Productive holiday weekend

When presented with a 3-day weekend I am usually faced with so many options on what I should do. There is of course always the weekend standard of laundry and house chores, but there is something about Memorial weekend that makes me compelled to push that aside and do some work outside. Brian played in a 2-man golf tournament (where they took 9th, whoo hoo!!) so I was pretty much left to my own devices.

I began in the front yard by adding flowers to new pretty blue pots. I'm very good at designing and planting the pots...it's remembering to water them so they stay alive I have problems with. I added some solar lights along the sidewalk. They only provide a little light, but are really cute!

My next project was to turn the old ugly pots that used to be in the front yard into something usable. Why buy new when you can wash and spray paint the old! They actually turned out better than I expected and look great on the back deck. Here is the before and after shots, amazing what a can of dark brown paint will do! You can also see the rest of my seedling just waiting to be planted.

On Sunday night Brian and I organized a big group outing for a bunch of our friends. We all hopped into a motor home and headed down to Red Rocks Amphitheater for a concert. There was 12 total and we were all very excited to see Styx, Foreigner, and Kansas; we pretty much listened to only that the whole way down :-) I am a big fan of Styx and have seen them in concert several times. I have never seen Foreigner before and they were absolutely amazing! Everyone had such a great time and even the next day were still sending me text messages about how much fun they had.

Squished in for the ride down.

Kansas started the show of right.

The view from our seats in general admission. It doesn't matter how far away you are because the natural acoustics and the view make it all worthwhile.

Tommy Shaw doing what he does best.

Brian and I with Styx (I'm ecstatically happy in my new concert T!)

Foreigner ended the show just right and left us all revved up for the ride home.

We ended the long weekend with some more yard work on Monday. I wanted to move some rock so I could plant the rest of my seedlings. After about half an hour of digging out rocks and weeds and wishing we had a bobcat to just rip out the whole thing, we made the executive decision to pay someone to come and redo our entire backyard. There is just far too much that needs to be done. I guess I never realized how much more work it is to UNlandscape a yard. Once the yard is back in good shape it will be fun to plant in it again. Now I just need to get it done before our annual party in August!!

New floor!!

After many years of talking and planning we have finally installed our new floors. No more scrubbing wet dog prints and cat hairballs off the carpet...hooray!! Now when the dogs traipse in all wet/muddy we just dry them off and easily wipe the floor. We are very pleased with the way it turned out and it looks absolutely gorgeous! It has a great textured look so any paw prints just make it look more lived in. I take a quick and easy mop and it's bright and new again. The animals are getting more used to the lack of traction, although it really doesn't seem to have slowed Abby and Brodie down much at all :-)Here are some before and after pictures to enjoy.

Stairs before and after. Thanks to everyone who helped vote on the tile design!

Living room before and after. Doesn't the floor look awesome with the red wall!!

Kitchen before and after.

Dining room before and after.

Magic or motivation?

Last Saturday I attended a graduation party at a neighbors. Along with streamers there were helium filled balloons which I, of course, entertained myself with. This little pink one I brought home and tied to a dinosaur.

This picture was taken an hour ago.

By some miracle of science this innocuous party decoration has remained aloft for almost an entire week. It stirs slightly when someone walks by it, but otherwise remains quietly still. Why has it remained when every other helium filled balloon I have brought home lays defeated on the ground by morning. What inner motivation makes this one so determined not to fall?

Motivation, magic, or a lot of static energy??

I am careful as I pass, unwilling to let it be my breeze that causes it to give up the fight.

Spring is coming...I promise!

Okay, so really this IS spring in Colorado. 2" of snow this morning, 70s forecasted for the next week. It is one of the many reasons I love this state. To all the people who planted last weekend and were desperately covering their gardens last night in an attempt to save new plants from freezing; you must be rookies to the Colorado spring. Keep them in easily moveable containers til Memorial weekend :-)

Easily entertained

I know you probably think this post will be about something I did, but you will be wrong. It would be about my adorable dog Abby who enjoys playing with the simplest things. In this case, a helium-filled balloon. The video jumps at the end because, after about 15 minutes, she finally popped the balloon and it startled the crap out of me!!

I love spring...

Last year was our first attempt at a garden and it worked out pretty well. This year we got a little more ambitious and started our plants from seeds. The sugar snaps and tomatoes really took off and I had to transplant them to larger containers. Even the edamame and marigolds are doing well. The sweet peppers and poblanos are taking a little longer, but are finally breaking the soil top. I can't wait til Memorial weekend when I can finally plant them in the garden outside!!

I planted tulips last fall as well and they are coming up beautifully! I hope to add in some daffodils for next spring.

These tulips came with the house and are growing out of the base of a huge rose of sharon. My next fall experiment will be to try and transplant them to a new location.

We also are trying composting this year. We just bought a compost box from Sam's Club. However, we need leaves to get it started and since we only have one little tree I'm thinking we might have to go ransack the local park...or just use grass clippings :-)

While Brian called me a weirdo, he still took this picture of me being compostable. What a good husband!!

The little things...

Like so many others, I often get stuck in a rut of thinking I can only blog about earth-shattering events in my life. Since those are few and far between, it would make for very few updates and would defeat the point of a blog. Since there are people reading this because they want to know about the big AND little things that go on in my world, I need to remind myself of why I started this whole project to begin with. I mean aside from because Michelle told me I had too :-)

With that in mind I'm making an attempt to share all the little things that make life, and each day, wonderful!

I'm beginning with the addition of a new nephew!! Okay, so it is kind of a major event, but I need to start somewhere. Brian's sister, Nikki, gave birth to her newest addition this past weekend. She added an adorable 8lb, 8oz son named Beckett Scott to her family. This makes for a total of 4 sons, and she and Chris couldn't be happier!! Mommy and baby are doing well and Brian and I are thrilled for them. We hope to get out to Phoenix soon so we can visit and enjoy the 'little things' that children do to bring joy into this world!