Consider These Halls Decked

Ah, Christmas. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. It’s a long wait for me for December to finally arrive. When it does, I am so excited to get these decorations up!

Sadly for Hubby, this means that he gets to do most of the work. It’s how I manage to spread the Christmas spirit very early in the season.

He appreciates it, I’m sure.

We’ve had this unbreakable ornament set from Costco since our very first Christmas together. I love them. They are the right colors and have lots of bling. What more could a Christmas-loving maniac like me want?

Then we went outside. Once again, Hubby is having to do lots of the work here. Who plans this stuff?

We’ve had the inside all Christmased up for a few weeks now. But only last night did we finally put our strand of lights on the house exterior.

He can’t do it without me, though. Someone has to hold the ladder while he climbs up on the roof. And someone has to say, “Is there anyway that we can close that gap there?”

Honestly, what would he do without my constant nagging me?

I really love the idea of putting up Christmas lights with palm trees in the background. It has been absolutely perfect weather for the past few weeks. We haven’t even turned on the heater yet! It will be cold this week…Friday only gets up to 58 degrees!

Yes, that is cold for us! Sheesh!

Simple, but very pretty. Ho ho ho.

Inside is rather festive as well.

I forgot to put the new beaded garland (from clearance a few years ago!) on the tree before all of the ornaments, so I had to get creative with what to do with it. I really love the result! I hung it on the mirrors  and am using it to hold Christmas cards that we receive in the mail!

Well, hello, Cute Cousin Andrew and his family. His wife, Megan, designs cards. She is also a photographer. And I designed her blog. You should probably go check it out.

Charloe, can you see how I’m holding the card to the garland? It’s one of your airplane clips that you gave me for my berfday!

Man, I love reflections of Christmas trees in mirrors. I just really love this month of celebrating. I would have it be Christmas all year long, if I could get away with it.

There is probably a movie about that, and it doesn’t work. But I think that we could make it work.

These were a post-holiday sale score last year, and I love them. Adorable beaded Christmas trees! They make me smile every time that I see them. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Smiling for no reason?

This is our beautiful tree. We’ve had this since we got married as well. Want to see how young we were four years ago? OK. Check it out!

I invested in some Christmas pillows this year and am trying really hard to not go buy a few more red ones. This room needs more red, and those couches need more pillows. Red pillows would be a win-win in my book!

But I am trying to be “patient” by waiting for the clearance sales after Christmas…

I cried and cried when I opened this from my Mama a few years ago. I have such wonderful memories of this advent calendar from growing up. She surprised me by sending it to me for my home to enjoy. Isn’t she awesome?

I love it. I talk to it when I move the mouse each day. That’s normal, right?

Of course, the dining room got a little Christmas spirit as well. I love the table but am still not thrilled with that fireplace wall. I have such fun ideas in my head as to how to make that wall a true feature piece in the room. Right now, it’s just busy. With a stocking or two. Too bad I haven’t used this space much this winter.

Now if I could only get a fireplace insert for there…

Another garland that didn’t end up on the tree! Truth be told, I love it just randomly scattered on our Christmas table this year. It makes eating dinner so much better!

See what I mean? My attempt to make it feel cozy has just made it feel busy. And my normal colors of apple green, teal blue, and bright yellow don’t mesh well with Christmas colors, huh?

My favorite addition from my fall clearance sales was this wire mesh basket for $9. They are $25 at Target! I love you, TJ Maxx…

Here is our Christmas mantle. With any luck, it will look even better next year. How is a girl to fit in so many projects? Man, I love projects.

And I’m still debating if this blue table is too bright for the eyes. Opinions?

Our gazelle gets holidayed up as well. I’m pretty sure that someone named her Beyoncé, as that is what she answers to.

I inherited this wreath when I moved to Phoenix (almost six years ago?!) to live with my sister. Somehow, when she moved out, I got lots of stuff that wouldn’t mix well in her new married life. I passed on a lot of it but kept some fun stuff, too.

I know that we have a fake tree, but you wouldn’t know it when this pine candle is going! Christmas trees are probably my favorite smell in the whole wide world.

And, though it isn’t the original like what we had growing up, Mama sent each of us this copycat book of a family favorite. I love this book. We spent hours admiring all of the beautiful pictures inside. So many elves to see! The original can be found here, and it’s pretty cheap! Maybe that will also be on my post-Christmas shopping list!

Please ignore the blocks. They are waaaaaaaay off. I forget to change this because I have a mouse calendar to keep me straight! Who wants to talk to blocks, anyway?

