2nd Inspiration Party and More!

I have finally dug myself out of the pile of weeds and emerged victorious!

Along with having some internet problems which kept me from posting and visiting! I was having serious withdrawals too!

As you can see though, my helpers Snow White....

....and my gardener did help out ALOT! I wanted him to get the weed whip started for me. He bought this new toy. I can't use this toy cause honestly it scares the crap out of me! He so graciously weed whipped the whole yard for me. The weed whip is out of commission still. I broke the primer bulb. Oops!

But it is done and until it needs to be done again, I don't care! The yard looks so nice all neat and tidy too. Thankfully, by the time that I got the weeding done it was time to turn around and mow the grass again.

I guess cause I hadn't jiggled enough of my girl parts enough.

The flowers are happy and so am I!

The night before Memorial Day we did a tour of the Hartland Cemetery.

As you can see both older kids were thrilled with their Mom's morbid sense of fun.

The local Veteran's chapter gets together with the high school and puts on a luminary walk. Some of the students dress in period clothing and tell interesting facts of the veterans buried in the cemetery. Each veteran's grave is marked with a flag and candle for later.

I have to give credit to the students. They answered questions and acted like they really wanted to be there in wool costumes in 80+ weather! I was sweating bullets in shorts and a tank top!

The cemetery is actually very pretty though. Some of the older headstones are soapstone and have broken. Some are barely readable due to weather. I think the oldest one here is from 1827.

These are two graves that they "found" recently. The 2 men were buried here in unmarked graves. Digging through old records they found their names. Since they were veterans, the local chapter applied to have headstones provided for them. These headstones were just placed here in April.

Memorial Day morning was beautiful! We went to Kensington and spent a couple of hours fishing.

The bitty one got bored of it really quick and just ran around. Since I don't touch fish or worms, I didn't do alot of fishing. The weather turned yucky and the rest of the afternoon we got rain! Chinese buffet instead of BBQ.

Maybe tomorrow....

Now onto the Inspiration Party!

You know the drill. You can add your link to a post about someone who inspired you this month.

I am sure alot of you won't be surprised by my Inspiration this month.

She has a gorgeous blog filled with breathtaking pictures, stunning tablescapes and mouth watering recipes.

She is a devoted wife, mother and friend.

She has inspired me to pay attention to detail and make every day special.

I love each and every post that she writes.

Including the one about laundry too!

Can you believe that?

Every day I feel blessed to have this wonderful person in my life!

If you haven't guessed already....

It's Yvonne @ Stone Gable!

I have figured out how she gets so much done though from this picture. It must be that extra hand growing out of her shoulder. I need to get me one of those!

If there is one new blog that you visit, it must be hers though! Martha Stewart has nothing on this woman!

Now it's your turn!

Share your inspiration this month!

The party ends Thursday June 3rd!

Open only if you are not tired of seeing my weeds yet!

So I am guessing if you are reading this you love my weeds! I can send some to ya if ya like! I've got 6 bags full so far. Hopefully this will be over today and we can start to have some fun. I got a couple of projects that I want to do for the outside. One of them is a makeover for my front door.

Anyways.... let's get our farty shoes on and "git 'er done"! The kids call these my farty shoes cause when they get wet or sweaty inside they make farting noises every time you take a step. I know shocking that rubber shoes can't be quiet huh?

Believe it or not this is the front bed done. Still looks like crap though. I got some serious work planned for this puppy though. When we first bought this house the previous owners had bushes all along the front of the house. I wanted flowers so I pulled up all the bushes, weed fabric and mulch. The weed fabric was the really cheesy stuff and was rotting so it needed to be replaced anyways. We are planning on AFTER the fence is done to redo the front porch. You can't see it but there is like a 5' wide by 40' deep gopher hole under it. It makes the basement leak. So we want to fix the leaks, fill the gopher hole and block off under the deck so no more critters nest under there.

Here is the other half of the flower bed in the front. I want to do something to climb up the chimney. This ground is also rock hard so I need to do something with that to soften it up. I don't know what that would be, but something. Hopefully it will end up being manure cause that smells so pretty when it is wet and 120 degrees outside. You know you have to wonder how they thought "hey, let's put that cow poop in the flowers to make them grow".

The lily bed is done! I love this dirt in here. This is what I want for the front. It is always soft and mushy. Weeding is so easy in this bed. Of course the ants love this bed and HATE when I disturb them. I think I viled their queen's palace when I was working in here. The next thing I knew I was covered in biting ants. I am sure I was the epitome of coolness running around the yard in my farty shoes, screaming and flailing, being chased by two kids, one swatting me with a beach towel and the other with a hose, trying to get them off. I know I looked good after too. Sopping wet with tiny red marks from the bites and big old welts from being whipped with a beach towel.

