Friday Favorites!!!

2 Weeks worth of favorites right here! I know it's not Friday, but it's my Friday, so I'm posting today anyway. :-D

1) Parks Visit - Our Friends Bryan and Kristen visited from MD. Bryan made crab cakes for dinner. We made loaded baked potatoes and corn on the cob to have with them. Everything was so good! We stayed up late playing games on Friday night. Everyone except me slept in on Saturday. Not because I didn't want to. I would have loved to. My body just didn't want to. I got up and assembled the patio furniture that we had picked up from Sears on Friday. 

We went to Beasley's Chicken and Honey for brunch on Saturday. Everything was SO good! We'll definitely be going back! After Beasley's, we went to Crank Arm since Kristen likes random bike things. They had human sized Jenga, which sounds completely awesome! It's not completely awesome. It kind of sucks, actually. You're talking, enjoying your company, then all of a sudden you hear a loud crash and it scares the daylights out of you. Human sized Jenga is not awesome and I no longer want to build a set for our yard. The End.

We stopped by the new Cabella's on the way home to pick up some bait since Josh and Bryan wanted to go fishing. Kristen and I lounged a little then started to prep for dinner. We had planned to make BBQ at home, but since it's kind of a whole day process, it didn't happen. In hindsight, we should have smoked it during the day on Friday. We just ran to a place down the street and picked some up. We just lounged and watched TV (which of course means me falling asleep on the couch around 10:00).

Sunday morning Bryan made us brunch with the leftover crab cakes. He made eggs benedict...but with crab cakes. Yes Please! I need the Parks to come back to visit soon!!!

2) Garden Progress - Our garden is still going strong! Everything is getting so big! I definitely look forward to the day when I can go grab a tomato or zucchini fresh out of the garden! We made a little trellis for the sugar snap peas and they are climbing it like a champ! Unfortunately, the Crab Grass is also growing like a champ. We really need to just hang out in the garden for like a day to pick all the grass and weeds. I went out to check it this morning and I found a baby tomato! I meant to go back out to take a picture, but I didn't get a chance before it started raining. YAY for some rain finally!!!

3) Patio Furniture - As I mentioned above, we got patio furniture for our covered deck area. This is the set we got.

4) Fire Pit - We got our fire pit this past weekend...now to just get the patio installed. We're one step closer to our awesome outdoor entertaining area!

5) Brad Paisley - We went to see Brad Paisley this past Saturday and had a great time! He put on a great show. Justin Moore and Mickey Guyton opened for him. Mickey was pretty good, but Justin Moore was great! Even though he's got a new album out, Brad Paisley performed a lot of old songs. I didn't leave wishing he had played something that he didn't play, so I consider it a win!

Waiting for the show to start!

6) The Wire - Since we lived in MD, I've always wanted to watch The Wire. I heard everyone talk about it, but we never got around to watching it. Well, we finally started watching it this week! We're only 2 episodes in, but we're really enjoying it so far!

7) Revenge - My favorite show is gone. The series finale was the weekend before last and the red sharpie is no more. It's bittersweet. I'm happy with how things ended, but I miss Emily Thorne/Amanda Clarke being in my life!

8) Daily Burn - I started this new program on Daily Burn this week and I really like it so far! My boss told me about Daily Burn and I thought I would give it a shot. SO glad she told me about it. It's not free, but it's not expensive and there's a 30 day free trial. If I'm not sticking with it after a couple months, I'll cancel it. Either way, it's much cheaper than paying a gym membership and the features make it worth the $13 a month. I'm doing Cardio Sculpt and I'm really enjoying it so far!

9) 9/80 Schedule - Before we moved and I started working from home, I was off every other Friday. Basically, I worked 80 hours in 9 days rather than 10. I'll be starting that again the week after next! Since my team's workload has change a little since I was last on the schedule, my off day will now be Monday, so I'll be off every other Monday starting June 8. Woohoo!

10) Short work week and long weekend - We have more friends coming to visit this weekend! They'll be coming in sometime today, so Josh and I both took tomorrow off work. Since Monday is Memorial Day, we both have it off work, so we have a 4 day week, a 4 day weekend, then another 4 day week! I actually have a few 4 day weeks and 4 day weekends coming up. I took June 5 off for our anniversary and June 8 is my first off Monday, so that's 2 more 4 day weeks and another 4 day weekend for me! Score! After four 4 day weeks, it's gonna be hard to go back to a 5 day work week!

11) Anniversary Cake - We won't pick it up until the day before our anniversary, but we ordered our anniversary cake (and some extras) this week! I am SO excited about this! We got our first anniversary cake, but we haven't gotten any since then. Our tradition is to watch our wedding video on our anniversary every year. One of my favorite things about our wedding was our cake, so I'm super excited to have some of that to go along with it!!!

