Welcome home!

I'm back! I had a lovely time cruising around the Caribbean with my family (14 of us in all). It was filled with fun, sun, and relaxation...all of which I sorely needed. While I'm not going to delve into details just yet, I will put together some photos and stories to share in a future post.

Today, I want to talk about what happens when you come back from vacation. For me, I actually jumped into house work (trust me, that is not the norm). Where the motivation came from I have no idea. We arrived home Saturday afternoon and on Sunday, Steve and I were out back doing yard work. I repotted my aloe plant and I also planted three orange/red amaryllis bulbs a co-worker gave me (before vacation I might add). You can't imagine how thankful I was they were still alive when I got back. It completely slipped my mind to plant them before I left, all because I didn't write it on the list. If it's not on the list then it isn't getting done (sometimes they don't get done even if they are on the list).

Again, this is still not the point of this post...I'm rambling. The purpose of this post is talk about those horrible, dreaded, hateful black ants that still haunt my dreams. All this yard work further motivated me to drive to Lowes and pick up this:

At first, I stood in the poison aisle completely lost. I had no idea what I needed to kill this buggers. I have great success with Amdro mound killer so I thought maybe this will work too. While the ants mostly live outside, they do sneak inside every once in a while but they always live on the house or around the foundation which is why I thought the home perimeter might be the one.

I started my sprinkling adventure right here, right next to that bush.

 

Little did I know that the bush looked like this (mind you, the picture does not do it justice).

 

There were HUNDREDS of ants swarming all over this poor bush. So when my hand gently grazed a leaf they immediately jumped to my arm where I had about 25 crawling up my arm. Luckily, these ants don't bite but it was gross. It really really grossed me out. I couldn't wrap my brain around the number of ants I saw and I was instantly angry. All I want is for them to die. Is that too much to ask?

So, once I shook all the ants off I continued laying poison. I poured it all in the garden bed, all around the foundation, and on top of the window sills. This marks the beginning Ant Demolition Take #1. 

Let's fast forward a day. Rain. All day. Why did this happen? Because I laid ant poison. Without fail, every time I lay or spray some kind of bug poison it rains to wash it all away. Grrrrr. Back to square one.

But that's not all that happened. Oh no. That would be too easy. The garage door opener died. I opened it up to go to work and it made this horrible noise, I thought it was going to explode. Steve comes running frantically out of the house to see what it was. And that was it. Gone. It wouldn't go back down. I left for work. Steve stayed and played around with it and determined that the motor burnt out. So, that's what I did yesterday and continuing to do today. Shopping for a new garage door opener for Steve to install (thanks Steve!)

Burning thoughts of desire...

I've had only one thought on my mind for about a week and a half now.

It's like a flame of desire eating away at me.

It's something Steve originally brought up to me; I wasn't feeling it then....but....I am now because at a party two weeks ago I saw this...

I want a fire pit and I want it now! But, what do you do when you can't jump on a project right away? You turn to Pinterest! I hunted around and I was surprised that I wasn't as blown away as I usually am when I turn to Pinterest for ideas. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing because I learned quickly what I didn't like.

Here is what I found that I liked.

Source: embracingmessy.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

This one caught my eye because it's low to ground and I like the stone. What I don't care for is the fact that it's a circle. I prefer a square fire pit. It's different and feels just a little more classy (well, in my head at least).

On to the next inspiration.

Source: theharpsterhome.wordpress.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Again, this one is a circle and taller than the last but I pinned it because of the stone color. It's really pretty but it looks like it'll be more expensive than the previous fire pit. The gravel surrounding the pit is also nice, it dresses it up a little more.

Fire pit #3

Source: diynetwork.com via Sarah on Pinterest

The pit in this picture is very similar to the first Pinterest find but it doesn't have the wedges which I didn't even like in the first place. It's also low to the ground, so that's a plus!