I really love our Christmas tree. It looks stunning at night. I will try to post pictures of that soon!

I got a new camera lens for my birthday, and it would be fun to get some Christmas bokeh with it!

I love our ornaments, too! Bokeh in the background with my normal camera lens!

All year long, I happily anticipate sitting in the living room with some hot chocolate while staring at the tree. I’ve done it many an evening so far and haven’t tired of it yet. This is certainly my favorite time of year, and certainly my favorite holiday.

Aren’t the cable-knit pillows fun?

Are you ready for Christmas? Decorated? Shopped?

Making Ditches in the Front Yard…For Good Reason

After we dug up the back yard and made a mess, I asked if we could work on the front yard first since it is certainly seen more. I thought that we were just going to add a drip system to the planter boxes, and hopefully get a new planter box in the process.

Little did I know, Hubby had different plans out here. He hated the present sprinkler system and decided to use the nice winter weather to make it right. It was about seventy degrees while we worked today. Just about perfect!

No more mowing over sprinkler heads in the middle of the yard! No more water being blocked by the two mini palm trees! The entire yard will now get double coverage from a rotary sprinkler head in each corner of the yard.

To begin this labor-intensive process of redoing the sprinkler system, Hubby starting cutting chunks of homemade sod where he needed to dig into the yard. This way, when he is all done and the new system is in, he can fill the holes with grass strips instead of bare dirt.

It would take a long time for bare dirt to fill in with grass again, so I appreciate his thoughtfulness on this one. Though it meant a lot more work for him…poor guy!

This was his idea…I promise.

Here he is skimming the sod off the top in nice, neat five-inch-deep squares to place back down when the new pipes are all in. I will do a post soon about how he then dug trenches to get the old system out…and found an even older system underneath that one! Sheesh!

He was sore for days after this because it was such awful work. We only had one shovel that could do this type of digging, so I stayed busy trimming bushes and trees in the yard.

I passionately hate our two bougainvillea plants. They are covered with spikes that inflict the highest amount of yard-working pain possible. I want to get rid of the one in front of the house. I guess we can keep this mailbox one, as long as it stops biting me when I trim it back.

Fat chance!

The previous owner, a landscape architect, no less, placed the sprinkler heads right behind these two mini palms. Smart move, guy!

As you can see, I got a little trim happy with the clippers this morning. I’m still trying to convince Hubby that we should dig all of this out and start from scratch with a new planter box. I feel like we’re only doing this job half-way if we leave it as-is. He might be considering it…since he asked where the sprinklers could go if we did something new here. I’ve hated how this looks since we moved in 2.5 years ago.

Fingers crossed!

We added a new tool to our collection for this job…an awl shovel. Is that the right term?

As you can see, we treat our equipment with the highest level of love, respect, and care. Even the new stuff gets such special treatment!

Hubby is pretty good at eye-balling straight lines in grass, I must say!

Do you like my neighbor’s latest hoarding purchase? I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to now see a 1981 RV sitting there every time that I look outside our front windows. Absolutely awesome.

The neighbor said that he is surprising his wife with another Lincoln for Christmas. I asked if he was going to trade in one of their present eight nine vehicles to get it. He looked at me like I was crazy or something.

After trimming, I grabbed our green barrel and filled it to the brim with bush scraps. This was a pokey and painful endeavor!

Probably not as painful as Hubby’s back, though, so I’ll just shut my mouth now.

And, once it was all cleaned up, the front was already looking much better! I would love to tear out those three bushes in front and put in a new cement border to create our new planter box. This might actually happen. Yippeeeee!

And Mr. Death the mailbox bougainvillea lived to see another day. I’m sure that the mail lady appreciates not being bitten by these fierce teeth every time she tries to drop off a bunch of junk mail!

I was really excited to have this out on the street for pick-up today. But the green barrel guy had already come way early this morning…way earlier than I wanted to be awake! And we forgot to put it out in time this past week, too, so we are still being graced by all of these trimmings each day.

  

Hubby worked hard and has the muscles to prove it. I’m so glad that I married such a hard worker. I wouldn’t be able to handle a lazy guy. Even soaking the grass first didn’t make this an easy job.

Once he “sods” the trenches, he will dig out the old system(s) to get ready for the new pipes to go in. I must say…it was rather nice to haul the ten-foot piping home in a nice, big Pearl. Hubby still insists that his Corolla could have done it, too.

Should I tell him, or do you want to do it?

Hubby made it to this corner and is now headed to the front corner on the other side. Four giant rotary heads will now keep our front lawn watered and gorgeous. I can’t wait until it’s all in and spraying!

