Fall Is Here!

I cannot say enough how much I love autumn. The weather is perfect, I can wear sweaters and boots, the nice little chill in the air, the smells, the brilliant colors of nature, cozy-ing up with my sweetheart on the couch (as if I don't do that already, lol), the anticipation of the holidays just around the corner, I could go on, but I just love fall!

Recently along with the changes we made to our living room, Stephen and I have also been busy outside "remodeling" our yard as well. It is a ton of work to keep up with our garden, the flowerbeds, and mowing the lawn and keeping it green, especially for only two people with a big yard like we have. Since we bought an older home that means we have to deal with juniper bushes and lots of them because they were very popular to plant back in the day. I cannot stand juniper bushes! I will never ever design a yard using them. Ever. There are tons of other options for an evergreen shrub that not only looks better, but they won't collect spiders and trash either. So, Stephen and I had all our junipers pulled out along with a gigantic vine growing on our wall in the back yard a few weeks ago. My yard now looks bleak and barren, but it's also a blank canvas for me to work my magic.

BEFORE

AFTER

So far we have taken out 12 shrubs and we have four more to go, but we'll wait for spring to finish the job and finally fill in our large dirt patch with grass. I can't wait, it's going to look like a whole new yard come this time next year!

This past Saturday we worked in the yard pulling out two more large shrubs in our front yard to get ready for us to plant some new trees and shrubs. It was strenuous work, and although Stephen hates doing yard work, he did a nice job pulling out the shrubs and raking and shoveling the hideous red lava rock in the back of the truck to take to the dump. We didn't get everything done we wanted to last week so we have to continue again this week getting rid of railroad ties, pruned branches and more lava rock. I have several new shrubs, trees, and somewhere around 200 spring bulbs to plant before it starts to snow this year, so its a race against nature's clock to get everything in the ground so they don't freeze and die during the winter.

One day while I was outside deadheading my zinnias I found this little big guy!

Speaking of bugs, when Stephen and I were scooping out the lava rock out of the back of the truck at the dump last weekend he spotted a giant black spider crawling around and told me to come take a look. I looked at it and saw the distinct shape of its abdomen and tried to turn it on its back to find a red marking. It was a really aggressive spider and it took me a few tries to flip it, but sure enough it was the famed black widow spider! I have seen my fair share of black widows on the farm, but I have never seen one that big. I wish I could've take a picture of it because it was HUGE! Now it creeps me out knowing we have those spiders around our house. We had all the rolls of carpet that we took out of the living room that had been sitting outside for weeks sitting the truck, so I think it crawled inside one of the carpet rolls, eeeewe!

I also had a friend from high school come over and make a cute Halloween craft with me. It's cute and inexpensive, and we had a great time. I even made a pumpkin jelly roll cake for the first time, and I wasn't sure how or even if it was going to turn out, but it was beautiful and yummy!

Making Our House a Home

Here are some before and after shots of the work Stephen and I have done to our living room this summer. Going through the pictures I realized I didn't do a very good job taking pictures before we started to get a good idea of how ugly the living room really was, but what's important is that it's not ugly anymore! This is my favorite room in our house right now because we gave it  a major facelift.

BEFORE

We were initially going to go with a green room......good thing we didn't! The 2nd photo on the right I took through the plastic that was blocking all the doorways so the popcorn ceiling dust didn't go anywhere except the living room. Taking the ceiling off was the worst part of this whole project because it was a thousand degrees outside in late June and we had to wear hazmat suites, masks, gloves, and a hat to protect ourselves with all the doors, windows, and AC shut off. That took us a few hours to complete and by the time we finished taking the ceiling off we were completely drenched in sweat.

  I thought this picture was funny. the paint got stuck to the carpet over night and I couldn't get the lid off the paint.

  We had to tape up brown paper to protect our walls when we sprayed on our new ceiling texture.

 We ended up painting the living room blue instead of that hideous green and here we are taking the ugly brown carpet out to reveal our wood floor! I was really surprised how great of shape the wood floor was under the carpet. That carpet was so old the padding underneath just disintegrated when you touched it, so I ended up having to actually sweep up the padding instead of rolling it up like the carpet.

 Next we took up the ply board and linoleum in our entryway. It wasn't in as good as shape as the living room, so unfortunately we now have to refinish the whole floor.

 AFTER

 And voila!! Our new living room. I don't have all our pictures and stuff up on the walls yet, and I put out my Halloween decorations in these photos too so there are fake spider webs everywhere, but it turned out SO nice I can't even believe it is the same space we moved into three months prior. We still have a little more to do to the living room like add curtains, a few side tables and coffee table, lamps and another chair, but those things will come with time.....as soon as we afford them that is. Seeing this gets me all excited to redo our kitchen and bathroom and they both desperately need a make over.

Utah State Fair

Stephen and I went to the state fair last night; we bought tickets to go see Frank Caliendo the comedian. I'm surprised at how many people haven't ever heard of him since he's had a show on TV and made TV appearances on talk shows and such, but anywho we had a great time full of lots of laughs. We walked around before the show to look at all the other booths and stuff. We, of course ate fair food including deep fried cheese cake. Fun date night for us!

Goings On

Stephen and I have been working on our living room for the past three months now. We are not quite finished yet as we still need to put the molding on and polish up the floors, but because we have been working so hard we're kinda pooped out and want a break from working on the house. The living room looks awesome and we are starting to fill it with furniture and making if feel like home again. I come home from work, now and can actually think about what I'm going to cook for dinner for Stephen when he gets home or I clean the house. It feels really good to be getting back into my normal routine. We have been haggling with a landscaper to come rip out all my shrubs so I can start designing and buying shrubs and trees to beauitfy my yard. Picture are soon to come for the living room and yard. 

I am pretty sure my cat suffers from pika disorder. He licks, chews, and eats anything that is metal. He's like a racoon who sees something shiny and has to investigate. He first ate my earring, now he has been going after my wedding ring. I take it off at night and put it back on the in the mornings. The past two days it has mysteriously disappeared from off my nightstand. I did find it, thankfully, but that darn cat has been carrying it off to play with it! 

We are taking a week long vacation to California next month that I am SUPER excited about; we've been planning it all out and saving for a whole year. I am not anything like Stephen's family. I am a big list maker, planner--has to know everything that's going to be happening before hand, and prepper. I like surprises every once in a while, but usually I have to know whats going be happening before someone comes over or an event takes place so I can be prepared. I'm not OCD or anything but I need at least an outline. The Washburns don't like having things planned out too far ahead of time, but I am excited nontheless, and I'll get to see Stephen's brother in Oregon and his family whom I've only met once.