Here's What I've Been Working on All Week

About a year ago, I saw a lonely little dresser sitting out in front of a neighbor's house with a free sign on it.  I have a soft spot in my heart for unwanted household items (as you can see here), and when I saw that little dresser, I wanted it badly.  Nick took some convincing, but lucky for me, I'm good at convincing, and before long, he was hauling that dresser into his car for me.  Upon closer inspection, once we got it home, we realized that this dresser was a piece of crap.  We wanted to put it right back out on the street in front of our house, but thought it would be kind of embarrassing if the neighbor we took it from saw it.  So, we sat it on the side of the house, and there it has been for the last year.

But that all changed the other day when I saw a picture in a magazine that inspired me.  I pulled that dresser out from the side of the house and went to work.

The dresser did have drawers.  I just didn't think to take a before picture until after I had already painted them.  I decided to only paint the drawers and the sides of the dresser, and I was not too concerned about what it looked like.  I didn't even take the handles off the drawers when I painted.

Then it was time to add plants and put the whole thing together.

I wanted to put a chalkboard out there, and decided to write a Bible verse on it that was fitting for the garden but that would also be encouraging to me.  More on that later.

And that's that.

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Also from Redding

Nick and I came home from Redding with all kinds of goodies.  His grandma was happy to give us all sorts of old things.  Among these things was this really cool toolbox.  Nick liked the tools inside, and I liked the box.  Once we got home, I found the perfect use for it.

My succulents have been quite successful, so I decided to clip a few little branches off and replant them in the tool box.  Did you know that you can do that with succulents?  I just learned that recently.  But, it's not like I walk around the neighborhood and take clippings from neighbors plants.  I mean, seriously, who would do that?

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Succulent Succulents

Ever since Katie and Collin's wedding, I have been dreaming about succulents and have been wanting to plant some pots of them for my own.  Nick got me one succulent plant for Easter, then two more for my last day of school.  That was enough to make one pot!

I loved this pot so much, that I decided to go buy myself 3 more succulent plants and plant myself another pot.

Seeing as my parents are now desert folk, I thought it fitting to post some pictures of these little cactii plants.

It's like I have a little piece of my parents right in my own backyard.

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April Events

In the first 20 days of April, I did do a little more than just blogging.  But blogging seriously did dominate my time....I am so glad those 20 memory posts are done! 
(Scroll down if you have not seen them all yet.  I posted a lot of them after the date they were supposed to be posted because it was taking me so long.)

So, here are a few things we have been up to this April.

1) We saw our friends Dan and Michelle get married!

Aren't they cute!

2) We planted our garden!

Here are just a few of the things we planted:

3) We prepped for my birthday party.

4) We threw my birthday party.

A long post of the party will be coming very soon!

5) We celebrated my 30th birthday on it's actual day.

More on this day later too.

So I guess a lot of this month revolved around me, but I think that's the way it should be when you are turning 30.  Don't you think?

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Dreamy Decks

We have a deck in our backyard.

It's a great place to sit and enjoy the view when the weather is nice. (Which it has not been lately.)

 We hung some candle holders on the deck that were wedding gifts and some string lights I gave Nick as a Christmas gift.

  But, I have never really been a big fan of how much space this deck takes up in our yard.

We have a huge hill in our yard which would be the perfect location for a deck.

 So, these are some things I am dreaming about for our hill:

 

                                                                                                  Source: tumblr.com via Mindy on Pinterest

                                                                                                                      Source: tumblr.com

                                                                                                                          Source: flickr.com

                                                                                                                       Source: greayer.com

                                                                                                                   Source: mykotori.com

                                                                                                                        Source: Pinterest

And this is just amazing:

                                                                                                                      Source: tumblr.com

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Easy Garden Markers

I have been wanting to make markers for our plants ever since we planted our garden way back when.

I finally went to Michaels and got what I needed to make them.

I got a bunch of $0.29 rectangular pieces of wood and some long wooden sticks.  Then, I spray painted the signs with chalkboard paint and voila....garden markers.

 Really quick and easy!

(And check out our little baby cantaloupe.  We actually have 3 of them and I am so excited!)

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If you want to vote for the best dressed from the World Cup Party, you must vote by Sunday at midnight!

After all, Sunday is America's day, and our finalists were dressed very American.

I will announce the winner on Monday.

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Homeowners!!!!!!

The process has been so long and rollercoaster-ish that I forgot to announce when it became official.

WE ARE HOMEOWNERS!

We are so excited that everything worked out and we finally can say that our home is ours.

Now we can actually start doing real work to the house.

The first thing we did was tear out part of the jungle that is our backyard so that we could plant a garden.

Nick attacked this corner of the yard and got most of it done in a day.  We have one garbage can for all of our plant waste, and the garbage truck only comes once a week,so we will be filling that thing up every Tuesday for a couple more months before we finally get rid of all of the stuff we ripped out.

I weeded the rosebush area while Nick worked the corner.

THEN...

We planted our amazing garden!

We already have baby tomatoes!

We are such proud parents!

( Well, I am at least.  Nick makes fun of me every time I walk out to look at the garden and gush with pride and excitement at these little babies.)

We needed a trellis for the tomatoes, but we didn't have one.  Being the resourceful, ingenious people that we are, we took the screens off some doors that were on the side of our house and created our very own trellis!

We planted 7 different tomato plants, cucumber, squash, cataloupe, lemon thyme, basil, cilantro, jalapeno peppers, cilantro peppers, sugar snap peas, oregano, and a couple other things that I am forgetting right now.  When this garden grows, we will never have to leave our house to get food.  We will just eat bruschetta and salsa all day long and love it!

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