beautiful in the spring!

Here's my dad plotting the spot where we're going to put a new bed. It's just a spot in our front/side yard on a hill where the grass (weeds, let's be honest here) doesn't grow well. Anyway, this is as close to a 'before' picture as I have!

And here's the new bed after it's done! That will be a Rose of Sharon bush/tree thing (although right now it just looks like a tall stick), and there's all kinds of lilies and other pretty things all around it. And a few pansies for good measure...so EVERYTHING won't look dead all winter!

This bed we just expanded. You can see where all those canna lilies are clustered around the mailbox...when we made this bed right before we moved in this summer, we did it from the driveway over just to the left of the mailbox (where the lilies stop is about where the bed stopped). So we just expanded it to the left and back to make it larger and more symmetrical...I forget what all kind of things we planted, but I'm sure one day it will look fab!

This is what happened right after I wrote my last post regarding our septic tank troubles...this big honkin truck!! This was a very expensive but educational Saturday day afternoon...I must say, I insisted on watching every step of the procedure (including looking into the very full tank) and after that, I had absolutely no problem writing these guys a check. They EARNED it. I'm not sure I've ever earned a dollar quite the way they did. :) What a nasty job...but what nice guys! Nice enough to explain every single thing they did to me and let me take pictures of them every step of the way. :) (Don't worry I really have about 15 pics...I'll only bore you with 2 though.)

Yikes. Here's the holes they dug. (Note to Jolene: the guy in the reddish shirt is the one that is Tato's twin)

But let's not dwell on that nastiness for long. Look at the pretty flowers my husband brought home for me on Thursday!! Please notice how nicely they coordinate with my fall placemats (yard sale score)! These are hydrangeas and gerbera daisies in fall colors...basically the fall version of my all time favorite flower combination. My wedding flowers were blue hydrangeas with yellow gerbera daisies, since it was summer. It's safe to guess that if I'd had a fall wedding, this is what my flowers would have looked like!

Finally, I bring to you what I saw today at the pet store and what is quite possibly the most necessary things on Earth. A Snuggie for your dog. Please tell my why I don't need one of these in every color for Lola. Poor thing just isn't comfortable enough curled up in our bed with all the blankets in the world. However, isn't the selling point of human Snuggies the fact that there are just so many things you can't do while using a regular blanket...like talk on the phone, read a book, etc...so you need the Snuggie?? How does that play out with the dog Snuggie?? As far as I know, when Lola is curled up on the couch...that's all she's doing. She's not trying to multi-task her slothing. I don't know. Something makes me think this dog Snuggie thing is not going to really stand the test of time...also, what is the "but wait, there's more!!" to really draw you in (like the Bonus Book Light!!!!!!!!!!!)? A Bonus Bone Light? So she can chew a bone in the dark?? Hahaha. Toy Light? Because playing with toys in the dark is incredibly challenging. Oh you Snuggie people, what will you think of next.

Well I think that is enough for now. I can't believe it's November already. And I can't believe tomorrow is Monday. That's enough to ruin your Sunday night. Ugh!