Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house! The tree is set up and decorated, the lit garland on the railing and above the kitchen cabinets are up and the stocking are hung on the stair way railing. (we lack a fire place).

We put up a lot more lights than we did last year, but made one mistake, we waited to long to hang th lights on the house. Only the lower lever lights could be hung because it didn't seem like a good idea to be climbing on the snow covered roof. Seems like we made the same mistake of waiting to long to hang the lights last year...you would think we would've learned after the 1st time!

The house looks quite festive though and we're looking forward to having the family over in a few weeks.

Merry Christmas!

Fall

Summer is long gone and Fall is in full swing, which means it's time to "winterize" the yard. Earlier this summer a bug called a sod webworm decided to take up residence in our lawn. This bug is stubborn, it lives in the thatch (dead grass) of the lawn, lays eggs which hatch into moths and start the cycle all over again. This worm was turning our once lush yard into a desert.

So, we finally rented a de-thatching machine this weekend.

After running the machine through a small section of the yard we realized we should've mowed first. So, I got out the mower and Ben followed close behind with the de-thatcher. We only had 2 hours to use the thing after all. We spent nearly an hour zig zagging our way through the yard.

Finally, we were finished and went to admire our hard work. Only to realize our yard didn't look much better than when we began. It just had shorter grass and mulched up leaves...hmmmm...

We were so discouraged by our lack of progess that we loaded up the de-thatcher and returned it to the rental store.

Perhaps we should've left this task to the hands of a lawn pro...

Dishwasher Recall

Recently we found out that our dishwasher was being recalled. So, after some deliberation we decided it was best to just replace it, as we'd get a substantial rebate from the manufacturer. So, we did some price shopping and after a series of sales, rebates and coupons we got our dishwasher for about 85% off the original price!

I'm loving our new dishwasher as the old one never did a very good job. You basically had to get off every last spec of food from the dishes, otherwise they wouldn't come out clean. This new dishwasher is so much better, the dishes come out clean, and I don't have to pre-scrub them either!!

Now we just need to get our fridge recalled... :)

Neighbor to the Rescue!

I was mowing the lawn when suddenly the mower tipped a bit to one side. I figured I had hit a yard pot hole and kept going. Well, I didn't go far because one of the front wheels had fallen off!

Thankfully our neighbor saved us from having to sport a 1/2 mowed lawn for a week and loaned us their mower.

After I brought the mower back I noticed that our neighbor had his cherry picker out and was trimming his trees. He even offered to come and trim our trees!

With some careful maneuvering the neighbor planted the cherry picker in the backyard and removed the dead branches from the trees.

Ben and I were thrilled! We had been hoping for nearly a year that Mother nature would take care of those branches, but it never worked that way.

Thank you amazing neighbor for trimming our tree and lending us your mower!!

Pesky Wabbit!

"You pesky wabbit!"

Elmer Fudds infamous quote pretty much sums things up. Rabbits have been feasting on my pretty lilies. One day they have gorgeous blooms on them, the next they're dinner for a rabbit.

I started with 10 Lily bulbs. 2 bloomed, the rest got munched on. One lily bloom had these

amazing pale pink and brown spots on it. I went outside the next morning to take a picture of it, and it was gone! The entire stalk and bloom had been munched down to a sad little stub.

I've begun to fight back though. I mixed up a wretched smelling concoction of red pepper flakes, chili powder and garlic. Sprayed it on all my lilies and am hoping that'll teach those rabbits a lesson!

Pre-rabbit dinner lily...

Post Rabbit munching! GRRRRR!!!!

It was only a matter of time...

...until we broke a pipe to our underground sprinkling system! Yes, that's right, every home owners worst nightmare. The thought of digging up feet and feet of their luscious lawn to find that one little leak.

Our own version of Old Faithful (on a smaller scale of course) was not a welcome sight.

Thankfully our broken pipe occurred in a flower bed, so no grass was harmed during the repair.

A few clamps, screws and new pipe did the trick.

Backyard Makeover

Our backyard was in need of a make over. It lacked in a lot of things, especially plants.

So, we took almost all the over grown bushes from the front yard and transplanted them to the back yard. Now we have a nice natural fence between us and our "back yard neighbors." .

This is only the beginning to the make over... I think it's time to go plant shopping!

This is the backyard before we moved the bushes from the front yard.

This is what the backyard looks like now. Hopefully next year the taller bushes will have grown larger and will fill in some of the gaps.

Stone Free!

This is what the flower bed looks like now! Making progress!

Our front yard is officially stone free! Big deal you say? It sure is! We've been wanting to get rid of the ugly, mossy, moldy, grungy white stones that were in our flower beds. They were easy to maintain, I will hand them that, but man were they hideous! We've shot these stones into Timbuktu with our mower and snow blower!

Thanks to Tim, our new found yard helper our front yard is stoneless, zilch, nada, not a stone to be found! WOO HOO!

Next project, move the over grown bushes to the back yard...

This is what the front flower bed looked like when we moved in.

Let there be Light!

After nearly a year, (no, I'm not exaggerating) we finally found new exterior lights! We scoured the town month after month and finally stumbled upon something that looks good and wasn't going to break the bank.

After a quick install, thanks to my handy husband our lights are up and well, illuminating.