Here's our wedding cake. I still love it!

12) Call from Z - We miss all our MD friends, but we miss our Smiths something fierce! These past couple weeks in particular, I've been missing MD people and things. I told Josh either our friends have great timing with their visits, and they're coming when they knew I would need to see them (The Parks the week before last and the Daves this week)...OR with them all coming, it makes me miss MD more. Either way, I'm happy to visit with them. This past weekend, Josh and I were on our way back home from Lowe's and I got a call from Zachary. He had taken Jen's phone and started calling people. It made my heart smile.

This is from when the Smiths came to visit earlier this year (specifically, right after we found out we were going to the Sweet 16!)

Weekend Yard Work

This past weekend was VERY busy, but I definitely got 2 solid workouts on Saturday and Sunday!

We had originally planned to put sod down in our back yard, but after looking at pricing and availability (it wasn't going to happen until July or August), we decided to try seed it first. It was a lengthy and tiresome process, but hopefully we get a nice, plush yard out of it all!

We had already gone to Lowe's to pick up the seed, fertilizer, spreader and other things we thought we might need on Friday. Lowe's had the blocks we put around our mailbox flower bed on sale, so we picked up a bunch of those for other flower beds. We have enough to go around the flower beds in the front yard and do at least some of the ones we plan to put in the back yard.

Anna and John were already renting an aerator from Home Depot, so we split the cost with them. It saved us both quite a bit of money! We plan to keep doing this every time we need to aerate.We Josh aerated the front and back yards.  While he aerated, I weeded. We have these bush-like prickly weeds that are starting to spread throughout our yard, so I went through and pulled as many of those and dandelions as I could. Once that was finished, we started tilling the back yard. The directions on the the packaging of grass seed said to rake to loosen the top layer of soil. We tried that, but we have HARD clay, so a garden rake didn't loosen anything. We decided to till the yard a little to give the seed a better chance. 

 Josh tilling

The tilling took FOREVER. We were going to see Brad Paisley play Saturday night, so we actually didn't get a chance to finish. We traded off tilling while the other did other things to prep. We did get seed down in the front yard (we didn't till the front, so it didn't take as long to prep).

We had a great time at the concert, but we got to bed really late, so we got a later start than we hoped on Sunday. My body doesn't let me sleep in much, so I got up and put the sprinkler on the front yard and placed an order at Lowe's for some other things we needed. We decided to get more grass seed just in case and we did end up needing some. Now we'll have extra for any bare patches that we need to repair in the future. We also ordered a fire pit kit. We'll put it on our patio eventually, but until we have a patio to put it on, we have it in an area we plan to turn into a flower garden right in front of the vegetable garden. This is the kit we got. It's 20% off right now. Today is the last day of the sale if you want one! I also had a 10% off coupon, so it was even cheaper! I didn't use any adhesive since we plan to move it, but it was really easy to put together!

While I was unloading the fire pit kit and putting it together, Josh was tilling. I was all tilled out after Saturday tilling. Josh was too, but he was a trooper and finished tilling the rest of the back yard. He was almost finished tilling when I finished putting the fire pit together, so I started putting seed out. After I finished seeding, Josh started putting the fertilizer out and I raked over everything with the garden rake. Next, it was time to water...A. LOT. We are definitely not looking forward to our next water bill. We have guestimated that it will probably triple. Hopefully the forecast will change and we'll get more rain! 

 Setting up the sprinkler in the back yard once all the seed and fertilizer was put down

This is us watering the front yard. Since this didn't need to be tilled or anything, it looks a lot better than the back yard right now. Hopefully all the bare spots will fill in and we'll get seed growing in the areas that only have rye grass right now. 

Now, we just have to water water water...and wait. I'll update in a couple weeks...hopefully I'll have good news!

Recap of the past few weeks

It seems pointless to post a Friday Favorites post on Wednesday, especially when you're covering more than just the past week. How do I let myself get so far behind?!? 

Moving on...here's what we've had going on since I posted last. I've been absolutely horrible at taking pictures, so there aren't many of those to share, unfortunately. 

Gardening!

We've been doing quite a bit of gardening, which I love!!! We planted our garden a few weeks ago. I posted a picture right after we had the majority of the things planted, but since then, we've planted a couple more things and everything has gotten so much bigger! We also put a little fence around it to keep the curious pups out. 

This is right after everything was planted.

 This is a couple days ago. 

 Sugar snap peas. They are already looking for something to climb! We'll be making a trellis for them this week.

