Mulch it, Mulch it Good

Hey everybody! How was your weekend?

We spent ours mostly outside since the weather was so nice and I actually had Saturday and Sunday off for once (whoa!). One thing we didn't do outside was finish "closing in" the kitchen ceiling. My mom and dad came up on Saturday and while my mom and I planted irises and bought the aforementioned mulch (with which to mulch it good) my dad finished closing in the spaces between the beams along the dining room/kitchen wall.

Now to paint it. Today. I swear. Everything gets painted today.

Funny story:

Me: "So dad, did you hear what I wanted to do to the floor?"

Dad: "Yeah, you want to tear up all of the linoleum then paint it to look like linoleum."

Me: "Pretty much."

Moving along.

On Sunday Conan and I tackled a few things that have been sitting on the to-do list shelf, getting dusty.

Thing one:

Mulch around the roses in the front yard (so Conan doesn't have to try to mow around them, poor guy.)

Excuse the bad picture and the bad yard, we haven't overseeded it yet. The bad picture, you can just blame on me and my poor camera operating skills, okay? Okay.

Now normally, we had been using edging around flowers and then mulching in but after taking a few walks in the "fancy schmancy" neighborhood up the hill and admiring their professionally done landscaping I figured, "I can do that!" and so we skipped the edging in favor of just digging down an inch or so beneath the grass line and mulching in, like this

Conan started by making an outline around the flowers. Hey, you gotta' have a plan!

Then we dug down about an inch or two and loosened up the dirt in the center, taking out what little grass and what bunch of weeds that were there. We didn't dig down two inches all the way back, just near the front so the mulch wouldn't spill out into the yard.

Oh, my poor headless tulips. They were pretty a few days ago, I swear!

Then you just mulch it up! We shopped around for the best price on this dark brown mulch and got it at Menard's for $2.99 a bag. It took about three bags.

I'd like to do something similar around the tulips and some other flowers in the backyard. And so, on the to-do list it goes.

While we're here, let's just stop and smell the roses, shall we? Mmmmm rose smells...

While we were out and about, Conan got me this neat little Jade Plant to add to my ever growing collection of succulents. He spent the afternoon outside, soaking up the sun but now he's indoors, on the bookshelves.

Conan mowed the yard something fierce. It's amazing to me that even without overseeding it still looks this nice! It's also amazing that it has been three years since it looked like this.

Then Conan grilled up some dinner while I admired his perfectly manicured lawn and his ability to not singe his arm hairs off.

Man make fire, mow lawn. Woman like.