Snow, Cherry Trees and Aircraft Carriers

It snowed this morning. Tomorrow is the first of May! That's crazy. It was freezing out too. Thankfully it didn't snow for very long and it didn't stick to the nice green grass, but it's still pretty chilly. I think tomorrow it might be warmer. In the 50s anyway. I hope it gets a lot warmer by Saturday, we have tickets to a Pawtucket Red Sox game! (They're coming to Syracuse.)


This is a picture of the cherry tree in my front yard. Everything is in bloom and very confused! I don't think it was in bloom this early last year... The lawn needs mowing again too. I hope it warms up!

And this is what I've been doing for the last 3 nights. Watching this great documentary on PBS. "Carrier" is a 10-hour, 5 day event. I'm hooked. My dad served on 2 aircraft carriers in his Naval career (the USS Intrepid and the USS Kennedy), so I was very curious about what life was like on an aircraft carrier. This documentary was filmed aboard the USS Nimitz during a 6-month period in 2005. They served in the Persian Gulf and gave air support (ie: bombs) to the ground troops in Iraq. It's quite an eye-opening film and I recommend it to all. It's on for 2 more nights. And I hear it might be re-run in July.

Decorating with Toilet Paper.

This is my little downstairs bathroom. As you can see there is no storage. I have had a few (well, one in particular...) complaints about the lack of toilet paper in this bathroom. For instance, if you're in the middle of your business and you run out, what do you do? I would probably use a few tissues. But I was told (by someone...) that tissues are more expensive and they prefer to use toilet paper. I took the hint. I found a neat little basket at the Christmas Tree Shop ($2.99!) and I bought it for the sole purpose of holding toilet paper. As soon as I got it all set up and thought it actually looked nice, my 11 year old son made fun of me for turning toilet paper into a decoration. I can't win! I'm leaving it though. Just in case my dad visits again soon and needs a re-fill...

Club Wedd

I have to begin this post with a special thank you to Amy. A month or so ago, she mentioned in her Blog that she received an offer from Target. The offer stated that if she filled out a wedding registry, she would get a $20 gift certificate. Only problem was, she's not getting married. She wrestled with the idea of just making one up and getting the free $20, but all her friends talked her out of it. I went as far as suggesting she send me the offer, since I was getting married. I was only kidding (partly), and a week later, it was in my mailbox! So Eric and I had fun (ok, mostly I had fun) putting together a registry at Target.com. It was actually more difficult than fun. We both have houses chock full of stuff. We really don't need anything! Thankfully you only had to have 10 items on the registry in order to qualify for the gift certificate. I think I managed to find 14.

A week or so passed and I sort of forgot about getting the $20 gift certificate. I knew it expired in the middle of May, so I had time. In the meantime, we received a packet of things from Target's Club Wedd in the mail. There was a fun file folder just full of nifty things. My favorite was the book of coupons, some of which were free items. There were checklists, shopping lists, post it notes, etc. None of which we really need or will probably use. Well, the coupons will be used, but probably not the other things. It really looked like a neat packet of items. I highly recommend anyone getting married to register at Target.

Today, Alex and I went to get the $20 gift certificate. All you have to do is print out the registry and present it to guest services and you get your gift card. (You have to present the offer as well.) We found our "registry", printed it out and took it to the service desk. There was a young kid working there. I handed him the offer. He didn't ask to see the registry at all and within 30 seconds just handed me a $20 gift card. I felt like he really didn't think I was getting married and that I was just trying to get free money. I almost felt guilty! But I wasn't guilty. He just gave me that look. It annoyed me. But I got the $20, so I guess I shouldn't care what a 16 year old kid thought.

Alex had a nice idea about what to do with the $20 gift card. He thought that we should split it between the 4 of us. So that's what we did. He bought 2 packs of Yu-Gi-Oh cards with his $5 and I bought a "fancy" Chicken Caesar frozen Pizza with my $5. I'll give Eric the card with the remaining $10 so that he and Kelsey can each get a little something for themselves.

Thanks, Amy!

Then and now.

This is a photo of my backyard when I moved in. When I bought the place, there was a good 2' of snow on the ground, so I really had no idea what was back there. After the snow melted, we discovered it was quite a pit. I had little to no (closer to 'no') experience in gardening and yard work. So little by little I cleaned and planted grass and somehow along the way (it's been 3 years) a backyard started shaping up. Then I got a dog and she killed the grass and made it pit-like again.

April 2005.

April 2008.

Here it is as of yesterday morning. Before the rains came and flooded it and made it all muddy. I think the grass seed floated away too. If I was staying any longer, I would lose the chain-link fence and put in a nice wooden fence. It's mostly all wood around it anyway, just part of one side and the back. It's the chain-link removal that would be the pain. But it will be someone else's pain, not mine! The grass is coming along (I helped it a little tiny bit with photoshop...) It's in the shade most of the day, so it's hard to grow. But now that I am not allowing the dog back there, it might have a chance.

Yard work.

I've been spending my evenings this past week attempting to clean and fix up my backyard. Jenny really destroyed it over the winter. Well, maybe I shouldn't have let her run free... and maybe I should have been better about cleaning up after her too. Whatever it was, the yard was a disaster. I'm attempting to re-grow grass and I've finally finished laying down bark mulch. I used 12 bags. I re-laid the brick borders around the garden areas too. I've also been working on a small brick patio. I started at the end of last fall and didn't finish it. Tonight I tore it all apart trying to get it more level, but it's still a little off. I'll put a couple of chairs and some potted plants on it. I'm really just trying to pretty-up the place so it will be nice for re-sale.

So that's what I've been doing with my evenings after work. The weather has been so nice I didn't want to pass up the opportunity. Jenny has been enjoying the exercise too. Tonight she pulled another psycho-crazy thing when she saw a Beagle while we were out for a walk. But I just held her back and eventually the little beagle came over. They became best friends. His name was Toby. They sniffed each other and then peed in the same spot. I think they might be engaged now.

Runaway Dog

This evening I got to see what would happen when Jenny got off her leash while we were outside. She had been wildly (read: Cujo-like) barking and growling at a little chihuahua who was innocently having his nightly walk. Somehow her collar slipped over her head. As I looked down I saw that I was holding nothing but a leash attached to an empty collar and Jenny was off sprinting down the street. For a split second, I thought "Huh, she's gone. Oh, well!" Then just as quickly, I realized that was probably not a very nice thing to think and thought that I should probably run after her. As I was running, I yelled to Alex who was outside playing basketball in the driveway. He saw Jenny running away and went after her. Amazingly, he lunged after her, just barely missing her as he went face-first into the neighbors yard, just managing to scrape his knees on the side of the road. I think that his fall and the scream of frustration because he couldn't catch her, startled her. She immediately stopped, walked back to me and innocently looked up at me. I picked her up, Alex grabbed the leash and we brought her back inside. I wonder how many neighbors witnessed that bit of comedy.

Spring is here!

I haven't been very good about blogging since we got back from vacation. I think it might have something to do with the weather. It's been SO nice out! We're spending a lot of time outside. The weekend weather was the nicest in recent memory. It was wonderful. I spent most of Saturday cleaning out the backyard. I need to spruce things up on the outside a little to give it some more curb appeal. 

On Sunday, we went to Eric's mom's house for a wonderful turkey dinner. It was sooooo good! Eric's brother and niece's were there too. The photo above is Eric, Laura & Kelly looking at the ducks and boats on the river. I thought it was adorable and couldn't pass up taking a photo. What a beautiful day!!