Suck and Blow

David doesn't get to help me very much while he's in school due to the large amount of projects he has with this program {he logged 112 hours a few weeks ago. eeek}.  But during his spring break we logged some hours at home doing yard work.

I do believe the previous tenants never picked up a rake in the few years that they lived here and we have some rather large trees in both the front and back yard {read: 3 inch thick layer of leaves}.  So we stared raking. And raking. And raking.  We were a few hours into it when David thought we needed another power tool.

We headed to Lowe's and picked up a leaf blower.  He picked out an electric one {so we don't have to worry about gas cans} and headed home to start playing with the new toy.  It's a combo leaf blower/mulcher {it sucks and blows hence the witty title of this post} and came with some assembly required.  The numerous amounts of parts were a little confusing so after tried his hand at putting it together by himself, I gently handed him the instructions... 

  

 So he read.

 And examined.

 And read some more.

 After he figured out how to assemble it, he went to town.  He blew all the leaves into a pile near the fence to make it easier to stuff into the yard bags.  He may have had a little too much fun with this...
He even let me in on the fun...

It wasn't terribly heavy but it was hard to blow the leaves where I wanted them.  David changed the parts and turned it into the mulcher {my favorite part!}.  I have a strange love for sweeping, mopping and vacuuming and since this is somewhat an extension of that, it was my turn to go town.  This thing sucked up the leaves and chops them up into itty-bitty pieces. Awesome!

We spent that entire day outside doing yard work and ended up with 15 {15!} bags for the garbage man.  There are still two piles in the backyard, but one can only do so much in a day {and for a person that hates doing yard work,  a day of it is enough for the whole year}.

We are even seeing some results of our hard work already.  Where there used to be a lot of dirt under those 3 inches of leaves, there are now some green sprouts.  We bought some grass seed as well and threw that out the other day but we shall see how that goes.

Happy Spring!

Dust off the Apron

With Easter being a week away, I think it might be time to don on the apron and roast another turkey.  The last attempt went so well {sans leaving the giblets inside while it cooked....oops.  I swear I looked for them, who knew they were in the neck?} I am excited for another go.  I understand that ham is the more traditional route, but I prefer the bird {it goes better with mashed potatos and gray}.

David has another huge project due the Monday after, so it may be just Jocelyn and myself, but that means more leftovers for turkey and gravy sandwiches. Yum.



Things Look Different.

This feels better.  There was something that just wasn't sitting with me with the last layout.  It was just...there.  Not very personal.  I found it on a great blog template website and thought it was for me, but I could never settle into it.  This is better. More my taste.  I even designed the header all by myself {with a little push from David}.  Take a look around and let me know what you think!  There may be a few more changes coming soon...