Teamwork!

I'm back with a quickie little update, as I check things off my Big Ass List of things to do this summer.

Trevor recently switched his schedule around, so he officially has weekends off for the first time since 2007! As you can imagine, my head is spinning with all the things we could do. Dates, yardwork, day trips, dog park, house work, etc etc. However, he of course has his own ideas of what he's going to do, and he's finally going to finish his arcade refab. I mentioned this a MILLION years ago, but for the past year or so, that monstrosity has been sitting in my garage, taking up room from MY neglected projects. Hmph.

Anyway, he needs a place to sand/paint/build, right? Great! Lets clean the garage. Check.. Lets go to Home Depot and buy a palm sander, shop vac, and fertilizer while we're at it! Check, check, check. Guess I can't complain if I get to benefit from his purchases too!

Speaking of fertilizer, I've been working on my backyard for what seems forever (Here's an intervention-ish post froma year ago in …usually in fits and spurts and sunburns, only to get too busy to even go outside some weeks. Well, since it's on my Big Ass List, I have to put some serious effort into it, and it's looking better! Last week I mowed (twice in a month, getting more consistent!) and pruned the lemon tree.

This is what it looks like today, out my kitchen window as I did dishes:




It's definitely getting better…tonight, I'll be spreading some of this stuff on the front lawn, to get it nice and dark green.


Soon, I'll have office updates for you…an IKEA trip is in my very near future!

The Jungle: Machete time

You know, if Machete = WeedWhacker. And in this case, it does.

Remember how overgrown my backyard was a few months ago? Here's a reminder:





Well, being that I took those pictures exactly two months ago today, the yard had grown a bit more. So add a good two feet onto everything. I meant to take a picture this morning, but forgot because I only had a limited amount of time to be outside (but I'm sure shame played a small part in that oversight).

In an hour, I yanked out a bunch of weeds, and weedwacked the entire lawn. Since everything had pretty much turned into a nature preserve, at times I was concerned about a possible attack by a snake, possum, or particularly violent mama bird. But, I made it through unscathed, and have now defined where the lawn previously existed.



Isn't she helpful? Thought she'd do some digging to remove some weeds.

I left all the tall weeds in the lawn area for another day. Reason 1: The pansy .065 trim line I bought couldn't handle 1/2" stems (trunks?) Reason 2: Even if I did hack them down, our mower couldn't handle the leftovers.

So, here's the plan of attack to get this yard in BBQ party shape:
1. Pull out ALL the weedtrees. On the side of the house (behind my garden patch), within the lemon tree, in the "lanscaped" area behind everything, and on the right side of the deck.
2. Mow lawn progressively shorter and treat with turfbuilder w/ weed control and water the heck out of it.
3. Prune back lemon tree, monster lavender and palms.

After that, I should be left with a clean slate to "decorate". We'll talk flowers and groundcover and sun shades then.

Catching up

It's been a while, hasn't it? Time flies when you're working/mommying/cleaning/cooking/scrambling for cash. I feel like I'm always doing SOMETHING, and yet nothing ever gets done. I can't tell you the last time my sink wasn't filled with dishes, let alone whipped out my sewing machine.

I've been trying to spend as much quality time with baby girl as possible. With working in the morning, and Trevor leaving a mere 4hrs before her bedtime, I feel like I don't get enough quality time with the munchkin. So, while she's awake I don't clean, don't exercise, try not to watch TV, don't blog or craft. I just hang out with baby girl.

Tonight was a rough one, where she needed to be in my arms the entire time, not a single nap her entire day. I couldn't seem to provide enough milk for her, which is easily the MOST frustrating thing for a mom. At least, for this mom.

I desperately want to get in the backyard and fix it... I ran across a picture from when we first saw the rental on Craigslist, and it's laughable to think they're the same yard. But, I just don't have the time. I get crap from my family for not going back up to town, when I just desperately need someone here to help me. Someone else to hold my precious one so I can get outside and fix up my yard, or do 17 loads of laundry. Trevor and I hardly have anytime together with him picking up doubles, and the last thing I want to do is chores the few hours we have.

Sigh. It's just been a rough night, and I need a creative outlet. I'm slowly clearing out and reorganizing the office for our new desk (which I need another able body to help me lift into the house, of course). I moved all the books into the living room, into the bookshelf that still needs to be put back on top of the TV like it was before the Epic Leak of 2010. For now, this rainbow will do it for me. (Oh, notice the new paint color, and white curtains in the living room? Very nice.)

