Ongoing Projects

Good morning and happy Wednesday! I’m all packed up for a 5-hour drive to MN this afternoon. I’m attending an all-day training session for work with a couple co-workers. Hopefully I remembered everything I will need. If not, I guess I’ll just show up disheveled and wearing today’s clothes again tomorrow. Ha.

One of the things I’m quickly learning is how difficult it is to stay on top of the mountain of never-ending house projects. You would not believe the list of things we want to fix/replace/rip out in the house. Just the pruning and landscaping efforts I have in mind seem like a daunting task.

Since it was such a harsh and cold winter, a good portion of the shrubs died and have the bright orange sections on them (see the very bottom left of the picture below). I’ve never been good at knowing how to prune roses and didn’t want to touch them since they were doing so well last year – but now more than half of the plants are dead and gangly looking:

There are quite a few little flowering shrubs that were either chewed into odd and ugly shapes (thank you rabbits!) or just don’t grow well in the compacted, clay soil. I remember we encountered this same issue at Ben’s previous house and when we removed the plant and put it in better soil, it started to actually grow again. I’m hoping to do the same thing with a few of the random shrubs around the house.

Of course, there’s also the deck project. Ben’s gotten quite the workout with all the paint stripping, power washing, sanding, and frequent trips to Menards for more supplies. I think it’s going to look awesome when it’s done though and the color we picked will blend in nicely with the siding on the house.

Here we are right now – almost all of the sanding is done!

Despite the mountain of outside projects, we have tons inside to do as well. In fact, two of the bedrooms in the house are currently designated sorting areas for my junk. I have tons of clothes and tons of various stuff that I really need to weed and purge. It’s amazing how much you can accumulate if you’re not good at throwing things away.

I’m not sure why, but I always feel more motivated to tackle indoor projects in the Summer. That seems backwards though considering we only have a few months of nice weather to enjoy the outdoors… you’d think I’d want to spend every minute outside!

Alright – time to grab all my bags and go through them one last time in the hopes I’ll remember something I forgot to pack. I never have to travel for work anymore so this is taking just a bit more time than usual. 🙂

Have a great day!!