Thanks to Frona and Tommie for helping me stain the wood on Mother’s Day

I went to Calloway’s nursery yesterday to go check out the plants. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted but wanted to see what my options were. I decided to take someone with me for the main part of the landscaping but pretty much knew what I wanted for the island.

I put one pampas grass in the middle of the island and surrounded it with yellow zinnias and vista red salvia. It is pretty sparse right now but should fill in nicely. Unfortunately, I didn’t ask for help (yes, I was in a nursery ) and the zinnias are annuals and the salvia may be as well. Oh well, I will just plant something else in there next year!

Ricardo posted a few pics in the pictures section so go take a look if you get a chance. I don’t think the pictures quite do it justice! I think it looks pretty good for having no clue of what I was doing!

Now let’s just hope they live and grow…:grin:

On the home front, we started planning Saturday for our landscaping. We went to Home Depot and thanks to Greg we now have a clue on how to prepare the soil correctly. Because we have clay (and sometimes caliche) in our area, I’m going to have to dig out about 9 inches of soil and mix in good soil down to about 18 inches. This is going to royally suck. The soil out here is not that easy to dig out. If everything goes as planned, Tommie should be able to start planting by the end of March, beginning of April. The ideas Tommie has for the landscaping are really good and I think it’s going to improve the curb appeal of the house a lot.

I got to organize our garage yesterday. We went to Lowes and bought some Rubbermaid shelves and a bike rack. The shelves were really easy to set up and they can hold up to 180lbs. per shelf. I even hanged tennis balls from the ceiling to help with parking. We now can actually walk around our cars without having to play obstacle course.

Friday after work I decided that I wasn’t going to wait until Sunday to edge and mow my 3 weeks of growth lawn. Man, it get so much harder after waiting a couple of weeks. When the lawn gets that long I really wish I had a self-propelled lawn mower. The torrential rain that we had Tuesday through Thursday didn’t help much either and the poor lawn got a couple of buzz cuts where the wheels of the lawn mower dug in a bit. I couldn’t let it go another day though; It was getting pretty bad.

[rant]
I hate freaking weeds. The freaking dallis-grass will not die. I had been spraying a specific weed killer for that weed and it controlled it a bit and killed some. But after about, I don’t know, 6 applications the weeds are still there. I think I’m gonna have to go medieval on its a$$ and just start spraying Round Up where ever I see the weed growing and kill everything around it. I did a test run with it about two months ago with one of the smallest patches and it killed everything around it (even the lawn) but it only took a couple of week for the Bermuda grass to swallow the dead area back up. So, I’m thinking, the napalming of certain parts of our lawn will work. Might not look pretty for a while, but it might work…
[/rant]

On Saturday, I did pretty much abso-freaking-lutely nothing but play a little ESPN Football with Lyndon (can’t believe you still won 3-0, I want a rematch) and play some Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow for a few hours (been stuck at one place for a while now and it’s really ticking me off). Yeah, I’ve been giving my Xbox a lot of love lately. I’ve been neglecting it the past couple of months…

Sunday, I finally got my lazy butt off the couch and went cycling. Rode the longest ride I’ve done so far. My ride was a total of 36 miles and boy was I pooped after it. The hills might look small but after you hit 20 of them your legs start to say “who do you think you are? Tyler Hamilton?”. I need to start taking a Powerbar with me to eat when I turn around and start heading back home. I think I’m going to stay at about 35 miles for a bit and then increase. I wanted to increase to 40 miles this coming weekend but I don’t think that is going to happen.

In the afternoon, Joe came out to the house and we had some hamburgers on the grill and Joe made some home made banana pudding with Nilla wafers. I know…I completely undid my bike ride in the morning but I’ll make up for it this week… The burgers were sooo good though and that banana pudding was outstanding. Joe brought over a DVD from Robbie Williams concert at Knebworth to show me the number of people that he commands in the UK and Europe and it was unbelievable. He packed 150,000 people (each night) at Knebworth for three nights. I don’t know why he really hasn’t caught on here in the US. His song are actually pretty good. What really amazed me is the control he has over the crowd. He could command them to do anything and they would do it without hesitating…

Well, that was my weekend in a nutshell… Now, I gotta stop slacking off and do some work…ttyl…

So, I went cycling yesterday after work for the first time and all I gotta say is: “man, I’m outta shape!”. I don’t know what distance I biked but I only lasted 15 minutes at a brisk pace. It’s going to take me some time to get my lungs back (hopefully sooner than later). I decided to stick around the neighborhood while I got used to riding again and also raised my endurance. Didn’t know where I was turning half the time and went into a couple of dead ends but it’s cool, at least I’m getting to know the neighborhood…

Today I think I’m going to ride this ~2 mile loop around my neighborhood. This should be a good measuring stick to see how I’m progressing (how many laps). I should be getting my little cycloputer in a couple of days. Then, I should really know how I’m progressing. The little computer keeps track of speed, distance, time and, more importantly for me, cadence (the rpm’s I’m pedaling so I can keep a steady pace).

My legs were a little tight when I got home but not sore. I must admit, even though I was kinda dying when I got home, it felt kinda good to be sweating like that and also the tightness in my legs felt kinda good. I hope that’s a good sign. I suspect tomorrow morning is going to be a different story with the soreness. It’s always the second day that kills ya, right?

Fence

The guys that built the fence came out today, after we had a chance to check out the details in the fence and make a note of what we needed fixed, and fixed a couple of things that needed fixing. All in all, the fence guys worked really well and the fence came out awesome. The stain guy is coming out today to seal/stain the fence. After that, the fence should be complete. I will post a couple more pictures of the fence once it’s stained.

Didn’t watch the game tonight, not because I avoided it but because we went to Taste Addison. We ate a bunch of food from the restaurants that are in Addison (you can call it restaurantville from all the restaurants that are there). I specially enjoyed the crab cake I ate from Trulucks, the lamb kabob with curry from Clay Pot and this Tenderloin sandwich from De Tapas. The food was amazing… There was a second reason we went to Taste Addison: B52′s were playing there… It was great… They played all their old stuff (Private Idaho, Rock Lobster, Roam, Love Shack, etc… )…. had a blast…

To work off all that food (and the food that has taken permanent residence around my waist) I decided to do road cycling. I have been trying to think, for a while, what type of exercise to do to lose a few pounds. I had always (before bad habits took over my body) liked to ride bicycles for long distances so voila, cycling is my exercise of choice. Went out Saturday and bought me a bike, helmet (gotta keep the noggin intact) and a couple other accessories (no Lycra pants………..yet) and should be starting my daily bike rides either today (Sunday) or tomorrow… I’m going to try to take it easy in my first few weeks of riding and build up my lungs. Then, I can start working on endurance and pace… I am actually really excited about this and hopefully I’ll stay with it….

Here’s a pic of the new “toy”, as Tommie calls it…

The fence is finally finished (except for the staining/sealing which they do a couple of weeks after the fence is finished). I took pictures everyday of the fencing process and will post them hopefully tomorrow. I will also post more pictures of Isabel.

It’s pretty late… I should be going to sleep…gnite all…

We get our new fence started tomorrow…….excited and nervous……..I hope it comes out nice. We will post before and after pictures…..they are supposed to start tomorrow but of course it may rain the rest of the week so we will see. Jessie is going to the “hotel” for the week. She will have a great time in daycare playing.

I decided that my time would be better spent sleeping, playing NWN and finally trying to finish Halo (i’m so close i can taste it)…

Now, it’s back to the grind. Hope you guys have a good work week but most important a good monday…