Searching for the Silver Lining

Today started out well enough. Jason and I got up early after a wonderful dinner last night. I just about finished my baby knit dress. The weather was warm. I have one cherry tomato that is turning from green to its new shade of red (yeah, I can't wait for Jason and I to share that one tiny tomato! haha!).

Jason was "starving" and I just decided to make whatever I saw so I made Chili-Rubbed Skirt Steak. The entire meal from thought to sit-down meal was maybe 9 minutes tops.

And I made an accompanying salad with a chili dressing...delicious!

Then I was browsing around on the internet and come across this lovely sight called Sublime Stitching....I'm heading to Hobby Lobby later on to purchase my first bit of embroidery gear!

Then, without warning (well, maybe...if we had seen the weather on the news, we would have known) it went from beautifully warm and bright, albeit overcast, to a torrential down pour. Seriously, it must have dumped 8 inches or rain in about 5 minutes.

And the mayhem ensued:

So, instead of being a "Debbie Downer" while I'm sharing my afternoon-of-torrential-rain-pool-follies photography, I thought I'd search for the silver lining in each picture. Shall we?

We now have "water-front" property.

We've always wanted a lagoon pool.

We can now say we have one of those great "infinity" pools.

My toes look great submerged in water at our back door.

Jason was the first one to get to enjoy our new infinity/lagoon pool.

The flowers and grass look exceptionally lush and green.

Wow! Wasn't that so refreshing and positive? I'm going to start doing this "silver lining" thing more often!

Hope the rest of your weekend is more dry than ours!

What's Been Up

This weekend was wonderful; full of working in the yard, playing outside, opening windows, eating great food, spending time with friends and family, starting up baseball season and starting new knitting projects.

I really enjoyed everything this weekend, warm weather and green stuff sprouting will do that.

As much as we like to be "busy" all the time, taking time to unwind and decompress by just going with the flow was much needed this weekend.

Plus we are all well and have kicked all the nasty sick germs out the door; that was reason enough for weekend enjoyment. Hope you had a great weekend as well!

Memory Lane

First off, all I have to say about the following BEFORE pictures is...thank goodness I bit the bullet and bought a really nice camera. I probably need to add a warning to the "before" pictures since they are so out-of-focus (this really was the camera's fault) and blurry, the pictures actually seem like they are spinning around so you may become nauseous.

Enjoy the "before" and "after" pictures...it's for this exact reason that I like watching HGTV!

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:


Before:

After:

Before (the scariest of the all!):

After:

And here are some more "after" pictures:

Houston, We Have a Palm Tree...

When we bought our house, it was LESS than appealing. It was overgrown and dark and the mosquitoes were in heaven in our damp, dark backyard.

We got in there though and all the overgrown stuff was completely ripped out and removed. All we had left was a VERY shabby homemade retaining wall (if you could call it that) and a beautiful oak tree and my beloved red bud that is the heart and soul of my backyard (this tree was the "piece de resistance" in making me want to buy this house...no joke).

Well, after a friend of ours, who is a Landscape Architect, began to help us out, our backyard has been transformed into a very inviting and wonderful place to be. We haven't gotten our plants in or had the waterfall put in just yet, but I think it is beautiful all the same. And look at our palm tree...ah, this is definitely going to be my backyard paradise, I just know it.

Here are some pics of the desolate, depressing and delightful (don't you just love alliteration?).
Now that's depressing...
Oh, there's hope for the backyard, yet!
Uh, never mind...
Nice practical joke. Who put the freaking lake in my backyard (PS I do have a pool beneath the murky pond water)...
That's what I call a nice retaining wall...I can already see the banana palms that will be in it soon...
Could this be my ray of hope?
Backyard being prepared for...
Grass and some nice curves!
Yay, fresh top soil and a 7 foot tall palm tree!
Nice palm tree...
Quick, somebody order me up a margarita and a hammock!

Look for another installment of "A Backyard in the Making"...it will be good!