Landscaping

I finally got off my ass and did some yard work yesterday. I had this idea to buy stone to edge our landscaping out front, but before spending a ton of money on that I was going to try it out in our back yard. There is a minature lilac bush in a corner of our yard that has always looked out of place and the grass is spotty because Flanagan rips it up when the ground is wet. Plus there is a gap in our fence and rabbits come in our yard which also drives Flanagan crazy. So I decide to make a flower bed out of this area.

Here is the before shot.


I check out Phillips Sand and Gravel, who is one of my clients at work, to see their landscaping stone selection. They have a ton of stuff to choose from. I decide to go the natural stone route and select a tan/yellow/orange sandstone. I buy 716 pounds of it and head on home, it's a good thing we have a truck. Here is what we did:


I sprayed the remaining grass with weed killer and next weekend I will fill in the area with top soil, plants and mulch. I think it looks pretty good and can't wait until it is finished. Next I will line the flower beds around the garage with the same rock so they match. More pictures to come!!

Summer

In honor of the first day of summer, here are a few pics from my parents flower gardens. Hopefully I can get a few more pictures when everything is in bloom. Enjoy!

Virus

On Friday I went to the doctor because I had a sore throat, same sore throat I had a couple weeks ago when Urgent Care said I had strep. So the doctor checks out my throat and says I have "ulcers on my uvula". Since they came back after I was done with my antibiotics he thinks that a virus is causing them, and antibiotics are useless on a virus. He gives me 4 capsules of Valtrex, an anti-viral medication. I think to myself that Valtrex sounds familiar, but I am not sure where I have heard it. Then B.J. reminds me that Valtrex is the genital herpes drug that there are commercials for. Great. I don't care what they are for, but they worked for me, two days later my throat felt great and I no longer had an earache and headache. Hopefully my illnesses are over, I hadn't been sick for a year until all this stomach virus/throat virus crap.

The weekend went very well, finally edged the sidewalk to our garage in the backyard. Looks so much better, it probably added 4 inches to the width of sidewalk, the grass was out of control. Thanks to my parents for lending us the electric edger.

Sunday we went to my parents for Father's Day, the food was awesome. I love my mom's potato salad and homemade strawberry pie. Mmmmmmm, pie. I took a lot of pictures of their flower gardens so hopefully I can post them sometime this week.

Hope everybody has a great week!

Laugh at this

Saw this today at the Onion, too funny.

Tonight we are going to a Dayton Dragons game, a Reds farm team, should be fun even though they suck this year. There is always good people watching if the game gets dull. Its' a beautiful day for a baseball game, I made sure to put sunscreen on so I don't burn in the first 10 minutes I sit in the sun. Luckily I have been using self tanner on my legs so they are not blinding white. Sometimes I really wish I could get a nice golden tan. I am working on loving my paleness, but it's difficult.

Fun with words

At work we have a piece of equipment that is called a HOBO. Hobo is one of my favorite words, it's just fun to say. Hobo, hobo, hobo.

It's little things like saying hobo that keep me from going crazy at work.

Weekend

Saturday was a weird day. After blogging about the rain, I decided to clean off the dining room table since it was filled with mail, stuff from work, and assorted junk. As I was finishing I felt a headache coming on and a general crappy feeling. I decide to lay down on the couch and read Smithsonian magazine, I start to feel cold so I put a sweatshirt on (It was 60 degrees outside), but then I start to feel hot. I take my temperature and it was 99.1 degrees! I can't even remember the last time I ran a fever, I know 99.1 isn't that high, but I tend to have a lower temp than 98.6. What the F? Basically I spent the rest of Saturday laying around, although I did make an awesome strawberry and blueberry smoothie. B.J. and I watched War of the Worlds and I thought it was just ok. The ending kind of sucked, but the special effects were great. I would give it 2 1/2 stars.

Sunday morning I feel much better and go into work at about 8am. I work for a few hours and then my mom and sister pick me up to go shopping in Columbus. I had a very productive shopping day and found some great sales. Sunday evening we watched the Louis Black special on HBO "Red, White, and Screwed" which was hilarious.

Today was a hellish day at work, but I will relax tonight by walking Flanagan and then watching Dane Cook's "Tourgasm" on HBO. Dane Cook is Hilarious with a capital H.

Later kids, everybody have a great week!

Rain Rain Go Away

I wake up Saturday morning (9:30am) with all these plans for outdoor yard work. I need to the the edge the grass/sidewalk area in the front of our house, clean off the back patio, and fix a section of concrete on the foundation. But as I lay in bed, I hear a faint noise, "Is that rain?" I say to myself? "Crap, it is rain!" I say again. Ugh, there is so much yard work to be done, hopefully it will clear up in the afternoon so I can get get something accomplished outside.

Thanks for nothing weather.com for saying yesterday that there was only a 30% chance of rain today.

Update

Ok, I don't know if this will post since I have been having problems with blogger all day.

In response to my previous post:

I feel that this country is so great because of the separation of church and state. Allowing each citizen to believe and practice whatever religion they want is fundamental to a democracy. Tolerance to people's differences is key to living in a democratic society. When a country starts promoting religon as goverment policy trouble starts, i.e. Iran.

The main problem I have with the gay marriage issue is the misuse of the constitution. Everybody should read the constitution again, it is one of the most inspiring and uplifting documents ever written, in my opinion. The constitution should be used to grant freedom to people, NEVER to take freedom and choice away from the citizens of the USA.

What the...?

Holy shit, I agree with Lou Dobbs!

In regards to the gay marriage issue, I am sick of all these "Christian" people who want to write hate and discrimination into our constitution. Isn't everyone entitled to Life, Liberty and the Persuit of Happiness?

Weird

Everyday on my drive home from work I see the weirdest people. They are either walking down the street or in their crappy car. And by crappy I mean old car or truck packed to the brim with assorted crap that they find on the side of the road. And by weird I mean a mom with her 4 little kids walking down a very busy street and none of them wearing shoes. Yesterday I saw a guy who looked like Rob Zombie driving a taxi that was a Ford station wagon that looked like it was 75% rust. Bizarre.

Tonight I decide that I finally need to weed the front landscaping since dandelions and clover are taking over what little plants I have. As I am pulling weeds this guy two doors down comes out of his house, sits in the passenger seat of a car, and listens to rap music for about 20 minutes. Not blaring loud, but loud enough that I can hear the lyrics. This is the second time I have observed this behavior from people in this house. I can only guess that they do not own a cd player and have to listen to music in their car. They are about as annoying as the people three doors down who we think are selling drugs. Awesome.

I used to think my neighborhood (Belmont area of Dayton) was about 60% white trash, 40% normal people, but I think that ratio is changing and not in a good way.

Dayton is full of weird people.