If you look closely, you can see the last remaining

original light by the front door. From a distance it

looks OK, but up close it's nasty! It's lost most of it's brass coating, it's rusting, peeling, the glass it beyond cleaning, and

it's home to all sorts of insects.

What is it?

My yard continues to throw surprises my way. I've discovered crocuses, stemless tulips (they're old and tired), hyacinths, Easter lilies, hostas and mums. Plus some other flowers that I don't know the name of.

The most recent surprise is a small tree right outside the kitchen window. When we moved in last year it was full of oval shaped green leaves, nothing out of the ordinary. Then a few days ago something changed... it now has LOTS and LOTS of clumps of white flowers. They smell like a Lilac, look similar to one but according to my Dad who's the Master Gardener, they're not one.

Well, then, what is it? I must know! Any ideas?

Mailbox

Winters here in Michigan can be harsh, especially on your mailbox. Our mailbox post had been beaten by the snow and snowplows over the years and had a big split down the middle. The former owners screwed the split back together and the mailbox itself was attached by 2 wimpy nails.

Now that the snow has melted and Spring is here we decided it was time to put in a new mailbox post.

With a little bit of elbow grease and creativity Ben removed the old post and easily installed the new one.

Now what to do with the old post...hmmm....

Garage

There are positives and negatives to having a large garage.

Positive, an excellent storage place for yard toys, tools and other items needed for sprucing up the house.

Negative, due to the spacious nature of the garage it's a magnet for what my Mom describes as "plutsy stuff." The things you don't want to throw out but don't know where to store or when you'll ever use again.

In order for me to get in my car I had to dodge 2 obnoxiously large "recycling centers" (that story is for another post), a trailer hitch, 2 snow shovels, a rake, shoes, a broken metal cot, several flower pots and wood scraps. Seriously, that was all crammed in one 2 foot wide walkway next to my car. After living in a teeny apartment we've become experts at fitting lots of stuff into a small space.

Ben and I put on our work gloves, backed out the cars and tackled the "plutsy stuffed" garage. Within about an hour we had the garage mostly clean.

I'm actually looking forward to getting in my car now!

This is the garage before.

My car is parked

next to the walkway

on the right.

The garage after cleaning...

Spring Surprise!

Being this is the first Spring in our house I'm discovering plants that I never knew existed in my yard. We moved in late June so all of the Spring plants had died by then.

As I walked through the yard today I encountered 3 surprises...

The first surprise, crocuses, crocuses everywhere and not where I wanted them. They're in my lawn, my bushes, cracks and crevices of the front yard planter. They're a beautiful dark and light purple but they're in all the wrong places! ugh...I attempted to dig up a few but my attempts were futile. Their bulbs are teeny... and a huge pain to replant. Now what do I do?

The second surprise was a little better. As I began the arduous task of weeding the front yard planter I found about 10 hyacinths. They were scattered all over the planter so I dug them up and relocated them to a spot next to the garage. I sure hope they live!

The third surprise, tulips!

Now I just have to remember where all these bulbs are after the plants die so I can dig them up and relocate them...

Atmospheric

Just before Christmas we finally decided on a color for our living room. We were getting tired of looking at the grungy, splotchy white walls. After spending a few days of taping paint samples to the wall we decided on a colored called "atmospheric." It's a dark blue-gray color that looks nothing like its name. It turned out great though, it makes the room feel warmer and a lot cozier. Here's a few before and after pictures.

This is what the room looked like when we moved in...

and then what the room looks like now...

Spontaneity

About a month ago Ben and I decided it was time to start looking for a new couch. We had been using his parent's couches, which were nice but their life span was dwindling. These couches had been to the Virgin Islands and back, twice! Plus they were huge and weighed a ton and anyone who had moved the couches once wasn't to keen on helping us move them again.

Shortly before Christmas we were out doing some errands and decided to stop in a furniture store just for kicks. We were in the store for no more than 5 minutes when a couch caught our eye. We figured it was way out of our price range. Well, we found out it was on sale and a salesman told us that it had a pricing error as well. So, as we sat on it for awhile pondering what we should do, we were told there were 15 left in stock. It was a big decision and we weren't even sure it would fit in our living room. Soon people figured out just how much this couch was on sale and they started selling them faster and faster.

After 15 minutes of sitting on this couch we got up to leave and go home to ponder our potential purchase some more. The salesman stopped us on the way out and said "just so you know, we only have 5 couches left TOTAL." Total meaning all the stores they had in the West Michigan area.

We couldn't leave now. So, we turned around, sat on the couch one last time and a few moments later we were proud owners of a new couch.

Then we went home and measured the living room and were happy to find out that the couch would fit perfectly!

Here's a picture of the couches we used for years.

and the couch we have now...

Christmas

Well, our first Christmas in our new house has come and gone in a flash. December was full of a flurry of activity! We enjoyed a week long vacation with my family and had Ben's family over to our house on Christmas day for gifts and dinner. It was so much fun decorating the house for Christmas, hopefully next year I'll have acquired a few more decorations. So, enjoy the pictures of Christmas at the Fiet's!

(Above) since we are lacking in a fireplace I decided to hang our stockings on the upstairs railing. Worked out pretty good!

(Below) Our tree fit so nicely in our living room!
(below) Christmas garland above the kitchen cabinets.