I uncovered these gems too. I didn't even know that I had hyacinths here. You would probably recognize these as the purple irises except that the bitty one had to lob off the only blooms. She has a thing for picking flowers.

I also got the big tall weeds out of here. On my list for today is to turn all this dirt and lay down landscape fabric. Then I can section off the squares for planting the garden and do it. I'm really excited to do this one though. I love going to the garden center to pick out flowers and plants.

Maybe I better take my husband's pick up....

One little pretty left. My white iris is open! Isn't it pretty? So easy to see against that white siding too huh? I think she is much happier being weed free now.

I have one more large area to do. I have been dreading this one. It is in front of the garage. There is grass growing in there that is about 9' tall. It always is so neglected. I bet that I find alot of my husband's missing tools! Once it is weeded I want to take out all the flowers, lay down landscape fabric, plant some bushy flowery things like forsythia and cover it in rock. I was wanting to do flowers there with custom made license plates for plant markers. He thought it was dorky and now I am over that.

I am going to have him get the weed whacker started for me too so I can do all the trimming tomorrow. Doesn't that sound like fun? I think that I can be daring and take the snow shovel off the front porch and put it in the garage. Or maybe I should wait?!

I think that I will be daring....

Oops! I almost forgot!

The next Inspiration Party is Monday May 31st! So get your posts ready! I hope to see everyone there to join in on the fun!

More bragging about my wicked gardening skills!

I know ya'll have been dying to see my yard. Right?! Well here is the 30 acres in the front that seems to go on for forever!

Here is the side yard. I call it the side yard cause I think it makes me sound uppity. You can still see that I have not picked up all 583 piles of grass yet either.

Call me crazy but I am under the assumption that when you have to weed whack around the boat maybe you don't use it that much and should get rid of it. Or turn it in to a planter. That's my neighbors house. They are very nice and very meticulous about their yard. I usually mow right after they have cause the next day they will be out there remowing their lawn. Isn't that mean? The guy mows his lawn like 3 times a week though. Any time anyone in the vicinity of his yard mows he remows.

Here is my grass pile in the firepit. I think that it did use to be alot bigger before we had all that rain and wind the other night. Hopefully it didn't blow into Crazy Mower Neighbors yard.

Just to give you an idea of how tall all 103 acres was. See by the fence where I still need to weed whack? It's still like 8 feet tall there.

Now for some prettiness. My irises are blooming! I think that I am most proud and impressed with these than any other flower. I brought them from our old house cause they were my husband's grandmother's irises. I replanted and have divided them and not managed to kill them yet!

Here is my white one that is just starting to bloom. I bought these a few years ago. So pretty!

Yes, I do have irises growing in my grass too. A few years ago when I divided them I thought that some were ruined. They sat in a bucket that filled with water for like forever! So I dumped the bucket. Now I have irises growing where I dumped it.

My lily garden that is just starting to grow. Can you tell how much I love my lilies by the way I lovingly weed and tend to them? I want to put a pond here since it is far enough away from the house that the killer vampire mosquitoes that will breed here won't get us too bad.

I have some purple irises too. That's supposed to be a flower garden but the grass seems to have overtaken it. After the flowers are gone I plan on pulling up the irises, dividing them and putting them around the inside of the fence.

Here is where I want to put in a veggie garden. As you can see I have gotten alot done on this little project. I'm not seeing us eating home grown veggies unless I really get my arse in gear!

I had to take a pic of this beauty! I am pretty proud of it actually even though it is a weed. I think when I pulled it there is a little Chinese guy on the other side of the planet thinking "Where did my plant go?" I really had to pull on this sucker too. I really wish that I had seen the poor Census Taker guy before I catapulted myself out of the flower bed at him. I saw him reaching for his mace. Wouldn't that have been funny? I mean in the "driving down the street and seeing someone catapulting themself out of their flower bed at the Census Taker guy and him macing them" kind of way. Not if it had happened to me kind of way. I wanted to take his picture but he wouldn't let me. I guess he doesn't want his identity to get out. I was going to sneak and take one with my phone but it was on the porch and he moved pretty fast for an old Census Taker guy.

I hate these plants! I would step on and squish every single one that I see but usually I am barefoot and they are covered with tiny daggers and funky hairs that you don't get out for a week. It takes a shovel and a pair of welding gloves to get rid of them.

