Landscaping Deanna style....

Last year I noticed that I spend an awful lot of time weed eating. Not near as much time as I spend doing laundry though, but it's a close second some weeks. My parents and our household have decided to have a huge garage sale. We will open it up to friends and family to bring their stuff and put it out. They just have to make sure that it is labeled. Ok, so I know that this was a convoluted paragraph, but stick with me here it all pulls together. The consensus that Will and I have come up with is that we spend too much time doing some things (chores) and that needs to change.... so......with that in mind.

I have started scrounging for plants to landscape with that will keep me from having to weed eat so much. Jacob and Luke helped Will and I dig up 47 bunches of ferns so far and we have planted them around the outside of our front courtyard fence. It is very shady all around it and nothing seems to like to grow there except weeds. This is the cheapest way I could think of to cover 150 or so feet of blank canvas that otherwise would have needed to be weed eated. So far it looks wonderful. I just have to beef up the dirt and make sure that it stays watered.

I also have been seperating clumps of hostas and spreading them around the flower beds to create a larger bed, but one with less work. The iris beds are getting large and I will be adding more perenials as I go. Thankfully many, many people are sharing with me. I hope to have them finished in the next week or two.

We are going through the house with a fine toothed comb and getting rid of everything that is not vital or things that have so much sentimental value that it will hurt to give them up and even then some of them are going. I guess we are having sympathy pains for our friends Rebecca and Chuck who are moving. I must not be able to let them go through it alone, since it's pretty much the same picture here as it is at their house (I would think). Sort, sort, pack, pack..what to take, what to keep. The good thing is that if we do decide to downsize in the next year or two, we will have a major part of the work done.

Add into all of this the remodeling projects that are ongoing, the Oakes Family Gathering that is happening the end of the month, the First Annual Biker Rally and Potluck that we are having Sunday at church, the end of school, the planting of the garden, practice for our new CD that is hopefully going to be recorded soon and getting ready to send the kids to Lifefest in July, with us leaving God willing for Florida the same day the kids return from Lifefest(I think they might spell it LIFEST). It seems it's going to be busy, but just think of it......

A house with hardly any clutter and a yard that is pretty much self sustaining for the most part. A house that is almost completed except for cosmetic changes, empty storage space, organized work rooms and tool areas......what a dream!!

Lots of work later........hopefully it will happen.

Have a great day!
dea