I have a perfectly good excuse for not posting yesterday. Well, excuses really.
First, Dave and I had to finish our tax return, which of course took longer than expected (we hate taxes with fiery passion.)
Second, I went outside to a gorgeous day to tackle lawn-cleaning.
I gotta admit, I was a little intimidated by our lawn and the amount of work that needs to be done. Before we swooped in and bought it, our house had been completely empty for over a year, and whoever was in charge of ensuring that the yard wasn't overgrown only did a cursory mowing once every few weeks. So the lawn is bare with overgrown grass, the flower beds are a mess, there's weird plant life trying to take over, and the previous tenants left behind all sorts of junk. For someone who's been an apartment dweller for the past six years, you can only imagine how overwhelming the whole thing seems.
So I called my mom for help, and she gave me helpful advice on how to get started. So now I have a step list to follow!
Step 1: Rake the lawn and pick up all the leaves and sticks.
Step 2: Mow the lawn!
Step 3: Clean out the junk behind the shed and create a pile that's going to the landfill. Make that space the new compost corner
Step 4: Clean out the flower beds and loosen the soil in preparation for planting
Step 5: identify the plant life and remove what I don't want
Step 6: start landscaping and planting (start simple)
Not bad for the beginner home owner, right? (I hope so!)
Now that I have a plan, I'm enthusiastically taking action. But I'm now discovering that Step 1....is going to take forever! I kid you not, I spent 3 hours on only one section of lawn and removed so much debris, and there's still a lot left to clean. Raking our lawn is like combing through hair with excessive dandruff; no one has worked on this yard for so long that there are patches of leaves stuck deep in the grass. It's going to take me all week to thoroughly clean the lawn, and I'm going to have a huge pile of compost afterwards.
I'm enjoying the task, though. It's rewarding to see progress in all the hard work you're doing, and I can see our yard look gradually cleaner and neater. I think I'm going to enjoy the whole landscaping process.
Plus, it's giving me a chance to go hardcore on listening to audiobooks! Thanks to the yard work, I finished a couple of books within a matter of days, and now I'm all caught up with my reading goal! Yay!
So here's the reading plan for this week. I'm planning on finish two audiobooks and one hard-copy book.
The two audiobooks are:
And the hard-copy book will be one of these:
Okay, enough talk. I'm going to put on some sunscreen and a hat, and I'm going outside to rake some more! Have a beautiful day everyone!
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