Ta Da!

I chose "Bold Brick" by Sherwin Williams for the door.  It's growing on me.  It's not the color I was picturing in my head.  I think it has a bit too much coral in it instead of reddish/brown.  But, none the less, it is growing on me and I love it more and more each day.  As much as you can love your front door that is...

We still have the lighting to install and some landscaping to do.  I have the exterior lights picked out from this site and am 90% sure on the interior foyer light.

As for the landscaping I want to do a pea-gravel walkway and add a few boxwoods around the deck. The planting will probably wait until Spring as it got very cold over the last week and planting now would probably not be a good idea.  Hopefully we can get the pea-gravel walkway in though.

The 'wrapping up' process at the end of a project always seems to take the longest, but it will be worth it in the end.  I like to really take my time with things to make sure I am making the correct decision.
What do you think?  Have I been making correct decisions?

What did you do this summer?

Oh, us?  Well, thank you for asking.  Let's see...

Oh, yes, we experienced an earthquake.  That was quite a day.  I thought a tree was falling on our house and we were all going to get squished so I gathered my chickens and ran outside.  My friend, Jen, who is a SoCal native (that's SOuthern CALifornia for us cool people) told me that this indeed is the wrong thing to do in an earthquake.  As she is a SoCal native (again, we're cool) she has experienced a few earthquakes and told me that I should have gone under a sturdy table, or in a doorway, etc...  I am sure you've heard all of these before.  However, being that I am an East Coast native (or, EaCo since I'm cool--right?  That's something that we all say?  No?  hmm... still cool though ;)) I have never experienced an earthquake, but have experienced trees falling over so I ran outside to save myself from being squashed by the tree that I am still sure was going to fall on our house.

Got it?

Let's see, what else did we do... Oh yes!  Survived a hurricane.  You may have heard of Irene?  Now, I use the term 'survived' very loosely.  We have a backup generator and our power only went out for a few hours so we were much more fortunate than some homes and families.  Besides torrential downpours, a few tornado warnings and gusty winds, we fared just fine.  Our county has been declared a disaster area, but thanks be to God, we do not need any assistance from FEMA.

So, we had a memorable summer.  This past August, I have been told, was the second wettest August on record.  So, with all the rain and destroying winds, my poor tomato plants are not doing too well.  They took a thrashing, and well, I just don't want to talk about it.  So much for my homemade salsa with tomatoes from MY garden.  There's always next year--I hope!

I will leave you with one image, and then we are not to speak of my tomatoes anymore.  Too sad...

EaCo represent!

Container Garden

While I wait for this:

to be turned into:

(kidding) (maybe not)

I have these:

  

Some tomato plants (thanks to my wonderful neighbor friend) that I have in a container on our back deck.

I also have these:

Zucchini plants.

The tomato plants are starting to bud.  Is that the right term?

These are the Jelly Bean variety so they will be about the size of a grape tomato.  

Can't wait!!

Landscaping: Phase 1 of 15,6879

Our house is situated on a somewhat wooded lot.  Those woods have been encroaching on our yard for the last decade and now it has completely taken over.  

Well, not completely, but almost!  

For the past few years I have been getting estimates and meaning to have some trees cut down and the underbrush cleared, but it never seemed to happen.  

Well this Spring I finally pulled the trigger.  

Men came with chainsaws and cut away at the underbrush:

Men climbed with chainsaws and sawed off branches:

and then climbed higher:

oh, mylanta!  

(c'mon, I know you watched Full House.  Gotta love those DJ Tanner one-liners)

This is around the time when he called for his Mommy and a bottle of milk:

no lie...

This is where he kissed it up to God and 

swung!

From one tree...

to another...

and, yes...while he is swinging around like Tarzan, he has a chainsaw tied around his waist.  

Mommy!!

TIIIMMMMBBBBEEERRRRR....

Good catch!

Then:

Did I mention this is where I would like to plant a garden...

Now:

Wish me luck!