Oh, I also made this cool washable fabric basket I found from HowAboutOrange, who found it on JezzePrints. So, I didn't iron the fabric in the first place, but it's not bad for a first try! Jezze's instructions were super clear, and easy to follow. It now resides in my linen closet holding baby medicines (and nail polish). I'm going to make two bigger ones to hold all the bottles underneath my sink.

All in all, I guess I haven't been completely neglecting the home (as I promised in the last post), I just don't have time to blog about it! I work on the dining room while I can, but pretty much any other projects (quilts, gifts, bedroom, etc) have had a kibosh put on them until I can get the yard under control. I want to have a BBQ at the house for my birthday at the end of the summer, which gives me 4mo to get it under control.

Chelsea fall down, go boom.

Ow.

Yesterday I learned a really great lesson. Apparently water + painted concrete doesn't make for the most stable surface. Ugh...I had left something in the car, and the sprinklers had just turned off, so I was prepared to run out to the car. WHAM, legs in the air, landed hard on my butt, banging my back on the steps. My first reaction was concern about Delaney of course, but she's just fine, been kicking like a little soccer player.

So, I hobbled to Home Depot today, and spent a whopping $12.97 on peel-and-stick treads. Considering a trip to the ER for falling COULD cost 100x that amt, I think it was a very good investment. But, I'm sure they'd give me some pretty amazing pain killers at the ER. I can't sit today, so I'll probably get more cleaning done. Don't I have all the fun?

DIY: Home Love

Thanks to my jet-setting boyfriend, I'm going to have a bunch of alone time this next week. We've both been so busy the past few weeks, we haven't spent much time together around the house, and our many projects are suffering for it.

First things first: I HAVE to get some grooming done on the yards. Unfortunately, we don't have many yard tools, so I'll have to convince my step-dad to let me borrow some tools. You know, the big boy stuff: weed whacker, power trimmer, etc etc. I need to hack away at my rosebushes, trim the front grass, weed the backyard, COMPLETELY cut back my tomatoes and zucchini (they're a bit neglected), and trim my lavender bushes to do some of these things I found on ApartmentTherapy.



Secondly, thanks to eager friends, and my amazing shopping skills, Delaney's closet is starting to look more like a baby's closet. Unfortunately, there's still crap in there from when the guest room was a storage room/office. Most of it is electronics, and that's Trevor's scene, so I've avoided dealing with it. Add it to the fact that there's absolutely NO lighting in there, and it's a very easy space to ignore. Luckily, I picked up some shelves from FreeCycle that look very similar to these:



The plan is to recover the shelves like here, here, and here. Also, I need to get some serious lighting in there...it's a deep, huge closet, and most kids (and their mommies!) are afraid of that. The fuse box is in that closet, so there has to be a way to wire something, right? Too bad that's SO not my (or Trevor's) forte.



Isn't that dreamy? I'm trying to decide if I want to keep the door on her closet or not, it's a standard interior door size... but if I did, I could do something cool like this paint technique.

I'm getting ahead of myself, the whole point of this was listing projects I'll actually complete in the next week!

Thirdly, and this was something I wanted to complete tonight... I need to recover our dining room chairs. It's a newer Targt bar table, in dark wood, with microfiber seat cushions. However, AllieDog was bored in our first CA apartment, and chewed it up. Now, with my fancy reupholstering skills (and the fact we just got the set back from some friends who were borrowing it), I'm ready to fix them up. They currently have a light mocha color on them, and I'm just going to use the grey microfiber fabric I'm using for the texture-from-hell quilt. I have PLENTY left over.

I think that's sufficient, those are the main projects that I've been putting off. Add to the list the everyday things: cutting the squares for the above mentioned quilt, finishing the above mentioned quilt, printing the baby shower invites, etc etc. The list never ends, does it? :)

Future Projects

My "Honey-Do" list of projects I swear I'm going to accomplish. I have SO so many things I want to do, and I get overwhelmed. A little list of things will be VERY beneficial. (Note, links to not necessarily depict my ideal color scheme, but fabric is a personal choice!)

Please comment if you've done any of these, and link your pictures!!

For Delaney:
Baby Sling
Peasant Top
Crib Bumpers

For Alabama:
Roman Shades
Duvet Cover
Shower Curtain
Paint ceiling in master bedroom (paint color undecided)
Drywall laundry room
Put vinyl faux-tin tiles behind stove as backsplash
Recushion the reupholstered FreeCycle couch
Recover office chair
Restore weathered patio furniture
Spraypainted Chandelier

Quilts:
Wedding Quilt
Color Wheel Quilt
Cloud9 Sunburst
ABC Quilt

Gifties:
Black Apple Dolls
Car Caddy