After I cleaned up all of my trimming mess, a great view can be seen of the crappy planter box right now. They ran out of bricks and just kept going anyway.

It’s full of weeds. And cat crap. Lots of cat crap.

Won’t this be pretty as a new planter box with a cement border like we’re going to do in back? We are putting in a drip system inside this planter box, too, so things might have a fighting chance of survival now.

“Might” is the key word there.

You should see the blisters on this boy’s hands from all of his hard work today. What a good guy. I’m so glad that he wants our house to look nice, too. Right now it looks like a cemetery with a bunch of huge trenches…but it will be the almost-prettiest yard on the block soon!

Frontal Greenery, Take Three

You may remember that it has been quite the struggle to keep our plants growing at this house. We’ve managed to kill almost every living thing that we’ve planted in our dirt.

I don’t know if it’s something that should be mentioned, but our example has just been stellar. All of those landscaping and gardening magazines keep asking for interviews. It can be a burden to be so good at killing plants, you know.

 

When we did some more landscaping last fall, we bought what we thought were die-hard plants. I was tired of paying for things that never grew and then just gave up the ghost. So we got a Texas Sage for the corner of the front planting area. We were sure this would be hardy enough to handle both the winter and summer months. The nursery guy agreed that this sage wouldn’t let us down.

He let us down.

In fact, he didn’t grow even a tiny little bit. After we planted last fall, he lost most of his hair leaves. We thought it was just from planting stress, but we soon realized nothing was growing back. All of the other plants were doing well at this point (knock on wood), so we knew something was up.

 

I am not a fan of dead plants. I know I keep killing them, so you would think it is something I like because I do it so well. I was anxious to get Deady out of there, and replace him with something (temporarily, at least) alive.

When we were at Home Depot on Saturday, I found a sale and a nice old lady who gave me great advice. We picked out the healthiest Bells of Fire on the lot, and Hubby and I brought it home. We decided to give it the weekend in its pot before we ended its life in our soil.

Monday afternoon, while Hubby was hard at work staining gate pieces inside the garage, I got to work with my gardening gloves and a shovel. Deady came out to make room for the new Fire. He looks great! And alive…

Towards the end of gardening season last year, we found a smoking deal for bags of mulch for 80% off. At about a dollar a bag, we decided to stock up.

Since I had lots of mulch available, I decided it was time to refresh the front planting area with a new coat of black mulch. I love the stark contrast between the green plants and the not-dusty-yet mulch.

 

Since we began this little greenery project out front, only two of the originals still exist. This is a Barrel Cactus, which can get huge, and a Natal Plumb, which can also get big but takes a while. Lots of our neighbors have both of these guys, so we knew it was a safe bet to get something long-lasting.

They are still alive and growing, so that is a new one for us.

We also have an Elephants Food, to which I was always drawn in the store. Finally, we brought it home. It has done the best and has almost tripled in size since being planted last fall. I love the almost-red stems next to the bright green leaves. It almost feels like a succulent because the leaves are so thick. This thing is amazing. And not just because it is Christmas colors.

Now that I know it can survive our wrath, I want to buy more for pots in the backyard.

This little guy was quite a surprise. I didn’t think he would last long, but he is now one of my favorites. Maybe because it is named “Little John?” I love the bright red flowers that have blossomed several times since last fall. This guy almost looks tropical to me, and tropical is always a welcome guest here in the desert.

See how pretty the flowers can be? They almost look like caterpillars!

When we had too much space when planting last fall, I ran to Home Depot to buy a $3 cactus. We’ve had better luck with cacti, after all. Slightly more hardy (only slightly because we’ve killed cacti, too!). This little agave came home with me and was planted to fill a small gap. He’s pretty, but lethal. Very sharp, and he unfortunately collects all of the tree leaves that get shed. I still like him, though.

This Japanese Boxwood is really pretty, too. It is often used as a hedger, but I think we can make it a beautiful, round, controlled bush out front. We are letting things grow for now but will start to tame and trim probably later this year when they’ve been growing for about a year. That is, of course, if everything makes it to a year. He has thicker stems and has beautiful white and green leaves.

Last but certainly not least is our new guy, Bells of Fire. I just hope he lasts. I love the bright green with pops of yellow and orange in blossoms. I am just craving color everywhere! After a year of growth, we will start to guide him into becoming a round and gorgeous plant to first greet our guests.

Cross your green fingers with me that these will survive this time. We are going fake plants next time any of these die. I am hoping we never have to stoop that low, but I am also tired of buying plants that we eventually murder anyway.