Dear May 2011...

Dear May 2011,



Where did you go? May 2011 came into my life so fast and now is soon leaving my life for good. I have felt busy, busy, busy this month. Rillz and I are still using dinner menu planning. Which is awesome! Just makes things so easy! We have been doing A LOT of yard cleanup. Rillz put some sod in our backyard dirt patch. A week later, Diesel came over for a week while Jeff and Kristi went to Bend, Or. and Malu and Diesel thought it would be fun to pull up sod. So now we have little clods missing. Oh well, that's ok. The sod was free. And Malu LOVED having her cousin, Diesel, over to play for the week. Those to play, and play, and play. It is insane!


We also finally got the tree branches and tree crap off our property! The branches were sitting on the side of the house for a month. We live across from a NAPA auto part store and their dumpster faces our house. The other day I was working in my yard and the manager went to throw something away and got mad, yelled, and gave me a very mean look. I thought "What the heck?" Five minutes later he comes back out with a camera and takes pictures of the dumpster and then turns around and faces the camera to my house. I stopped him and said "excuse me, why are you taking pictures of my house"? He said "We found the same tree branches in our dumpster that were on the side of your house just yesterday." I said "you mean the ones that are STILL on the side of my house." Oh I was so mad. He continues "Well, I am not accusing anyone..." I said "Excuse me sure, but that is EXACTLY what you are doing. We DID NOT throw anything in your dumpster. I can understand how you feel annoyed but it was NOT us." He said some other things blah blah blah and then left. I told Rillz and he was so annoyed. Mainly because the manager dude gave me a bad look. We went over to the dumpster and it wasn't even the same type of tree. So that following Monday Rillz and I went to NAPA auto parts to talk to the guy again and let him know that his behavior was inappropriate. We told him that it is ok if they have an issue with us but need to talk to us about it. The manager dude had a big ego and it's good that their was a more level headed worker there to make him realize he was in the wrong.

The dumpster. Maybe they should lock it up or something. Not my problem.



Our tree branches... yep, looks like the branches are still on my driveway.

The branches and pine cones from NAPA auto part dumpster

My branches... no pine cones

Um... what else this month? Oh... wedding crap. I have been spending hours on making the invitations. They are just detailed and have a lot of parts. I am loving my flower lady in Hawaii. She has been very pleasant! I don't know how they will actually turn out but she has made me not worry about it. I found my florist and photographer the ghetto way. Hawaii craigslist. Haha. It was the cheap way and I think will be great. The Idaho reception... I have the place and flowers planned. Thats all.

Last week for mothers day we all cleaned up my moms yard. Unfortunetely Rillz and I had to leave early. But it was fun for the time we were helping. Kristi and Heidi and watching the little ones are always a lot of fun to be around.

We were weeding and Keilia decided to make herself cozy right in the middle of where we were working.

I have also wasted my May 2011 with a lot of Netflix. Been watching a lot of tv series like Hoarders, Obsessed, 10 things I hate about you (did you know that was a tv series)?, Take home chef. And been watching movies too.

Now I am getting my home ready for a family BBQ today. I love company coming to my house!

Oh yeah, I also already got my first sunburn this summer. Awesome.

Peace out! Here comes summer.

Spring cleaning

F.Y.I... This post was written a week ago but couldn't load the pictures until today. I love the first daffodils that pop up in my yard. It's motivation to work in my yard. Unfortunetely, those pretty daffodils are now squished. Rillz and I started the dawnting task yesterday of cutting down a hideous, no good, very bad so called bush. This thing is huge! Talk about overgrown. It's a piece of crappo. There isn't just a trunk to cut and then bam-o the tree falls and woohoo all is done. It's more like... chop, chop, chop oh and chop over here and over here some more. Not to mention the branches are entangled in the fence. Awesome. We rented a chainsaw... dull, completely empty with no gas/bar oil. Oh how we were so unhappy. We went back to the rental place and traded it out for one that was a little sharper. Still, not $30 worth to rent for 3 hours. Thank goodness our neighbor across the street came over with his own chainsaw that worked SO much better. The task is still not done but Rillz wasn't feeling well and we had an 80th birthday to go to... so we saved it for another day to come... soon. This was the ridiculous bush that was home for raccoons, squirrals, birds, bees, beer bottles, everything else imaginable, pretty sure an elephant was hiding in there for a couple weeks. And so the cutting begins... Our neighbor. I think his name is Dave. Nice guy.

This is what I found in the tree. Over the last 2 years I have been pulling random things out of this dumb bush. And we found 2 big sinder blocks.

What we got it down to so far.

Now we have a beautiful tree on the side of our house.

