Fresh Flowers From Far Away

How are you? Hopefully good! This weekend was good. My parents came to visit and it was a really nice visit.

I have been working on a big outdoor project and will share the progress soon. I had to share with you how awesome my dad is though. You see these flowers??? Well they came quite a long distance in a bucket. I adore my parents and am very fortunate to have great parents. Anyhow my dad was so sweet to think of me. He plucked several gardenias off of their bushes and put them in a bucket to bring me. It was very special to me.

The flowers are so fragrant that they freshened up the patio very nicely. I put a few in water for a simple decoration.
 

It's a nice way to decorate!

A New Fence!

What have you been up to with the longer days? I love this time of year and getting to spend so much time outside.

Right now I am so excited- we just got a new fence for our back yard and it's like Christmas in May! We have been telling our kids we wouldn't get a new fence or a dog unless we won the lottery. So now that we have a new fence you know what they are thinking. They are already talking dog names. Ummm we love dogs but not anytime soon... 

The new fence has already made such a difference to the whole family. It has opened up the yard and extended our outdoor play time. Before we had a short picket fence that only enclosed part of our back yard. It was cute and I liked the look of it but we wanted more privacy and a feeling of security. It's a little hard to describe without showing loads of pictures but there is a retaining wall on one side of our lot that the picket fence met up to. A stray dog could jump in our yard before, and people could cut through our yard where it wasn't enclosed. There is a natural wooded area on the back side of the lot that was outside of the fence. 

BEFORE


Now we have a 6 foot tall wooden privacy fence for security and privacy. 
We opted for arched gates for a more decorative look. 

AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


We just realized that we can take some yard toys (mainly a battery operated children's jeep) in the back yard that we couldn't before. YAY for wider gates. Our property is fenced in all the way to the back now so it is a great feeling to know I can let the kiddos out to play in the back yard and not have to worry so much. I'm thrilled that we finally took the plunge and fenced in the whole back yard. Pretty cool!

So if you live in a house as opposed to an apartment, condo or townhouse, do you have a fence and what kind? What do you prefer?

Organize Outdoor Toys

Ahhh to sit and kick my feet up is nice. I have a problem if I haven't mentioned it before. I do not know how to relax. Does anyone else have this issue? I seriously cannot sit still. I have to force myself to slow down to veg out and relax. Ridiculous, huh? It takes pure exhaustion to cause me to lounge. 


Having said that I have been working non-stop after hours in the woods of our back yard. I've been working steadily for a couple of months to clear out the brush. I am starting to see progress. YAY! While I work to cut down trees, weed, rake leaves and such, the kids like to play in the fenced in area of our back yard. They have got so many outdoor toys but they stay entertained playing with each other.  


I was at Aldi a couple of weeks ago and found this Suncast deck box below. It was about $40.00 which I thought was a steal because I have seen it for much more. I couldn't pass it up. It was one of things on my "to look for list" but I had not begun to look for one. 


Anyhow it has been the best money I have spent since having Auto Bell clean my car! You should have seen me get this thing in my car. Ha, it wouldn't fit so I had to open the box and dissemble it to get it home.




The box is awesome! It's super simple and has no extra parts. The sides and lid all snap in place. It feels good to have some organization to the patio. Talk about bringing the indoors out! Is there anything you have bought this Spring that has made life a little easier?