Zero Blog Manners with a Side of Updates

Where are my blog manners?  My guess is they were lost somewhere during our whirlwind of a summer.  So many fun and exciting things happened, and the year isn't even over with.

The last post was a photo of our garage door.  Lucky you?  Happy to say the paint is holding up well during the rainstorms, and the rust isn't showing through our black door.  Another win.

Here is a quick rundown of our summer projects:

June 2016: Dug out all of the lava rock from our landscape.  Took out Yew bushes 1 & 2, another pointless bush that didn't pull it's weight in landscape appeal, and 6 enormous hostas.  Future landscape plan turned into a dirt pile.  Painted the garage door, and updated the light fixture.

It's a start, anyway.

July 2016: Transplanted a Boxwood, some Lavender, Spirea Magic Carpet, and Black Eyed Susan's to the front yard.  Laid down some very convincing (and Eco-Friendly) rubber mulch, and enjoyed a good job well done.  This was it.  I wasn't going to touch the landscape again.  It was a terrible idea to begin with- says my back, and hips, hands, arms... everything.

Then in the middle of July we hopped on a plane and jetted to Portlandia, the coast, and Washington Wine Country.

Five years together already, what?!

Bucket List - Check (Cannon Beach, OR)

When we returned, I scoped out how the rubber mulch was holding up.  At this point my only beef with the rubber mulch was how light it was.  Didn't matter the amount of rain, or the strength of a breeze, it would make its way out of it's home. Tolerable.  I could sweep the walkway a few times a month.

Then I saw it.

A perfect brown squiggle peeking through the rubber mulch.

No.

It can't be.

But it was.

A cat turd.  Layed there by the feline across the street, himself.

I grabbed a bag to scoop up the mocking turd.  To my horror, I realized there was another, then another, and then another.  Seven cat-shits in total.  I looked across the street, ready to hurl the bag of poo at the neighbors siding when I saw that cat staring back at me.  Taunting me.  I knew very well he would be back.  I did what any sane person would do.  I looked up ways to humanely kill ward off cats.  Cayenne Pepper Flakes.  I grabbed every jar we had and dumped those flakes on his doody target.  In my mind, problem-solved.

Walking into the house and feeling like I won the battle and the war, it got me thinking, this cat has lived in our neighborhood for years now.  YEARS.  Why did Catshit finally take a dump on our property?  A. We were on vacation, and Gretzky wasn't home to protect his castle.  B. Another beefy reason to add to the rubber mulch not being awesome list.  Cats dig it.  Literally.  It's called pussy-footing for good reason.  They enjoy the soft touch under their paws, dig a little, and then take a big dump.  But my problem was solved, after all.  Right?

After spending the rest of the day and night watching to make sure that cat didn't creep on over, I woke up feeling rested and ready for the day.  On my way out the door to get the mail, I double checked the doody target.  Notta.  Nothin'.  No cats ass was hanging around my mulch.  All smiles.  After retrieving the mail and walking back, I noticed the infamous squiggle, yet again, except this time it was on the other side of the door.  Another pile o' shit.  I lost it.  Not in a cat-kicking kind of way, but in a grabbing gloves and garbage bags, and man handling the remaining rubber mulch that wasn't violated by digested Fancy Feast and pneumonia, kinda way.

For weeks the landscape sat with no landscape, thanks to Catshit.  It monsooned for like, ever; the dirt splashed up all over the plants and suffocated them. Let's take inventory, shall we? Boxwood ALIVE, Lavender DEAD, Spirea Magic Carpet DEAD- hated it anyway, Black Eyed Susan's Kinda Dead, and a mud puddle, very much ALIVE.

Then something miraculous happened.  Just like that, Catshit and his family were gone.  A moving truck was parked up front, and before they even pulled away, I was back up front assessing the damage and dreaming of plan B.

August 2016: Planted Plan B plants (say that five times fast) - Russian Sage, my half-life Black Eyed Susan's, Blue Festuca Boulder Blue Grass, Broadleaf Sage, and one petite Lilac bush-- kept this from the original set of plants per Shane's request.  Queue good wifey award.

The plants have a lot of growing-up to do.  They are nested in clay-based soil, so only time will tell.

New Light Update:  Our house is tiny.  I'd gather from the posts, you may have noticed this.  Oddly enough, we like a small space, and certainly the challenge of making it work.  The past couple of years we have gone full-speed ahead becoming #basic minimalists.  The piles of unused goods initially leaving our house would make anyone with attachment issues committed.  And a lot of people got some nice, free shit.

Where was I?

Oh, the light.

Because we had a skull breaking pendant light, our dining room table had to be strategically placed under said pendant light, not leaving much room for much of anything else.  My solution was to get a flush mounted light, avoid knocking our heads, and having the added bonus of moving our table wherever the f**k we want. I went through a little shop on Etsy.  I ended up ordering the wrong light and like an idiot, didn't realize it until it was already up.  But instead of acting all miffed about my mix-up, I'm going to own this light instead.

September 2016: On September 16th, 2016, we are getting our driveway fixed.  I feel like I should alert the media.  Our driveway is rotten.  It doesn't even deserve another thought.  After some research, we called up American Waterworks to get a quote for PolyLevel.  Our meeting was a bit of a nail biter.  We assumed the project would be thousands and thousands given the terribleness of our driveway/walkway.  Turns out it wasn't thousands and thousands.  What it IS, in fact, is an extremely affordable end to an unfortunate driveway.  UPDATES to come, but I won't leave you hanging, unlike our driveway...

Studio Space Update: I don't have a lot to say right now about the studio.  Besides the fact that it's been severely neglected, until now.  There are still a lot of touch-ups, and sadly, the plywood floor is not holding up like I had hoped.  But right now, I'm not going to worry about the floor.  Instead I am going to focus on what is being done.  Exhibit A: I give you storage--

Other Summer Highlights:

• Die Antwood in concert (mind-blown)
• Rock the Garden Festival in Boom Park, MSP
• Grandma turned 90 and shot a paintball gun
• Won free tickets to Minnesota's Renaissance Festival by entering in a coloring book contest and WINNING
• Completed a tile piece decorated by patients and their families for the Children's Hospital at St. Mary's Mayo Clinic Campus
• Took some great naps
• Got a tan for once

If you're interested in seeing these snapshots of my everyday life, follow me on Instagram @slothahontas - Cuz I like sloths and Pocahontas, duh.  And I might just end up liking you.  Thanks for reading!