Of Nautical Storms and Changes in the tides pt.1

Hi, everyone! It's been so long since I've posted. A lot of things have happened in the last several months, as far as nesting goes, it's been on halt - until the past several weeks. We received the news on February 9th that Abby had been bred with Huxley. My girlfriend and are awaiting to hear the news if the breeding went swimmingly - it should only be a couple more days. If everything goes according to plan, the puppies should be born in the beginning of April, and we should be welcoming our's home in the end of May.

This exciting news of course prompted us to decide on redecorating our house and really getting our house to finally feel like a home. We were in for a complete redo - our whole house was in for a complete redo. Over the past five years or so, we've unknowingly accumulated a hoarding collection that could have been a precursor to "Buried Alive". This of course resulted in us hauling things to goodwill just to get rid of them: three very old televisions, multiple lamps, boxes and boxes full of gookers that we have collected throughout the years, clothes, books, paintings, frames, and so much more. We've made about three trips so far, and have several more to go.

We essentially started with our guest room and the hallway closets upstairs. We're looking to convert our guest room into a walk in closet/Moose's room. One of the biggest thing was cleaning out one of our closets so we can put Moose's litter box in there instead of it being in our room. Mainly for safety reasons when the puppy gets here.

Here is a photo of me in moose's new Potty Closet Organizing things

Moose's Potty Closet will have her litter box (automatic cleaning litter box) on the floor, while we have the girlfriend's Crafts on the bottom shelf, Christmas Decorations in the second shelf and the girlfriend's previous art projects/canvases/sketch books in the top shelf. As you can see in that photo, we've still got a long way to go 

Photo of the closet in our guest room. We had transferred all of the clothes and shoes that were in the closet in our room to the closet in the guest room 

We still have A LOT of stuff to sort through and throw away, but this room used to be filled with stuff. We're slowly making progress. 

This is the closet opposite Moose's Potty closet. We've dubbed this closet our linen closet and we've also put a box of memorabilia on the bottom. 

We opened up a lot of closet space in our room and we've decided to make this one our Holiday Decor closet. Oh, how it feels great to be organized.

I will definitely be adding more photos and keeping you guys all updated a we progress on this project. I'll continue on with the home decor in Part 2 of this post.

Home redecorating reality check!

Hi all!

So Duck and I decided to begin our redecorating extravaganza yesterday by starting off with our backyard and upstairs patio. The patio needed a bit of a sweep down and a rise.

We've neglected it for so long that it accumulated a lot of spiders, bugs and leaves from the recently removed tree in our backyard. We want to put an outdoor rug with a little sitting area and table. A patch of grass, maybe so that Moose will be able to enjoy the outdoors with us. So we got to work...

Power spraying the backyard sounds easier than it actually is. Especially on such a small area that's overflowing with yucky bugs. After letting Duck have a reign on the patio for about ten or fifteen minutes, we've decided to let the patio dry before we apply bug spray.


 On to the backyard we trekked. We have BIG plans for our backyard: Installing a tile patio with hopefully some lawn for our future puppy and to add some greenery to the area. Perhaps a gazebo and a sectional for our friends to enjoy. In order to begin this whole process however, we had to get rid of the rock/gravel that is currently cozying it up back there.It makes our backyard look like a barren wasteland!

Our backyard, like everything else in our house, has a lot of potential. Not to mention, I'm renting this place from a dear friend of mine, and really want to help her raise the value of this property! It's such a great home, really, and with the right touch, it can be the coziest place! I can admit that we have been quite neglectful what with school and jobs, but I hope now that I have a bit of extra time before my Master's program starts and between looking for a job,  I'll be able to give our home the right kind of TLC that it deserves.


So with all of that motivation in mind, it was full steam ahead. We get to work. In the 90°F heat, we began shoveling gravel into a bag only 1/3 of the way because we lack the proper tools to haul the bags out conveniently.  We start in one of the corners, scraping the top layer away And then, after two or three scoops, all of the sudden, TING. ....W...what was that? Our shovel literally stopped after the first layer. Can't go any further and we feel like we're going to break our shovel. Why can't we get into the soil?

If we had done more research into this, we would have known, but the land that this is built on is adobe. It is rock hard and we can't get through it. Thanks to Duck's dad, who informed us of the state of the land and continued to tell us that our backyard is absolutely inconvenient for us to really do anything besides gravel and tile. Mainly because there is no gate opening and will not be able to get the proper tools into our yard.

sigh. Can't a girl with creative energy and nesting craze get a break around here? What do I have to do to channel this creative energy?

Completely disheartened and slightly irritated, something that happens extremely easily for me these days, we trudged our way back upstairs to reel it in and discuss our options.

1. We could continue with the tile and add nicer gravel where we were going to add grass and have some plants to add colour.
2. We could make our entire back yard tile.
3. Hire a landscaper.

We went with option number three and are awaiting a landscaper to come and look at our backyard and give us an estimate on the cost of fixing it up.

So all in all, our plans to do this all on our own to save some money has gone down the drain. I'm just hoping that my motivation doesn't go down with it.

Thanks for reading!

Much love,

Lily