Summer!

I love the end result of a garage sale (way less stuff & some money), but I hate the process. It is truly...so much work! That is why I'm glad ours is done!

I'm ready to keep projects at a bare minimum now so we can just chill & have fun this summer.

The season I love has already been flying by us way too quickly!

Josh has worked his tail off this week tiling the backsplash, helping with the garage sale along with all of the other must-do's. Now, I would say our kitchen is 99% finished. Grouting needs done and the range hood.

The humidity was replaced by a cooler breeze and it has been magnificent. I got a ltitle sun while out at the garage sale.

The girls are enjoying swim lessons and I love watching them. Hopefully they take it in to the fullest and learn much! Noe is a little busy bee. She now says "kitty" when she is with Sulley. She loves to grab at him and amazingly he is really patient and longsuffering with her. We now have a sleeper as we can put her down at 9:30 and she sleeps until 8 or 9. I'm definitely happy about that!

The garden is doing well. I have some new spaces now because of our addition and they are flourishing also. The abundance of rain has been wonderful for that this year. I have windowboxes on every room in my LR, upstairs on the dormers, and on my kitchen window. It is so nice to sit inside the house and have happy little geraniums peaking up where I can see them! After all of these years living here, we are finally to the point of having several low maintenance garden areas. We were able to do a lot of the garden areas for free or minimal cost as there were so many plants here already, they just needed "fixed" or tended. When we moved here, there was a honeysuckle vine between our house and the neighbors. Well, we cut out all of the poison oak, the elm trees that were growing there, yuccas, and weeds and today we have a honeysuckle vine that goes 5 additional fence lengths!

We had a long line of nothing-ness along the alley. (let me preface the alley statement by letting you know that all streets in our neighborhood have alleys that run behind them) They used to use them for trash pick-up. It was great because no one had to put their trash cans to the curb. They were outta sight outta mind and they would pick them up. That changed shortly after we moved here =(. Anwyays, the long line of nothingness...weeds, bushes, and ugly! We moved some lilies from other parts of the yard, sedum from other parts of the yard, and other plants and it has almost filled in completely! It is amazing!

My coral bells are another point of garden excitement. We had a few sparse pieces of them scattered here and there. I mean very small and very minimal. Two years ago, I took the smallest pieces (2 inhces) and moved them along one side of the garage. They are magnificent. My favorite thing is that all of this was free--aside from our own labor of course.

Another area that needed work was the side of the house where you enter the back door. We called it "Wrigley" because of the vast amounts of ivy. Ivy is beautiful don't get me wrong, but too much is simply that...to much! It takes over very quickly and climbs like mad. I like it as ground cover to a degree, but not as house cover as it "eats away" at your foundation over time. We removed 3 large thorny bushes from this area and put a few pots of flowers there and now it is a beautiful space.

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The lilies were divided from others we had as well as the hostas. I love how you can just divide and move...for free! They are just flourishing!

The front of our house is pretty much bush-less and so is the rest. Sixty large bushes later, I think we are done removing bushes from our property with no intentions of planting more! The only bushes that remain are two lilac bushes on the very back corners of our property. That is it! I'm not a fan of any bushes anymore. They are way too much upkeep and really do nothing for me. I could care less that I miss out on the 1 week of blooming that they did in spring. I simply remember the sweat as I trimmed them countless times every summer. At the plant nursery, they look so "promising". You know a little bush to make your landscape look great...then they grow...way outta control! So, the front is now a mix of perennials, annuals, and pots! I love it. I can come home and water them and relax!

Now, for a bathing beauty and a smile...here's Noelliah!

Have a wonderful Saturday! Wow--I just realized it has been AGES since I have posted with pics!