Wonderful In-Laws

I have missed blogging. Sometimes I feel like I have to impress someone when I blog. That people have to actually be interested in what I write or share with photos. When that happens, I don't like blogging and I stop. When I remember that it's really just a journal and I can write whatever I damn well please, I start liking it again. If people choose to read it and enjoy it with me, cool.

I've been a busy little bee. I spent more than a week power washing our large deck to prep it for staining. The previous owners of this house didn't know what upkeep was. I don't believe this deck was ever stained or cared for so it took a lot of elbow grease to make it sparkle. We had a lot of problems using my mother-in-law's power washer (it wouldn't start), so last weekend we found one at Lowe's for $100 and broke down and bought it.

Adam said a few weeks ago that he wanted to build a fire pit and that he found how to make one for under $100. His parents have a fire pit in their back yard and we love it. I'm still unemployed, so I told him we didn't have the money. Which is a lie. We're still living comfortably (just not saving anything) with my unemployment. I felt really guilty the next few days after telling him no. Whenever I find an awesome deal on something at Hobby Lobby, I don't think twice to snag it. Adam never wants anything to begin with, so when he actually asks for something I don't know why I instantly tell him no.

So I told him yes. He showed me the website he found (I'm pretty sure it was this site) and it really did look easy. We headed to Lowe's last Saturday morning to look at what options we had and to price it out. We weren't really planning on buying anything yet. We found pretty much exactly what we were looking for and we decided to go for it. We bought 36 cement blocks, one bag of water pebbles, and several bags of lava rocks.

But we didn't have any outdoor furniture! What were we going to do, sit on the grass while we had a nice fire pit? I talked him into getting four chairs with pads and an outside dining table. Also, as motivation to stain the deck, he let me get a swing for the front porch! We'll be able to assemble it when we're done. Adam spent all weekend digging and placing blocks while I power washed.

We love being home owners. It's a lot of fun to put a lot of work and money into something and have the satisfaction to say it's yours. And you did it. By yourself. And you love it. And you're awesome.

This has turned into a much longer entry than I had planned. I have three crafting projects I need to do for Erin and I need to stop procrastinating!

Just two more quick things:

My mother and father-in-law work at a grocery store and get free flowers from the florist when she can't sell the flowers anymore. They gave me three huge bunches of flowers today! How sweet!

Also I wanted to share a video of the monsters Adam found in our backyard about a month ago. We've finally been able to get rid of them, thanks to some Cayenne pepper spray... they were eating ALL of my flowers and plants! GAH!

They're so cute BUT I HATE THEM!