Garden of Surprises

Well... I've been quite the slacker in keeping up with my posts here.  I guess that is what an overload of work, home renovation disasters, and distractions will do.

So... I'll just get back into the swing of things with some pictures from our garden.  Our home had previously been occupied by single women for the last few decades, and it's quite apparent they all had a green thumb.  We've watched impatiently as flowers started sprouting up this spring... and they have not stopped!

We both run outside each morning with excitement to see what else has popped up!  This garden is new to us, and we have refrained from removing much of anything, as we have no idea what had been planted there.  So, it really is a Garden of Surprises.  And every morning I am greeted with another beautiful bloom.  I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I have enjoyed taking them!

Our surprise flowers in front of our stone wall!

Hosta Circle.

Our Tulip garden, on the far side of our yard (bordering the neighbors walkway)

ENORMOUS daffodils!

Sprucing up the front yard a bit.

Our planter out front, after it had filled in a bit more.

Pruning back our 15' tall Butterfly Bush

Cedar Mulch, and our new Rhododendron's

Our almost fluorescent Purple Rhododendron

Every variety of Hosta imaginable in our back yard!

Some Elephant(?) Hosta and Ivy under one of our 100+ year old pine trees

A lonely ant, helping our Peony bloom

Peony, at full bloom

From one of the 3 or 4 rose bushes we have

Some of the Ivy growing under the pine tree in our side yard

I can't remember the name of this flower, but we had DOZENS of them.

Some ENORMOUSLY overgrown bush, that one day turned bright magenta!

Closeup of the blooms

A chromalusion critter that decided to drop by

Some surprise Hydrangea's that appeared behind our shed!

Some miniature blue flowers, that appeared right next to the Hydrangea's.

Some more fun little bundles.

Some big green evergreen shrub that has swallowed our shed

Cookie Kitty

Now you've seen a kitty with a cookie on her head.  She is not amused... but I was rolling with laughter, thought you all might enjoy this.

This is Molly, our "one fry shot of a happy-meal" cat.

-Em

Kitchen Appliances

Well... tis that time of the year... where stores slash their prices, and I'm in all of my glory!  Now, you know by this point, that I have a semi-short attention span when it comes to projects.  But I just could not help myself this time.  This deal was so mind-bogglingly insane, I just had to do it.

So, Home Depot is having their Pre-Black Friday sale on their appliances, we're REALLY trying to focus on getting this bathroom done, but a sale is a sale....  OK, I'm game... so, we wandered into the appliances section to browse around.  Lo and behold, there's a sale on select LG appliances, "oh yippe!"  I've been drooling over this LG gas range for weeks (a $1500 gas range, I might add... entirely too expensive for me, but a girl can dream, right?)

They are offering the entire LG suite, for nearly 40% OFF!!!!!  My eyes bugged out of my head! I just could not believe what I was reading... and MY gas range was part of the sale!!!!

So, to make a long story short (ok, not really...), they sold out of EVERYTHING except the fridge when we tried to check out last night.  The gas range was no longer available online, in any warehouse, it was no longer even listed on their website!  I started to freak!  The woman told me she absolutely could not sell me the floor models, and they would call me again the following afternoon (today), and let me know if they could order them up for me from somewhere else, but they couldn't make any promises.  The same went for the dishwasher and microwave, no where to be found (although, I was not as dead-set on those, I absolutely had to have that stove).  So, we went back earlier this morning, I was NOT going to wait for a phone call back, and another woman there gladly sold me everything off the floor (except for the fridge, we'll be taking deliver of a brand new one early December).  I've been running around all morning like a kid on Christmas!

To wrap this up, we ended up buying around $5300 worth of LG appliances, for roughly $3300!!!  And to add the icing on the cake... If you bought all 4 appliances in the suite, you got an ADDITIONAL $200 off... so we walked out of there paying around $3100, including tax.  I am the HAPPIEST kid on the planet right now!!!

          

                                    

                

Flip-Book Style

Painted the other side of the house today (thanks again to our ever-so-helpful neighbor!)

We got this... flip-book style!  Enjoy the transformation from drab, to fab!

-Em

                                          Before

                          

                                       

 

                          

                          

                  

Enter: The Mullet... in all it's glory....

Paint, Paint, and oh! More Paint!

Love my black soffits and window trim, what an AMAZING difference!

                                   Before

            

After

   

    

Now the boys are onto the other side of the house... scraping the mildew, removing old exterior electrical piping that is no longer being used, and painting the side, soffits, and window trim!  I am so excited!!!