Finally OUR Fridge!

As you may recall from here, we received the wrong refrigerator with the handles on the left side, making it very difficult to access food while we were cooking. Our kitchen is laid out in an atypical way so the handle had to be mounted on the right side. Thursday Lowe's finally delivered our custom-made Frigidaire. I couldn't have been happier with the results (yes, I get excited over the little things).

Here we are loading our new bad-boy. Check out my great Price Is Right model impression (also don't mind the mismatched Old Navy sleep pants, Star Wars shirt and fleece my friend Grace left).

So here is our kitchen now. I'm sure you are wondering where the new old stools came from. When Scott's parents came to visit a couple of weeks ago then mentioned  that we could go "shopping" in their basement for whatever and said they had some almost new stools if we would like to upgrade from the chairs we were using. At this point, we are not about to turn down freebies to make the house more livable. They are a little high right now for the counter top but we can work with that. I'm also not wild about the wood but it matches the current kitchen cabinets. Updating them might be a project down the road.

Also note something in the far left corner.

Current kitchen with new refridgerator

Current kitchen

 Max gave me flowers for no reason! I know right?! Men, if you are reading this, women love flowers. Period. No matter how long you have been with her (just started dating, known each other a few years, married for 37 years) we always love the surprise. Even if they told you they don't, surprise them one day for no reason and they will melt. Guaranteed.

Happy 2nd Birthday Turk!

Sunday was a big day since it was two family birthday's, my Dad's 58th (again, happy birthday Dad!) and my dog's 2nd. I couldn't spend it with my father so I gave my dog the best birthday ever (yet).

We started with a morning trip Turk's favorite off-dog park, Katherine K. Carpenter Dog Park in Mequon, WI. It's a few miles from our house with about a square mile of wooded trails, a creek and an open run area. He loves it for all the trails and local pedigree babes (ooo la la) to sniff. We love it for all the wooded area and we can leave him off the leash. He found a few new friends and a couple of familiar faces.

The local watering hole

Turk with Dad

This little Scottie came up and gave me a kiss before giving Turk one. Puppy kisses, cue the "aww".

"Lay one on me!"

The whole day wasn't just doggie fun. We decided to get a little work done as well. Remember when I mentioned we could get free mulch here? The site was just down the road from us so we lined the inside of our CR-V with garbage bags and packing tape and headed off with the shovel.

This is what we faced when we got there. Need mulch or wood chips? I don't think they are going to run out any time soon. This was only half of the pile.

The mulching added a new dimension and my plants are already responding better by having extra water. Horray!

So back to Turk's birthday. In between a second load of mulch run, I decided to make him a birthday cake. I found this recipe for dog birthday cake with cinnamon frosting. It turned out pretty good and smelled delicious, even at our standards (most humans at the party tried a little bite just to see and it was alright, just a bland carrot cake).

Now I know what you are thinking, he had no candles! I forgot them. Oops! He took no time to be a good dog and lay down for his cake.

Which in turn, he inhaled.

And then went over to his friend Jack's cake to eat it as well. Overall, puppy party a success! 

P.S. Remember are awesome new lawnmower I told you about here?? It broke! Something with the engine? So we also had to take that back to Sears (yay manufacturer's warrantys) and now wait for 2 weeks while our lawn overgrows. Boo... Can anyone lend us their mower?

Moe vs. Yard: Round Two

I'm not sure if it was my mom wishing me good luck or really thinking I really need the help, but she sent both my sister and myself these books; Better Homes and Gardens Step-By-Step Ultimate Yard & Garden and Reader's Digest 1001 Hints & Tips for Your Garden. I received them yesterday and believe me they came in handy today! Highly recommend them for anyone who needs a little help with their green thumb.

I started the daunting task of tackling the very overgrown and weedy backyard. I literally had some weeds that were boob height (which if I were to estimate is about 4'6"). And you can't be a gardening diva with boob height weeds. Sadly, I'm off to a bad start. On the day we did the front lawn, I decided to give my seedlings (remember this) a little extra sun that they weren't getting inside. Like a goon, I didn't take off their covers and ended up cooking them. Epic fail. After a call to mom, she suggested to just buy plants and try again next spring. Probably the best route.

I started the day with another Lowe's run to get pruning shears since I didn't think I could get through some of the stalked ragweed. Ended up spending time staring at Rust-Oleum 's new Cabinet and Counter Transformations (definitely a future project!) and how awesome it really it is. I also swung by We-Energies since I heard that they do free wood chips from fallen trees at a local location. Basically, I wanted to see if it was more chips than mulch. Luckily, its more mulch. So free mulch? Yes please!

Check out how much this space had grown in just two weeks!

Most of the day was just demolition but I did learn a few things. Starting to clear the lily area, I really had no clue what kinds of plants I was going to encounter other than the lilies. I ran upon some buried plant flags saying that we had blueberries and blackberry bushes. I ran to check my new books/Google if they were perennials which they were. Unfortunately, I didn't catch what plant was what in time and cut the blueberry bush down thinking it was a weed. We'll get them next year. After that, I boned up on the kinds of weeds I had so I wouldn't have anymore casualties.

When I started, everything was covered with two years of overgrowth, weeds and dead rot of plant material below.

Some of dead rot was so bad it was literally killing the new plants from below. I was so glad to get that old stuff out of there to give the plants a chance to thrive.

I also cut out a small tree growing out from underneath the house and discovered chives growing next to the back steps. I ended up having two extremely full bags of yard waste to take away. I can't wait to start composting once I get all this crap out of there. It is suggested to not put fresh weeds in compost since they could have seeds which would ruin the whole batch.

Just that little big effort of clearing the dead material made a world of difference in the irises. I can't wait until they get a little more sun and air to the soil. The blackberry bush is currently dangling over the tulips. They need some sort of a trellis to help them grow vertically instead of along the ground.

 Now I can finally start planting that garden! Who's getting hungry?

I received another sunburn as well. I'll either end this summer with a great farmer's tan or skin cancer. Hopefully, I take after my father and not the later. Who else has had a massive plant clean-up story?