Summer Days

We have been real busy this summer, between parties and visiting family and camp that we have not had too much down time.

This weekend we chose downtime.

We hung around the house, did some errands and in the early evening we had some friends over. Thankfully the weather was GORGEOUS. I spent the afternoon sitting in my screened in porch finishing up my book, The Help (only took me a week - not bad eh?).

When our friends came over the kids were in the yard and we were having cocktails in the porch area. We ordered in some food and the kids finally watched a movie inside. It was so nice a relaxing.

Today my grandma came up to stay a few days at my folk's house (they live 3 blocks away).

I went and picked up some food for us to have a nice Sunday dinner.

I did all the cooking since my dad was feeling a little ill from bad food last night.

I made Cedar plank brie and peaches on the grill (oh with grill toasted baguette), grilled Shrimp on skewers, grilled chicken breasts, fried chicken breasts (for my picky eaters), grilled asparagus and salad.

Everything was delicious (and I was happy that I was able to time everything pretty well).

I also had my tasty new drink (found the Vodka).

Hangar One Mandarin Blossom Vodka

Elder Flower Liqueur

Blood Orange Soda

Mandarin Seltzer

Nice little refreshing drink.

So it was a very nice dinner all made on the BBQ. Nice way to end a great relaxing weekend. (Oh yeah, I spray painted some bookcases I got on clearance at Target for Sam's room and 4-5 months later I finally painted them - they have been in his room the ugly brown color AND oddly enough I came out looking like a smurf! I had a nice blue tint to myself).

Have a great week!

Zizette

Lonely Lamp Post

Out side of my house is a lonely lamp post.

Well, it is lonely no more.

Last weekend I gave it some company.

Now it is a Happy Lamp post (and so am I, not lamp post but happy).

Now if I can get some more gardening in the yard done.

Zizette

Finally

A few months ago my grandma was so generous as to purchase my curtains for me.

Really, she is a fabulous woman with awesome taste and a very good eye.

So, we made a date to go shopping for curtains for my living room (about 14 months after having nothing on the windows).

I pick something out that I liked and when we headed over to the register she insisted on paying, I did not ask her to, she said it was her treat.

Thank you Grandma Syl.

We come back home and then next day I ask hubby to hang up the rods and the curtains.

I leave the house for a little and in that time hubby put his hand through the wall in frustration (tried to say it was from his hand pushing through the wall when in reality it was him punching the wall).

My brother in law came and helped put the other rods up and patch the big boo boo that hubby made.

My job was to spackle and paint the hole, umm I mean patch.

I did that, well the spackle part. Today, FINALLY I painted the hole.

Everything is dried (a week later) and today my fabulous Brother in law came over again and hung it up.

How beautiful is that? The room totally has a different look and I am so happy.

I was going to go for a white couch BUT I may or may not do that. You see I was reading something and the saw the mom from that new show 9 by Design and she had something along the lines of what I am thinking of.

Having white furniture but as accent pieces if you are afraid of a big white piece of furniture and then use other colors as accent colors as well. That got me thinking.

What's with this Ivy?

I used to like ivy.

I thought it was a great accent piece, a nice filler but not anymore.

My yard has tons of ivy.

Tons.

It runs along my driveway and then ends in a huge area (whole back corner) in my yard.

When we fell in love with our house we always knew the ivy would have numbered days.

We have been here about 17 months.

Last year we got rid of trees, now I have to get rid of the ivy.

It just takes up so much space, lots of extra space for the kids to play, a garden to grow and my dream a cute garden shed.

Courtesy of Country Living

So last year we started to pull it out.

HARD.

That freakin' ivy is so dense and so imbedded with itself and the ground it is very tiring.

I did a section the other day and amazingly enough it was easier to pull (probably since the huge rain made the ground so soft the stuff was coming out easily.

I am dying. At this rate I will have it gone by the end of the summer.

And I am all itchy now. I wore gloves, I swear.

I will have to tackle it slowly OR when I finally get my teaching position hire someone else to do it (let them be itchy).

Here's to another day out in the ivy.

Zizette

Spoiled? I think not

Okay, for the most part I do not vision myself as being spoiled until two weeks ago.

You see, about two weeks ago my garage door opener died.

Yes it took me two weeks to actually go out and get a new one with the holidays and all, the kids home and of course the extra money it was going to cost at this time of year.

So, for two weeks I have been lifting up my garage door every time I wanted go out or come back home. AND you see because of some locking mechanism I had to go through the front door and open the garage from the inside.

Can you say Pain in the ass? Why yes you can. You see there used to be this awesome little button on the side of the garage that would open my husband's side but NO it no longer works, and we don't have a walkway to our door because the previous owners didn't think one was necessary. (they actually did but it went from the street and I ripped it out since most of the tiles were covered by grass - believe once I get a new job and summer comes we will find a way for a walkway)

So this leaves me with walking in a snow covered yard to my door, see the annoyance here?

Well, as I lift this door it occurs to me that there wasn't always this garage door opener thingy and people had to lift their doors. Am I spoiled that I like to push a button and magic happens?

No, I am not spoiled but used to the technology that I have grown up with.

Fear not ladies, you see, between 2 and 4 today I will get a new garage door opener. I am SUPER happy and absolutely doing a happy dance. I will be getting this bad boy:

I'll let you know how it works.

Zizette

PS I am sure you are asking why didn't hubby and switch sides for this time and the answer is, the pavement by his door goes up a little bit therefore scraping the top of my roof rack on the truck so we switched sides a long time ago.

Gardening

I really have to get in gear and do some gardening.  I have about 5-7 massive trees/bushes in my backyard.  Everyone kept saying to us, "Oh you have beautiful rhododendrons back there.  What do I know.  I just see these big green bushes.  They started having these cone like bulbs on them,  Today I see purple coming out of them and I even saw one fully in bloom ( I couldn't get up that high though). I did take pictures of various stages though.

I have to get rid of some other bushes in my yard, we will have to do some yard work.  Lots of yard work.