This is a spaghetti squash I started from seed. This guy is growing fast! 

Roma Tomatoes!

In addition to the vegetable garden, I've been busy trying to pretty up our yard a little. One afternoon after work, I made this little flower bed around our mailbox while Josh cut the grass. I planted Iris bulbs in it. Since then, several of them have sprouted and I added a few more things. I put some Petunias in there so I can have something pretty until the Irisis bloom and I added a few Sedum plants that will spread and provide pretty groundcover. I planted Shasta Daisy seeds, but they won't bloom until next year. 

 I love the way it turned out! These are the stones I used.

My Iris bulbs are sprouting!!! I'm really looking forward to seeing them bloom!

Concerts!

We're not usually big on going to concerts. We usually feel like they're not worth the money, so we only go when we find really cheap tickets. 

On Cinco de Mayo, we went to see John Fogerty. Josh won the tickets at work, so they were free! It doesn't get better than that! We had some friends come with us and we ate at Calavera before the show and it was delicious! It's like a 2 minute walk from Josh's office, so I just met him there and we walked together. 

This is the only picture we took at the show. We actually had "box" seats, but we ended up sitting on the lawn with everybody else for the show.

Last Thursday, we went to see Jason Isbell and Zac Brown Band. Both acts were awesome! The weather was perfect...it was a great show all together! 

I did get kicked out of the men's bathroom though. That kind of sucked. I should have taken a picture of how long the women's line was, but I didn't. I've waited in lots of long bathroom lines, but never one this long. It was ridiculous. Josh talked me into just going to the men's bathroom with him. We decided I would be fine if he was with me and he could just watch the stall for me. I decided there's no way it could be dirtier than the women's bathroom I had just gone in and I could save at least 30 minutes of my life. I went for it. NOPE...the security guard wasn't having it. Back to an even longer line for the women's bathroom than I left behind. Oh well, I get points for trying, right?

 This is us waiting for the show. We loved where we sat. We're going to go see Brad Paisley here on Saturday and I think we might try to get those same seats in the lawn even though we have real seats for this show. :-)

Chloe

Daddy got a new puppy about a month ago and he brought her to visit shortly after. She is SO cute!

Meet Bailey's little aunt...

 She'll grow into it soon!

 They took turns chasing each other around the house. So cute!

Tired pup!

When daddy came to visit, he also installed a flood light on our grilling deck for us, installed an outdoor fan on our covered porch and moved our breakfast nook light over. I'll post pictures of these things eventually. :-)

Friday Favorites!!!

Woohoo, it's Friday!!! This week was SO long and it was a pretty rough one at work. I'm definitely glad for the weekend to be here!

1) Lunch date - Josh worked from home today, so we decided to go out for lunch. We went to Charlie's, a really good BBQ place right down the road. This is the second time we've been and we've enjoyed both times. The owner stopped by to check on us just like the first time we went. You can tell he really cares about his business and his customers!

2) Garden - We've been working on our garden a little each day for a couple weeks now. We tilled up a little area in the back corner of our yard and built 2 raised beds to put near the front entrance of the garden. We finally have just about everything in the ground. We just have a couple things that aren't quite ready to go in and we may plant a few more things. We have several types of peppers and tomatoes, okra, sugar snap peas, a watermelon, squash, zucchini, lettuce and a cucumber plant. Hopefully everything grows well!

3) Shumaker wedding - We had Spenser and Melanie's wedding this past Saturday. We were running late and we ended up not taking any pictures, but we had a really great time! We got to catch up with Tony and meet lots of new friends. I got to meet a lot of Josh's co-workers, including his boss. It was nice to be able to put some names to faces.

4) Brew Day - We brewed a lager last Sunday...and by "we" I mean Josh and Andrew. I mostly cooked and did little things around the house. I made spent grain pizzas and they were really good! I may have found a recipe I'll stick with! 

5) My Vegas Slots - If you know me, you know I love saving money. Even more than saving money, I love free stuff! I'm going to Vegas in June for a conference and Jen introduced me to My Vegas Slots. I'm well on my way to having enough points for a show!! Woohoo!

Rocking Chair Front Porch

A rocking chair front porch was pretty much a requirement when we were house shopping, so we made sure we completed ours pretty early on. Sure, there were tons of other projects that needed to be done and some of them are probably more important, but this is one that I could take on in the afternoons after work with not much assistance, so I jumped right in a few weeks ago. We already had to buy a ton of stain for the fence and deck, so I had that on hand already. We used Ready Seal in Pecan. It was easy to apply and it looks great! I just rolled on one thick coat and it is holding up really well! I love the stain, so we ordered more for our fence. I did it about a week before Easter and it has taken this long for me to post about it. Wow!

