Right now, our front yard/flower bed looks nothing like it did when we bought the house.  The only two original items left out there are the Japanese weeping maple and a small pink azalea plant.  In place of the nasty boxwoods and ugly evergreen bushes I tore out of there (literally, tore with my hands) are some wonderful new plants and shrubberies all of which I cannot remember the names of, but that look really nice.  Christy picked them out and all I did was help plant some of them and spread mulch around.  It looks MUCH nicer now. =o)

The next project I am tackling is building a retaining wall in the back yard after which, we will lay down a new paver stone patio in the yard.  I got most of the stones I need for the wall but found out tonight I'm a few stones short.  So I'll have to stop at Home Depot again on the way home tomorrow to pick up about three more.  The idea is to build the retaining wall so we can level the part of the yard where we want the patio, and then lay the patio down.  Since our yard is essentially a downward slope away from the house, we have to level part of it otherwise the patio will eventually slide down the yard to the fence...and that won't be fun.  

We're also planning on building a small vegetable garden after the patio is finished.  We don't get a lot of sun in the back because we are so close to the tree line, but there should be just enough to get a small garden going.  We even have a bunch of herbs ready to plant, too!  Brae has his very own green bell pepper plant in a pot waiting to be planted.  Guess we should get moving on this garden thing....lol.  Speaking of other things to tackle in the yard,  I have to reroute the gutters and the sump pump drain down to the fence since currently they are both draining out into the middle of the yard creating a mud pit whenever it rains.  I also need to spray the dandelion killer to get rid of the small army of them in the yard and THEN put down some grass seed.  About 2/3 of our yard has grass and the other 1/3 is weeds and dirt.  Not too pleasing on the eye.  Christy's planted some ivy and something else that I can't remember at the moment down along the fecne line and once those start to take off and grass starts to sprout, we should be in good shape. 

I'm kind of excited about all these projects.  I mean, I don't like the idea of coming home from work only to do more work but I know that once it's all done, it will be really nice.  And then maybe we can take a short break before we tackle any other major projects and relax by the fire pit on the patio and have a few beers... =o)

Threw together a new header graphic for the blog...not sure what I think of it.  I love all the pictures in it but I'm not sure how I feel about the layout of it all.  Oh well.  Guess that's what I get for throwing it together in 10 minutes in Photoshop.  =o)

Soooooo. The NHL playoffs have been very interesting this year.  I'm all for the Penguins and Flyers making it to the Conference finals!  What I didn't expect was the Dallas Stars making it to face the Red Wings in the West finals.  Dallas is good, but I thought San Jose was a much better team.  Apparently I was wrong.  I also kinda wanted San Jose to make it because that's who Jeremy Roenick is playing for nowadays and I always like him as a player.  Oh well.  Maybe he'll come back next year and try it again.  But the FLYERS!  Wow!  They took out the #1 seeded Canadiens in 5 games.  Talk about impressive.  I've never seen a Flyers team this resilient.  They get down 3-1 in a game, and come right back to win it.  Unbelieveable.  The Flyers of a few years ago would have just packed up and lost the game...but not this year.  This year they actually fight to win a game.  I can't wait til Friday night.  It's Game 1 of the East Finals.  Flyers at Penguins.  =o)

I'm going to do my first unconscious mutterings today!!!

State :: of mind
Lively :: bunch
Valet :: I can park
Traction :: Control
Official :: bullsh*t
Red hot :: Chili Peppers
Powder :: Musket
Replies :: I'm a single ply guy.
Flagrant :: Fouuuuuuuuuuuuuul!
Tweet :: Puddytat

Goodnight! 

My belated birthday gift arrived today courtesy of my Dad.  My parents told me on my birthday that they owed me a grill.  Since my bday is in February, you can see how that makes sense.  It was delivered today.  =o)  The instructions said the average consumer could put it together in 30 mintues.  Well..I'm not the average consumer.  It took me about an hour or so.  Haha.  But Christy and I put it together and we were able to use it tonight!!!

We cooked up some turkey burgers and some grilled asparagus.  YUM!  We coated the asparagus in olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and grilled them up until they were nice and crispy and the turkey burgers were out of this world!  I tried mine with some Jack Daniels BBQ sauce and just about fell over!!  

By the way...can you tell I'm excited about the grill?  I mean, my overuse of the !!! wouldn't be a clue would it?  

Tomorrow night I'm doing up some marinaded lemon pepper chicken and maybe some roasted potatoes on the grill.  WOOHOO!!  I love me some grillin'.

So I guess I can't wait until I get home from work tomorrow!  

Also, Christy has become my food controller.   I had a slight freak-out yesterday because none of my pants fit and I want to lose the weight I've put on.  So she took charge of my diet and is helping me stay committed to losing the weight and eating healthier.  So far today she's done really well for me.  It's encouraging for me to have her helping me make my choices and hold me to them. =o)

It's that time again!  Flyers Playoff Hockey!!!  I love it!  Whether they win or lose it's always fun to watch playoff hockey because I think it's so much more intense than regular season hockey!  Of course I'm watching as many games as I can on TV but I'm most interested in the Flyers games.  They're doing pretty well so far against the Washington Capitals.  There was so much hype about the Caps Alex Ovechkin.  He's an awesome player don't get me wrong, but the Flyers have been doing well in shutting him down. 

So far tonight, it's 1-1 and it's been very physical.  I'm half listening to the game online and half watching Two and a Half Men on TV.  The Caps power play has scored the tying goal and now I'm very anxious to see how the Flyers respond to the physicality.   They seem to be confusing the Flyers but I'm confident they'll regroup and get it back. 

So now, I listen.  GO FLYERS!!! 

She's finally as old as I am!!! HOORAY!  See, Christy and I have this long running joke about who's older than the other.  We were both born in 1981 and in the winter.  I'm February 24, and she's March 22.  A mere 26 days apart (well, it's 27 days this year since it's a leap year).  So we often tease about being old and she playfully reminds me that I'll always be older than her...by a whopping 3 1/2 weeks.  The point, she says, is that I'm older period.  Doesn't matter by how many days.  The moral of this story?  Um.  Uh.  Well.  Oh right!  Saturday was her birthday!  She turned 27 years old just like I did 27 days before.  So even though we are 3 1/2 weeks apart, we're still both 27 and that makes her old. 

Her request for her birthday dinner was for me to make her lasagna.  And so I did.  We could have gone out to any restaraunt.  Polidoro, Italian Garden, The Melting Pot but she preffered my lasagna over all of them.  =o)  I gave her a few DVDs including another Cary Grant boxed set...we love older movies.  And she has a thing for Mr. Grant..lol.  I also gave her the new American Idol karaoke game which we were supposed to play last night but we both ended up getting really bad headaches.  We'll have to play it another time.  And I PROMISE I'll play and sing.  (There babe, you have it in writing).  

I tried to make everything as perfect as I could for her birthday.  I couldn't do everything though since Brae was with his father this weekend.  =o/  But she seemed to have a really good time.  I'm looking forward to celebrating many more of her birthdays.  That's one of the many perks of being married to her.  Each year gives me a new chance to totally spoil her on March 22.  I'm already excited about next year!  Even though I have Christmas to go through first.  Haha.

So babe, I hope you had a great birthday and I love your forever and forever again! Even though you're old.  =D