Much needed vacation

So needless to say work has been beyond stressful for quite awhile.  I lost all patience, humor and everything was hitting my last nerve.  I lost my love of life and had to pretty much force myself to get up and get ready for work.  I took a much needed vacation and welcomed the break.  I feel refreshed and ready to get back to the 8-5ish grind and know that work will get better as there are some exciting changes coming.  But in the mean time here are the things that I have been up to on my vacation - sanity break.

BUTTERFLY GARDEN
I went to Lowe's and they had these cool little flower bulb kits for a Butterfly Garden.  It's the flowers that will attract butterflies. So I thought what the heck, they were perfect for the spot I want them in as they need full sun and the spot is full sun all day except early evening, so they will be happy. This is what I started with:

I worked on ripping out and cleaning up those stupid green bushes for a few weeks (I hate those green bushes).  The branches that came off of that thing root themselves in the ground and were a bitch to get up and out.  The ones that I was not able to get out, I beat them with the shovel and hope they won't grow back.   It took 2 days to turn all the soil, pull the weeds out and in the process try not to kill any earth worms.  I planted my bulbs and sprinkled other flower seeds as well and here is the end product

So now I need to put a drip system of some kind in and hope my flowers will grow and I keep them alive.  Those stupid green bushes are still there, but they are on my neighbors side and I believe are holding up the hill.  I wish they would rip them out but that would mean they would actually have to do some yard maintainence.  On a side note, I went to turn my front sprinklers on and not only did a tree frog come shooting out of one of them, but one of the controls leaks :(  So it needs to be fixed.  In the meantime, I will just use a regular sprinkler and drag the hose around.  No biggie.

ADDING COLOR
So I have the hedges in the front of the house and it was colorful, yet kind of boring.  So off to Home Depot I went to find some flowers that liked a little bit of sun and most shade.  It was harder than I thought.  But when I finally found them I took them home.  They are Iridindums and so pretty.  I believe they will be happy where they are because they will get plenty of water.

THE DIRT PATCH

I finally figured out what I'm going to do with the dirt patch in the back yard.  Right now it looks like this

But see the flowers sitting on the green thing and black container there?  Those are going to be planted in there with more flower seeds sprinkled throughout.  I also want to put a bird bath there too.  That's what the brick is for.  But right now, it holds the old dry rotted lumber from the patio cover.

PATIO COVER

I am so excited, I just can't hide it, I'm about to loose control and I think I like oh yeah....

My biggest project I had going on vacation was the Patio Cover (da da da dummmmm).  I was so stoked when my neighbor came over to get his materials list so we can rebuild.  This it what it looked like

Old and crappy.  The latice up top was sagging, the paint coming off and some of the boards were split.  So once Grant (my neighbor who is a general contractor) told me that he would rebuild it, I started taking the latice down which wasn't much of a chore since some of the boards were so rotted all I had to was push up on them a little bit and they popped right out.  The boards at the very end were so rotted all I had to do was twist them a bit and they came right out.  The latice was pressue washed (which was so fun) and it looks way better than it did.  We are going to keep that and put it back up.  Gives it that old look still.  We worked on it today and got halfway done so here is what it's going to look like

I am going to repaint it white again, but this time the correct paint will be used and all the boards have been pressure treated so they will last for many years.  I can't wait!!

SNAKE!!!!

Fabio was so proud of himself when I came home late one night.  He brought this little guy in the house and tortured it.  I picked him up and took him outside about 15 minutes later, Fabio brought him back in.  This routine went on for about an hour.  Then he finally killed it, but didn't eat it.  About 2:00 in the morning I heard him in the kitchen so I went to see what he was getting into and he brought a different one in the house.  Same routine, I put it out he brought it back in.  He's brought 3 in the house so far. Thank goodness I'm not super girlie and these little guys don't bother me.

I feel so much better now that I have had a break and chance to get "me" back.  All the hard work, sweat, dirt and sunburn was the best therapy a girl could ask for.  I can't wait to finish my projects and am hoping I can keep my flowers alive.