On a good note, Rillz and I are doing really good with our dinner menu plans. I can heat up a yummy fish stick! Haha. But on Rillz's cooking nights I am in heaven. Tonight we had furikake tuna rice with japanese sausage. Yummy!! I know the majority of you have no idea what furikake even is but if you could taste this through the computer... oh boy! Saturday I was with Kristi and really wanted to eat out but Kristi and I held strong! It's so nice to look at the meal and think... I only spent $2 to make all of this food. Love it!

Our grass...

Sorry, not talking about the marijuana kind of grass... just talking about my, well, grass. At the beginning of the warm season, month of May, my grass was a disaster. I felt like that white trash neighbor that has all the weeds and dead grass in the yard. Rillz and I were determined to do something about it. The only problem, we knew NOTHING about recovering a sad looking lawn. Rillz's suggestion was to take it all out and lay down new lawn... um no, too spendy. So, from talking to several people, we decided to first kill the weeds with weed be gone and then sign up for the zamzows lawn program. Wow! Our lawn is much thicker and healthier. Still far from perfect but a big difference.

Our front yard in May 2010.
Another front yard pic.

Back yard picture in May 2010. Our dogs did some nice pee spots don't you think.

Gross.

Poor lawn.

Our lawn at the end of September 2010. Those "yellow" looking spots are from the sun coming through the trees. Not yellow doggie pee burn spots. Those are ALL gone!
Another backyard picture. I wish the sun wasn't so bright so the picture would show no yellow. Oh well. I love mowing my lawn and then just looking at it. Looks so pretty after being mowed. I can't believe our grass stays so nice with 2 dogs running all over it all day.
Our front yard September 2010. It isn't as thick and beautiful as the back but it looks much better. And now from our main water line having that leak, we have a funny grass/dirt spot in our lawn.

I am so glad our lawn is small. This much grass is enough work for me.

Like the saying goes "When it rains... it pours"

I feel like since we got back from vacation last Saturday we have been flooded with unexpected problems. Really, it has only been 2 problems but still it's been a long and stressful week.



Rillz and I got back into town on Saturday and went to pick up our dogs from Kristis. Kristi and Jeff were kind enough to doggie sit while we were gone. We knew Kristi and Jeff were going out of town Thursday afternoon until Sunday. We were totally fine with our dogs being there with Diesel and no humans. They all get along really well. And Ren was going Friday to check on them anyways and give them food/water. Rillz got a text Friday saying Malu had lost 5 lbs. and looked really depressed. Not a huge shock to us because Malu is a very sensitive dog and always gets depressed so maybe she wasn't eating. Kristi said she was eating fine and hadn't noticed her losing any weight. Anyways, we go and check on them Saturday afternoon. Rillz and I walk in their backyard and are greeted to the excitement of Diesel and Simon. No Malu. We called for her and then thought she must have escaped some how. Soon after Malu came slowely out of the bushes and looked like just skin and bones.

She barely had any emotions and something was definitely wrong. Rillz and I took her to my parents and tried to feed her. She would not eat. We sat around for a couple hours to see if she would spring up a little. Eventually she started vomiting water and Rillz and I realized she needed to go to the vet. We took her right away and was told she has Parvo. She had lost 16 lbs. in 1 1/2 days. She was taken back into the hospital area and we were sent home. Malu stayed in there for 4 days. The whole time she barely ate one meatball. The Dr.s were worried to let her come home but thought she may do better at home because she is so sensitive. Plus, our bill was really starting to get expensive already. Rillz and I picked her up on Wednesday afternoon. She was feeling much better because her personality was back. She has eatin everything I have given her which has to be VERY bland foods. I have to give her pills every 8 hours and we even had to inject water into her... that part freaked me out a bit. Still looks like we haven't fed her in weeks but oh-well. I learned my lesson the expensive way. DOGGIE VACCINES ARE VERY IMPORTANT!!! This parvo virus is found EVERYWHERE! It can be tracked in your yard from anything and stay for years. So if you don't want to spend thousands on your dog make sure they are up to date on shots and get their boosters too.

Next thing, something is flooding parts of our front yard. It has been a slow flood though. On Monday I thought we had just over watered our lawn. Rillz turned the sprinkler system off on Tuesday and our lawn still had major puddles. Oh great. At our request our water is completely shut off. We think the sprinkler valve is broken. But, really we don't know. Ren has generously offered his time to come look at it today. In the mean time I have to use the bathroom but have to hold it until I go back to work in 1 1/2 hours. We really didn't need this issue after Malu's issues this week. At least I will work out tonight because we are planning on taking showers at the gym. Great idea huh!

This picture doesn't look that bad. Some water has been pumped out from the top and the sun has dryed it up too.

Luckely, Rillz and I are in good health and have food and a roof over our heads. I hope everyone else's week has gone better than ours :)

Thank goodness it's Friday!!