I don't know what these are. I was gonna pull them out and then over my shoulder came this sweet little voice. "You don't like blackeyed susans?" Scared the living beejesus out of me! I turn around and there is this 180 year old woman. I don't know where she came from since I don't own an 180 year old woman. She was just standing there in her housecoat and slippers cause all 180 year old women wear housecoats not robes. She told me those were blackeyed susans. Every year I spend about $3000 dollars in blackeyed susans cause I just love them. They say that they come back every year but mine never do. Yet I am constantly pulling out these from my flower beds every year. That would be freaking hilarious if I was pulling out the blackeyed susan seedlings every spring and then buying more. Talk about job security!

Anyways, the nice 180 year old lady said they were blackeyed susans so for now I am keeping them to see if she was right. I would of asked her more gardening tips but Helga her kidnapper who is keeping her locked in a basement pulled up and whisked her away. She probably got in the car and they had a good chuckle about what she just told the Gullible Butt Up In The Air Idiot. If they aren't I will yank them out and curse the 180 Year Old Lady in the Housecoat and Slippers!

Here are the pots that I just had to have! I bought them, two in fact, plopped them in the flower beds and have never planted a darn thing in them. Weeds don't even grow in them. I vow this year that I will plant something in them though. I don't know if you can see, but there are even cobwebs in them. I think what I want for them is vinca. It's low growing and is a ground cover with little white flowers. I am such a gardening officianado. It'll look like the pots fell over and the flowers are spilling out. Isn't that an original idea? It's what it's supposed to look like anyways! Dork...

Anyways it is back to weeding for me. It is a gorgeous day out so I should be burnt to a crisp and whining by the end of the day. I think that I may even get daring and shave my legs to wear shorts. I know dreadlocks with shorts is a look, but not one that I want to sport around town. I really don't want to ruin a perfectly good pair of jeans either....

OMG, my toes look like monkey feet with a french manicure looking for the nearest branch to cling to!

Enough about my monkey toes, I got work to do. I was even so bored that I made up a song for me. The kids love hearing me sing it too. It goes to the Underdog tune.

"Here I come to (pick only one) mow/weed/whack away!"

Alright, alright, I'm going....

P.S. Thank you for all the sympathy for me for having to do the yard work. I do have to say though that me and my husband are like 3 year olds with a favorite toy when it comes to mowing the grass. We fight over it. Usually, he mentions the night before that the next day he is going to mow the grass. The next day before he gets home, I do it. I don't know why but I love me some grass mowing! Maybe cause I know how cool I look riding around like King Arthur in hot pink?

Yard work and a wee bit of bragging!

So I haven't done too much lately except for yard work.

With my best bud Jeffrey

He told me to write that.

There wasn't too much "we" in that equation except that we were both outside at the same time. So anyways, it has been nice here for the last 2 days and I thought that I should do some yard work. Now this is no small task. The White Farmhouse sits on 1.5 acres which amounts to alot of yard work.

And the grass was 3 feet tall.

Why? Cause when I attempted to mow the grass last week I broke my Husky Vera. That's what I call my Husqvarna lawn tractor thingy. You know, one of those rider things that even has a cup holder for a beer, errr, I mean pop. After much crying and whining, my husband fixed Husky Vera. She needed to be welded. I guess that teaches me to run over every thing in the grass!

So back to the last 2 days, I had to mow the 3 acres of grass that was 5 feet tall which was no small task. Besides the usual toys, tools and personal articles of clothing (don't ask) that I usually run over I disturbed quite a few families. Bunnies were running everywhere with their children right on their heels, if bunnies have heels. I even found a band of pygmies planning world domination in the very back backyard. Do you know how much grass that 5 acres is when it is 8 feet tall?! Holy crap batman! I even had to mow it twice! So in reality that is like 12 acres of grass.

I swear if I ever find out which parent I inherited my OCD gene from I will slap them silly. I am secretly hoping that it was my dad cause I'd really like to slap him silly. Anyways, I raked all the grass into 4 foot tall piles after cutting it. I kinda felt like King Arthur riding on his white steed with his big pokey thing that knights carried. Except that I was on an orange lawn tractor with a rake.

You really aren't bothered by a little extra weight until you are whipping around 15 acres at warp speed. Yes, I have been known to turn corners on two wheels. Another reason why there is a rule that no children are to be anywhere in the vicinity of me. Our lawn is quite hilly too. I am sure that I was not the epitome of grace as I was attempting to stay on a tractor that felt like it was going to flip at any moment.

You know what I don't understand though? Why is it that people whipping down the road at 60 mph feel the need to honk at the 180 King Arthur dressed in hot pink? I am sure that I probably look like an all clear flag for landing aircraft bent over picking up 5 foot piles of grass.

