Kill a bajillion birds with one stone!

What if I told you I had an activity for you that would:

-Save you money.
-Give you a workout.
-Get you a tan.
-Save you money (yes, again.)
-Entertain your dog.
-Potentially find buried treasure.
-Help you deal with your fear of snakes.
- AND Put a smile on your face.

Okay, okay... I'll tell you what it is. Cultivate your own garden (yes you heard me! A REAL garden... not a Farmville one!)

Step One:
Buy one of these from Home Depot:

It costs $22 (here is where you save money the first time, instead of going for the fancy schmancy electric or motorized one, or paying someone to do it!)

Step 2:
Put on your sunscreen. I think doctors would recommend SPF30, but come on, who really gets tan that way?

Step 3:
Find a sunny plot of land in your front or back yard. Maybe a 10x10 area? I've got two 5x15 plots going...

Step 4:
Start tilling! Insert workout and tan here. Also insert scanning the grass like crazy for snakes.

Step 5:
Laugh at your dog as he helps you dig and de-root.

Step 6:
Keep an eye out for buried treasure. All I found was a lousy ear of corn. And not even a real ear of corn... a plastic one! Which is both weird and creepy to me.

Step 7:
Add soil and plant your cute baby vegetable plants that you are just planting now because you just moved into this house! Don't worry... I only planted things that will grow in about 50 days!

Step 8:
Save money (again!) because you don't have to buy produce at the store. $1.00 for a pepper? Or $1.00 for a whole pack of peppers? You do the math. Now I'm wishing they sold pickled peppers and Mark's name was Peter, so I could have said Peter planted a pack of pickled peppers. But I digress...

Step 9:
Smile at your beautiful garden.

So maybe I've only made it to step number 4, but I'll be sure to update you as things progress :)

Like pulling teeth

Here's what I was thinking with this whole move thing:

We would upsize on space and downsize on stuff- and voila our life would be more Real Simple/Martha Stewart and less that show called Hoarders with the crazies and all their junk.

So we were over at Mark's mom's house going through boxes and boxes of stuff he had over there. Dividing into trash, keep, and goodwill.

I opened a box which was full of toys and told him I was putting it in the Goodwill pile.

At which point I was suddenly engaged to a four year old. He opened the box and his face lit up into what I imagine my face looked like when he proposed to me. That excited.

"Ohmygosh we can't throw THIS away... this was my favorite toy!" He picks up some sort of helicopter thing. And all these little pieces fall out.

"Oh and this was my favorite toy too... there should be a key for the bottom around here somewhere and then we can watch it can morph." The key was nowhere to be found.

At which point I informed him that things morphing don't really interest me. And does he know what the term favorite means? They can't ALL be his favorite.

"Oh I bet you didn't have one of these when you were little (holding up a Talkboy) we can't throw this away it's a classic!"

At which point I informed him that no, I didn't have one, it was called a TalkBOY and I was a girl and so maybe that's why I didn't see the magic in it... but I did know that it along with all the other toys were going to Goodwill.

"But look at this toy car... I totally rebuilt it myself when I was seven!" The car was missing a wheel, and what I would call an axle. It was a remote control car... with no remote to be found.

At which point I informed him that now he can rebuild real things. Like the flipping boat he bought last year.

"Oh my gosh look! A whole bag of marbles... perfectly good marbles... we can't throw these away."

At which point I informed him that he could only keep what he planned on actually using in the future. And that if he planned on pulling out his half-broken toys and playing with them on our new living room floor then I may have to re-evaluate our engagement. PLUS think of all the little kids just like him that would be soooo happy to have those toys! AND someday we will have kids of our own and I promise he can play with their toys whenever he wants.

And with a sad, sulky look on his face he took the box over to the Goodwill pile.

I have never been so proud.

But we did have to do some negotiating. And so we kept the friggin' marbles. But so help me if he doesn't play with them in the next month they are going in the trash.

Excuse me while I freak out

So here's the deal. We are semi-moved in and we really love this house. And one of the best things about it is when King whines to go out, all we have to do is open the back door, and off he scampers into the backyard. The fenced in backyard! Hallelujah!

But since I still don't put it past him to jump over the fence or dig his way out, I usually go out with King and walk around the yard encouaging him to "potty."

I am a barefoot kind of girl... If it were plausible for me to go barefoot all the time, I definitely would. Which is why on our first night here (Monday) I went out to the backyard--barefoot with King for his last potty of the day.

And there I was standing in the middle of the yard when I felt it: something slithering under my foot.

Insert here very girlish, squealing, freaking out noises.

King and I went in to report to Rambo that it is very important that we be able to walk around barefoot in our own backyard... So he better get his butt out there and let all the creepy and slimy critters know that it's time for them to move outside of the fence.

Of course he didn't. Something about how that's not possible and it was their home first... Yada yada...

So I climbed into bed and convinced myself that I probably stepped on a slug (the least evil of all that I was imagining) and went to sleep.

Then about ten minutes ago I went to take King out again. With my flip flops on. There I was happily walking around the perimeter of the backyard planning my future garden... I had already made one lap around and was going for lap number two... waiting for King to finish his business when I saw it:

Between my flip flop clad feet,

in all it's slithery and slimy grossness,

A SNAKE.

A FLIPPING SNAKE PEOPLE!

Insert jumping around, freaking out and "oh oh oh no no ew ewwww"s.

It slithered over to the fence and I lost sight of it. Now I'm not going to exaggerate and say it was a humongous snake with five heads and three tails. It was just a skinny thing maybe a foot long, but it was still a flipping slimy, slithering snake in just about the same area where I stepped on the "slug" a few nights before.

GAG.

Happy Birthday America & King!

Happy Birthday America!

And guess who else has a birthday today?

Happy First Birthday to my King baby!

Yes, I'm that girl who gets her dog a birthday cake, and a giant birthday bone. But he's just too cute not to spoil :)

Hope everyone had a fun and safe Fourth!

4th of July Ideas

I won't lie to you: I'm stressed. This house buying thing that was all unicorns and rainbows a couple of weeks ago is getting more and more complicated. Hence the lack of blogging. I swear, once we have a place to live, I'll be back at it.

What are we doing for the Fourth? We'll be celebrating King's birth (he will be ONE!) and... wait for it... PACKING!

Which I am bummed about because the Fourth is one of my favorite holidays and all I'll be doing is complaining all day long about "How heavy this box is" and saying things like "No, we can't throw that away! My freshman year college dorm mate made that for me and clearly it took hours!" and "I don't care if it will just sit in a box forever, we have to keep it."

And what's worse we are packing to move out of the apartment next weekend, and at this point... we have no where to go but a hotel! Who in Cleveland wants two temporary roommates and a SUPER-fun dog who occasionally eats your favorite shoes? Don't all volunteer at once!

Sorry for being all whiney, but I hate not having a plan-- which is where we are now. BUT ANYWAYS...

Since you all will be having fun this Fourth of July here are a couple of ideas that I blogged about over on Examiner (if you aren't subscribing to me there yet... shame on you!)

DIY: Liberty Carnations
Berry American Trifle

And since I will be living up my Fourth of July vicariously through you I have to know... what are your holiday weekend plans??