Disclaimer: Lest any of you reading this get the wrong idea regarding #7 below, I did NOT do this all by myself. I laid out the pavers alone but Nathan did about 98 % of the grunt work, with some help from Benj. Just making sure he gets the credit he absolutely deserves! He also fixed a hole under our fence so that Kona can get out of the yard!
We recently decided to put a patio in our backyard. We can't really sit on our front porch and enjoy it because of all the "crazies" running around out there (but it does provide some pretty good entertainment sometimes). So this was the weekend designated to work on the project. Nathan and I both have off work (starting last Friday) through the end of this week so we thought we'd try to get it all taken care of. I took pictures to document the process. Here's how it went.
Since once again I'm having trouble formatting pictures, I'm going to provide commentary in a list and you'll have to figure out which pics they go with (hint: "Left to right, top to bottom. Group of words makes a sentence. Take Tylenol for any headaches, Midol for any cramps.")
- On Saturday my in-laws came up and helps us dig out the area for the patio. The first two pics are of that.
- This morning Nathan and I got up EARLY and headed out to put down the weed control landscaping fabric.
- We had our delivery of 450 pavers, 25 bags of paver sand, and 75 bags of paver base scheduled for delivery "sometime Monday morning". At 8:05 I got a call from the Lowe's folks asking if they could deliver it now. Why yes, yes you can. This means I don't have to wait around all day for you! Here's what it looked like when it came of the truck.
- Paver base - about 63 bags worth. That little tool sitting on the base is used to produce...
- Flat paver base. And there's all the empty bags. :)
- Here's the next step - the sand, all smooshed down (and in the background you see Nathan and Benj, our awesome friend that helped us).
- This is what I did while Nathan and Benj went to Lowe's to get Quicrete to put in the cracks. No, I'm not kidding. I laid all except about 10 of those all by myself. I'm already paying for it, but isn't it beautiful?
- Here's what's left over - not a lot. We have enough to do another little section maybe, and we have to make a spot for the chiminea we're going to get also.
- And finally, the other project we had this weekend - a little container garden. We've got 4 tomato plants, one each of red, yellow and orange bell peppers, one jalapeno peper, two arugula, and one basil. Hopefully they'll produce something.
We are also going to be doing other stuff to the yard (landscaping, etc.) so I will be posting pics of that as we do it also. It's going to be GREAT! :)
Hope you're all enjoying the weekend! And a HUGE thank you to all the veterans - past and present - who do their jobs to keep us safe!!
Last week I was missing my precious nieces something awful. It just so happened that Ains had her end of school program on Thursday so I drove over there to see it. Abbs met me in the driveway wearing her new sunglasses. She said "See my new glasses?" and when I acknowledged that yes, I saw them, she said "They're SUN glasses." Funny girl.
Ainsley's program was so cute - Ains is the one in the pic below wearing the white bow and looking less than happy to be there. The kid on the right in the picture was very excited about the whole deal and was quite animated. Ains, I suspect, did not want people looking at her and this kid was definitely drawing attention to their general area. I am sure that's why she kept giving him the stink eye. :)
So, right away I'll say that this is either going to be one REALLY long post, or it will be multiple moderately long posts. I've been SUPER busy the last few weeks. I suppose I'll just go in chronological order.
First, just before my last post, Nathan and I had a "date night". I borrowed this idea from a girl at church - she and her husband like to try out new recipes together. So, Nathan and I made some lime chicken tacos and for dessert had homemade cinnamon chips with mango/avocado salsa. Not too bad. Here's what it looked like:
And apparently I'm only going to be able to do one picture per post so I guess I'll move on to the next...
I just found this article and I couldn't agree more. I know that not everyone (and that includes me) is an expert in grammar and sentence structure. However, apostrophes are fairly easy to learn the rules for. I constantly see signs where every word that ends in an "s" has an apostrophe before the "s"! If you're just an everyday Joe writing on your blog or sending an e-mail to an acquaintance it's one thing. HOWEVER...(you knew that was coming didn't you!) when I see signs in public places that overuse the apostrophe it makes me cringe!
Thank you Mrs. Weiner for teaching me the correct way to use the apostrophe!
While we're talking about pet peeves, here's another: someone walking up to the elevator that you're waiting at (or getting on the elevator you're already on) and pushing a button that is CLEARLY LIT meaning it has ALREADY BEEN PUSHED! Really? Does that light mean something different than I thought it did? Does pushing it multiple times make the elevators come faster? I'm so confused!
On that note, I'm stinky from my run so I'm going to hit the showers. Stay tuned for a crafting/food post to follow soon! There will be pictures!