Thank goodness it was raining today cause when I got up this morning every fiber of my being was sore. Parts that I didn't even know that I had ached. You would of thought that I would of atleast jiggled off some weight, but nope I gained 2 lbs. Must of been all that "pop" wink wink.

I still have yet to start the weed whacking and getting the flower beds in order. That should be about another 3 days at the rate I am going. I noticed that I have some venus fly trap kind of weeds growing in the front beds. They scare me. They have these daggers on them that you need a pair of welding gloves to pull out. If I survive, I will post pics.

Are you still wondering where you put 17 acres of grass? In the firepit of course. The pile in it was 11 feet tall last night. Thankfully along with the rain we also got alot of wind. So that back half of the 22 acres now has to be reraked.

By the time I am done I figure I will have done about 83 acres of lawn. You can probably understand why my kid's math teachers request that I do not under any circumstance help them with their homework.

Anyways, I do have one picture for you!

Isn't it beautiful? This is a deck that my husband just built for a customer.

I want a deck like that!

Well.... maybe after the fence is finished.

Day Late, Dollar Short!

So here is the "angel" who announced to the whole world that she was not wearing anything but dresses and skirts from now on! I asked her what would happen if they were all dirty, would she wear pants or shorts? Very nonchalantly she said "Nope! Guess I'll just have to be in my underwear!"

Atleast she has a plan. Not a very good one, but still a plan.

Later that night, I had to take her sister to Walmart cause she told me at 9:30 pm "oh yeah, I need the fabric for tomorrow to start my tie blanket project for Life Skills."

Thank you my darling daughter for the advance notice.

Anyways, I had to take the bitty one with us. If you didn't know, we are conjoined twins. Seems I can't go anywhere without her. Thank goodness she is starting preschool next year and I will get a few hours of not being bossed around by her. Maybe I should send her teacher a condolence basket now?

I don't care what store I go into. She has to find something that she CAN'T live without!

PUH-LEASE! Just this one thing mommy! She does a fine imitation of Steve Martin from "The Jerk".

All I need is this pencil....

Okay, back to the story that will eventually turn into a tutorial. Pinky swear! There among the fabrics she finds pink princess material. This kid lives for anything pink and princess. Sometimes it is easier to just give in early.

Which I did cause I knew if I didn't one of us was going to be laying on the floor, crying and having a temper tantrum. More than likely me.

So here is that damn material that she just HAD to have!

It's smocked on the top. This was just too easy. I measured around her chest because for some strange reason I do carry around a dressmakers measuring tape in my purse. I needed 20" to go around her.

Excuse me for a moment while I try to remember what it was like to have a 20" anything....

Back to reality....

Since I got a little bit extra, I lined up the top and bottom and cut off the excess. Lined everything up and pinned it. Whisked it off to the sewing machine for a seam.

You know what is the best about this fabric? Prehemmed!

She wanted ribbon straps. Of course she did. I bought a couple extra inches to make straps for it.

She wants something for her hair. It's on my to do list.

Ta daa! One happy little one in a pink princess dress that took 20 minutes to make and cost $6.00.

Don't you love how my kids give me their complete and total attention when I am trying to take a pic of them?!

Yeah honey, ignore the stupid lady behind the camera.

Anyways, about that title. I was supposed to post this for Jan @ Bobbypins Boardwalk's Bragfest.

Yesterday.

I like to think though that I am well prepared for next week though!

Posted at Fingerprints on the Fridge Feature Yourself Friday!

Tornado Warnings!

Here at the White Farmhouse we are prone to tornadoes.

They just pop up at a moments notice.

I have noticed that the skies are usually gray and overcast. Maybe even a chance of some rain.

It may even be a touch windy. I don't know if you can see the pear tree in our front yard being bended over.

It is usually quite noisy in the house since the kids can't go out and play.

When the tornado hits, you notice the quiet.

So quiet that it almost hurts your ears.

A deafening quiet.

This is usually while the tornado is hitting and doing it's most damage.

We were lucky this time. The damage was not as extensive as it usually is.

Some areas were not hit as hard as others.

Thankfully, the damage seems to be contained in this one room. Not all through the house while I am contained in one room painting.

Even though I didn't get pics of it. There was more.

The dog got hit too.

With a bottle of deoderant.

The white kind.

Atleast she does not stink anymore.

She has come to expect it when she hears that quietness.

Then as quickly as it starts, the tornado quiets down.

Don't you dare comment on how sweet that baby is either!!

She is EVIL!

The National Guard has not been called this time.

Any relief funds can be made to Molly Maids!

Trust me, I got their number....