Landscaping the homestead

One of the reasons why I have taken refuge from regular blogging has been the my efforts to spruce up my front lawn. When I first moved into my subdivision, I was too busy being concerned about holding onto my job at the time, so I took the approach of trying to comply with the landscaping requirements in my neighborhood using the minimal amount of effort and money. I was required to plant some evergreens in the front yard, and did so, to a varying degree of success. 2 of the larger evergreens died over winter, and I had to replace them earlier in the spring. After having my house on the market for a few months, I realized that improving the curb appeal was important, so I decided to introduce landscaping rocks and a border to it. As it turned out, it was not a very attractive move. Here is how it looked in May, with the landscaping rocks: When the dog days of August arrived, and after I took my house off the market for a variety of personal reasons, I decided a clean-sheet approach was needed. I had already a backlog of plants sitting in my yard, waiting to be planted, but there was no obvious place for them. A couple of trees, including a poodle evergreen you see in both images, were dying. So, I quickly hustled over to the hardware store and returned the trees, and got new ones. I also decided to re-do the edging on the yard, and found this amazing easy-to-use edging that did not require too much effort or digging. I was successfully able to lay out the edging according to the image in my mind early last week. With some advice and input from some friends, I spent the next 7 days tweaking the yard, and the edging. Among the many things I did was to get some mums to brighten up the landscape, experimenting with 3 kinds of mulch, locating and carrying home some decent landscape rocks from a nearby place, and moving around some existing trees (some of which have been standing around since last year--unplanted)to come up with this: In less than 2 weeks' time, I have successfully transformed a pretty mediocre attempt to be 'cute' with riverbed pebbles and indifferent edging, to just going all out on making the yard look as if someone had put some thought and planning into it. Now, I feel pretty good about getting this house on sale, when the time comes for me to move, which should be sooner than you'd think. Tell me what you think of the effort.

Fast Forward to September

Okay, so it's been another 6 weeks since I've last posted. Me bad. It's been more than 2 weeks since being exiled, and although each day gets better, they're not always perfect. I was hitting the doldrums in the mid afternoon, and didn't feel much like sending out more job applications, or cleaning up my place. I decided to head into town, and into campus. The Michigan football season opener was just letting out, so there were tons of people making it downtown. I hit the Borders first, just to acquaint myself with some books again, but to also people-watch. For what it's worth, Borders was originally a small bookstore based in Ann Arbor. I got a really good book that I had only heard people talk about, and took it over to Starbucks, and ordered myself a delicious Green Tea Iced Mocha. Dang, it was good. Starbucks was kind of dead, so I got back into my car and drove over to Whole Foods. I figured there might be opportunities to people-watch there. I used the opportunity to ask the female clerks informative to ridiculous questions, from how does the food keep, to their sale on Samuel Adams. If I had more time in the checkout lane, I'm sure I would have gotten a phone number, but Saturday nights are pretty busy down there. I plan to make it a habit every other night to flirt there. I even got myself this really wacky Odwalla drink blend that tasted nasty, but was supposedly really good for you. So, you could say I tried a few new things. Afterwards, I drove back to the vicinity of campus, looked around the bookstore before it closed, and then went to the local dive, and danced for about 25 minutes, and left. I probably would have been more self-conscious a year ago, or looked at going dancing as some means to an end. Now I see dancing as THE end virtue. It felt good, and I didn't care how it looked. So, I got back, ducked into my house, and felt better about my day. Lesson: Next time I feel bad, or lose my motivation, I'll go into town and dance. Screw the gas prices. So, to sum it all up, this week I've: 1. Tried a new flavor at Starbucks 2. Tried drinking a bottle of Odwalla that wasn't just apple or orange flavored. 3. Tried Speed-Dating 4. Talked to my neighbor across the street from me for the 1st time. 5. Invited a large number of people over to my house, including people I used to be intimidated by at work (e.g., my boss). Anyways, after all of this week's events, and what comes before us, I am truly grateful for the things I have. I know it sounds like a cliche, but I vow to never again bitch about a hot day or a bitter cold winter morning.