One thing I know I don't want that I kept seeing on Pinterest is to have a metal bowl or something inside. From experience, these don't last very long because the bottoms rust out. Plus, I don't think they are as attractive. The pictures I pinned from Pinterest all are without a metal dish but the picture of the square pit at the beginning of the post has one.

So, to wrap it up, this is what I want in a fire pit:

• Square shape
• Low to the ground
• Gravel surrounding the edge (and on the inside)
• No metal dish on the inside

Now let's see how long it takes me to jump on this and actually put it together.

Antsy Ideas

There are a lot of things I've been learning about making a house a home but it has become clear to me that I am not the only one. These guys have been learning a lot too.

If you can't tell they're ants...annoying, little black ants and they're EVERYWHERE! I wish I were exaggerating. I wake up in the morning, go to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and bam, there they are crawling all over the wall next to my sink. I walk over to the toilet and there they are again getting all cozy with the toilet. I saunter to the laundry room to feed the animals and now I'm no longer surprised to see them on the floor making their way along the baseboards. One even crawled across my computer screen while I was typing a post the other day.

I have spread all kinds of ant stuff in attempts to ward them off but it's pointless because I've found their real home which threw me into a pit of hopeless despair. They were living (correction...still living) in the garden amongst the roots and the rocks and there are thousands of them. Again, I wish I were exaggerating. After some research, I learned that they like to live in the roots and rocks because it's moist and cool. How do you kill them? Not sure yet, but as soon as I figure it out I'll let you know. This has become my personal mission.

I tried to take a picture of the roots but they are so tiny the ants didn't show up. This is the best shot I could get of them crawling along the outside wall.

On a different note, I have a bare wooden table sitting in my dining that is calling out for a centerpiece. I'm leaning towards something like this which I found on Pintrest.

Source: themagnoliamom.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

We have wood stumps currently in the back yard from a pine tree that we recently had cut down and I also have bunch of mason jars of varied sizes. I'm not a fan of the empty look though so I'll need to do something with them on the inside, but I'm only at the brainstorm phase at this point. Please! Offer me your suggestions in the comments.

Beautifying the Outside

Is beautify even a word? You know, I'm an English teacher and I still had to look it up; I don't want to look like a fool after all. 

Anyways, as you can tell, the topic of this post is about the outside. This past weekend my boyfriend and I worked on landscaping the front yard. Steve (the BF) actually did a lot of the grunt work a week beforehand. I got home from work and the front garden area was all weeded and the rocks were dug up. Yup, you heard me right, rocks, and lots of them.

There they are, well, one pile at least. Right now they are just sitting on the edge of our property. These rocks are a pain in the rear and I feel like they are never ending.

The next step was to go shopping! Normally, I'm not a shopper...I HATE it! But when it comes to the house, I LOVE it. Steve and I went to Home Depot and bought one pink rose bush, two pink bougainvillea shrubs, one pink azalea shrub, and seven decorative grasses called Cordyline. Our goal was to get plants that had heart and could survive through any hardness that was thrown at them. Did we do it? Beats me but I'll let you know when I find out. As for now, they are getting water every day; that's a start, right?

Above is the finished product, and I can't wait for them to fill out. The lighting isn't great because I'm not able to get a picture of them till at least 3:30. This weekend, I'll have to try and take a better one earlier in the day with some close ups on the plants.

I don't have a great before picture (when we did this I wasn't blogging). Below is the best picture I could find. 

It's a little far away but you can see there were some unevenly spaced bushes that were there before our transformation. We ended up transplanting them to the side of the house, which is the next step on our outside project list. It's not pretty right now. See for yourself.

Ewww, gross. Shield your eyes and turn away. I hate looking over here but I can't wait to make it pretty like the front.

Stay tuned for more. Next up, maybe I'll talk about the ants that are haunting my dreams thanks to our landscape project.

P.S. It's my goal to post every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Let's see if I can stick to it. Cross your fingers and wish me luck!