Anyway, one day cleaned and stained the porch. We had to wait 48 hours before we could use it like normal, but we did walk across it a few times before that. It was fine. 

You can see the stain color pretty well here.

We decided on these for the rocking chairs. They're no longer available on Amazon and I haven't been able to find them anywhere else, so I'm glad we bought them when we did. We saw similar ones when we were in MD for a lot more money, so I was happy with the deal we got on these. They were a little more pricey than the plain looking painted ones you can find in other places, but I absolutely love these! 

Once the rocking chairs were in place, next on my list were some hanging baskets. I wasn't completely sure what I wanted, but I've always loved ferns. They're simple, but so pretty. That's what I went with. I messed up the hanging at first. They were SO uneven. Josh fixed it for me though and I love the way it looks now! I would like to get a small little table to put between the rocking chairs, but other than that, I think I'm finished with the porch other than seasonal changes! 

Speaking of seasonal changes...we do have a flag pole to go on the porch...we just haven't gotten around to putting it up just yet. It will definitely go up before Memorial Day!

We both love our porch. I had to work half a day on Good Friday. It was a slow day and I didn't need my full work setup, so I took my laptop down to the front porch and worked from a rocking chair. Josh and Bailey even hung out with me while I worked. It was a great day! Unfortunately, right after that, the pollen hit full force and we haven't been able to enjoy it so much since then.

The pollen is mostly gone now, so I worked on the porch with Josh for a little while today too!

Our Fence!

We got our fence very shortly after moving, but I haven't really posted about it. 

We knew we wanted to fence in our back yard before we ever moved. That's one of the reasons we were so excited to move...to have a nice sized yard that we could fence in, hang out in and let Bailey play in! We toyed around with building our own fence, but quickly decided we REALLY didn't want to go that route unless it saved us a LOT of money. We priced some things out and got a couple quotes. It wasn't going to save us a lot of money at all. One of the quotes we got was from a person one of my closest friends used, so I was hoping he would come out with the cheapest price. He did! We went with Kyle from Better Built Fence Company and we were very happy with his work! 

Here are some in progress pictures. 

End of day 1...the posts are in!

The majority of the framing is done here.

This is from inside the fence

 Most of the pickets were up here

An almost finished picture from inside.

Just a little more to go. Bailey was already enjoying her new yard!

Here are some finished pictures!

We got 2 5ft gates - one on each side. We can lock them if we want to. The latches are super handy and easy to open from both sides.

We are both very happy with the finished fence. We will need to stain it soon, but other than that, we're all good to go. The fence was finished within a week, even with some rainy weather in February! I know it would have taken us months to finish this project, so I'm glad we decided to go with someone who knew what they were doing! We were concerned about how small our yard would feel once the fence was up, but it actually feels bigger! 

We plan to stain it in the next few weeks. I'll be sure to post more pictures when we do!

Oh, the joys of living next to the woods...and a pond...and a ditch filled with rocks

Those things all sound so nice...and very peaceful. And trust me, they are! I love our yard. I'm now convinced it's just about the perfect size for us at this point in our lives...though if it were much bigger, we would probably get a riding lawn mower, so maybe a bigger yard wouldn't be all bad. Either way...the size is great for us. We don't regret not getting a larger yard. 

The down side to all of the things that make me love our yard is that they all make a perfect habitat for snakes. I'm terrified of snakes. Guess who found the first snake in our yard? Yep...this lucky girl.

Josh was cutting grass in the back yard the other day (long overdue) and I decided I would grab the weed eater and help out. Fun fact...I had never used a weed eater until this week. Josh used to be able to cut our grass and trim everything up in about 30 minutes, which is less time than it usually takes me to do dinner, so I never did any of that in our old house. Now, I try to pitch in and help out since there's a lot more to do. 

Anyway, I was minding my own business, planning our garden out in my head and trimming the perimeter of our fence when I noticed a tiny little snake slithering away from me. Of course, I screamed. Then I was fine. I was proud of myself actually. I didn't run away. I just let out a little scream. Then Josh came over and picked it up and played with it a little. 

I'm totally kidding...he didn't pick it up at all. He didn't even see it. This is a picture I found on the Google, y'all. But, like I said, he was a tiny little thing. I looked him up and found out he's a ringneck snake and totally harmless. We probably shouldn't mind having him in our garden. I've come to terms that we may have some things like this hanging around this time of year. I'm cool with that. Eat all the critters you want out of my yard. Just don't show any of your big, scary cousins your new hangout.