Mud, Gloirous Mud!

 First, a little update. The past weekend we went down to the Ozarks for the Tough Mudder, a crazy eleven mile obstacle course that takes some guts to do. Chris ran the whole thing (cue crazy proud fiance) and didn't even break anything. I was impressed. And by the end, he looked something like this:

 

Lily had tons of fun people watching and wandering the sponsor's tents while we waited for dad to finish. She even got a Wounded Warriors tattoo.

When we got home I was inspired by all the mud there and decided it was time for a little "Dude, Get On That Already" Challenge, Young House Love Style. (More on that here.)

 

I grabbed the spackle (which is a hilariously fun word) and went to town all over the house. I even got the bathroom holes that I've been staring at for a year.

 

 

I was on a roll, so I finally found a place for this guy, who has been hanging in a poorly lit corner of my dining room since I got him nearly a year ago.

 

 

I seriously stressed out about this for a good ten minutes, then took a deep breath and hung him up in the kitchen. Instant relief. He looks much happier there, don't you think?

 

Please forgive my awful pictures, they were taken with a 7 year old point and shoot.

 

Then I threw some cookbooks on top of my cabinet. I think once get some more it will look less sparse up there. Plus, I love my seahorse bookend.

 

What have you guys been up to lately? Made any tiny changes around the house that make you smile?

I Went For It.

And by "it" I mean tearing out our sad mulch filled garden beds and making a game plan for some not-so-sad beds next year. Spoiler: It went horribly wrong.

This normally happens when I make a quick decision and don't think something all the way through, but they were taunting me. Every time we pulled into the driveway they screamed out "Look! You're the ugly house on the block!" So I did something about them! I grabbed my shovel and wheelbarrow and scooped all (well, some) the mulch out, then ripped out all the torn weed blocking fabric.

This is where things went wrong. Look what I came up against, you guys.
 

 

Those are shingles. Like the kinds that go on your roof. In my planter. The roof was redone about two years before we moved into our little house, and apparently instead of getting a dumpster they just laid them out in the planters. They were stacked in there five or six deep. Not great.

So, I grabbed a shovel and dug them all up. In all, it took about a week of on and off digging and cursing our former owners. And dealing with a view like this:

 

 

Now it looks much happier. We had a hosta on the opposite side of the porch, which gets direct sunlight almost all day long. Mr. Hosta was very unhappy throughout the 100+ summer we had, so I split him up and moved him to the shady side of the house.

He (they?) is/are much happier now.

 

 

So there's the game plan (and my first blog post, EEEK!)

I'll be back with another post tomorrow!