We had a visitor this morning

Look who came to have breakfast at the O'Current's house...

Sorry about the quality and angle of these pictures, but I was taking them through the windows so as not to scare away the deer.

Running puppy pic, as promised

Surprise, surprise

So Duff and I were wondering through Lowe's yesterday searching for supplies for another project we're starting (I know, I know...I haven't posted pictures yet from our earlier super big, OMG, house-changing project...I'm on it. No worries). We were on our way to the register, when we noticed a large cart belonging to someone else with some beautiful wood chairs and benches on it and a sign saying something like "really cheap, must go, you're a fool not to buy me" (ok, not in those words, but close enough). So Duff and I looked at each other and made meaningful eyebrow raises. "Maybe we should check out the patio furniture" Duff said. I agreed so we meandered over to the patio furniture section, not expecting much since we've looked at Lowe's before and never found anything that we liked. After perusing their front display, we wandered into the back where we found them. The two perfect patio chairs. Only one had a rip in the fabric. But at 75% off, we were willing to take the plunge. "Let's see if they have any in boxes, first," Duff told me. So while I sat in the chairs and staked our claim, Duff went in search of a sales associate. 20 minutes later he found one and they informed us that yes, there were two sets of chairs still boxed. Oh, and what is that sitting hidden on that cart. Matching chairs that swivel? Swivel! So those had to come home too. As did the travertine-topped side tables. All for ridiculously cheap prices. Of course, we had to rent a truck from Lowe's to get all of our boxes home, but even with the $20 rental cost of getting the truck, we still only paid about half the full cost of the original set of chairs. Now, I'm just have to convince Duff that we should go back for the bench... (Update: we went back for the bench tonight and it was already gone. :( )

Add a little puppy to your day

It occurred to me that its been a while since we posted pictures of the puppy. She's grown up to be quite the little lady (or hellion, depending on which minute of the day it is) over the past month. Duff and I were discussing the other day how she has finally developed her "adult" head. Her head no longer looks like that of a puppy. Rather, it now resembles the head of an adult field spaniel. Its a darn pretty head, too. Duff and I were watching the Miss Universe pageant the other day (ok, he will kill me for saying that so I must explain that we only had it on in the background while we were cooking dinner) and I have to say, if Riley had been in the competition, she would easily have beaten out Venezuela. Our baby girl is gorgeous. Well, enough bragging, you can just see that for yourself below...

Riley's new favorite place: Mom and Dad's bed (she thinks she's so special when she gets to go up there)





Riley, playing in the backyard.

Look at that tongue! I swear, her tongue is at least 6 inches long because she can easily lick things that are a half a foot away from her.

She is also quite the jumper. We definitely need to get her into agility when she's older.

What Riley does when she still wants to play but she's too tired to try...

Me, trying to take a picture of Riley in action...yeah, it's not as easy as it looks.

Darn it! I had a great picture of Riley running with her frisbee but Blogger seems to be having technical difficulties. I'll try to remember to post it later.

And one last photo of that adorable face!

Our super big, OMG, house-changing project is almost finished...

And I can't wait to share pictures and tell you all about it!

Who knew?

I have never liked the word sconce. It just sounds so...hoighty-toighty. And I can honestly say that I have never owned a sconce.

Until now.

While Duff and I were short-cutting our way through JcPenneys the other week, we came across a bed and bath sale. Of course, the clearance signs drew my eye. We wandered over and were immediately drawn to a box of black candle sconces, 75% off. After a little debate about whether we really needed sconces, we decided that our overall need for wall decoration warranted the minimal purchase.

Once we got home, I immediately thought of the perfect location for them. I don't know--it just came to me.

So the blank corner wall next to the bed...


is now all hoighty-toighty with a pair of candle sconces.


They actually look a lot better than we even expected. Who knew?

Starting from scratch

When Duff and I bought our house, we knew that the yard was something of a jungle. Over the last year, we've trimmed and pruned in an attempt to keep things under control. But this past weekend, we decided that the numerous flower beds, bushes and trees were just too much maintenance for two young working professionals. So we decided to scale back.

Our main targets were the bushes. Our yard has several large bushes that have probably never been trimmed in their at least twenty years of existence. They have have bases the size of tree trunks. They tower over my head. And they just had to go.

So to reach our goal to simplify and beautify, the bushes were not so peacefully laid to rest.

This was the bush from the front of the house. This picture is from February and the bush grew probably two feet since then. It was so large, it was starting to dwarf the front windows and was beginning to tower over us on our way to and from the cars. After trimming back the branches, we found that this bush is actually three bushes that grew together over the years. Now, they are back to being three normal sized bushes.

They obviously still need to grow in a bit.

Next, we attacked the bushes around the side of the house. This area is the overgrown jungle of the yard. That hasn't changed too much, except now its a much shorter and more contained overgrown jungle. For example:

Here is the side of the house with bushes.

And here is what it looks like now, sans bushes.


We also shortened this flower bed--sorry, Beemie.

And the other side of the house went from over-crowded to nice and airy.

Crowded:


Airy:

So our simplify and beautify plan is now in place. The plan will continue next spring when we begin the new planting and mulching phase.

Our work was also partially inspired by necessity--it was needed in a few places to help with our next super big, OMG, house-changing project. But I can't tell you about that yet...