Master Baster

My husband is a complete and total master baster. He's pretty much master basted every night this week. One of the nights he actually was master basting and then realized his meat wasn't done, so he went to master baste it some more.

It's kind of driven a wedge between us. He's spending too much of his free time master basting, talking about master basting, learning how to be a better master baster. I'm just not sure what to do.

Get this, though. He's been doing all this master basting in our backyard. The nerve. He spends all of his time with Barbie. Barbie Q. She's all shiny and perty and she's hot. REALLY hot. He even bought extra long tongs to handle his meat when he's with her. I just don't know what to do.

Seriously now...

The construction of our yard is, GASP, done. I still expect someone to always be outside my window. Even when I'm showering. They were there for more than six months. You get used to it. Sorta. It's like living in a fish bowl. I'm doing that fish face lip pucker thing right now. Swear.

Here are some pics of the whole progression. I sort of slacked in the end, but you get the picture. I have more to add but I'll have to do it later. It's almost dinner time and my husband needs help tossing the salad.

Light at the end of the tunnel

...well, with the inside improvements, anyway. The backyard has had one small additional thing completed, but we're still waiting to start putting the 'stuff' back in.

We had our kitchen lights redone. No more fluorescent -- canned lights instead. So much better. And do make up for being more energy inefficient, I've started to recycle EVERYTHING. No seriously, I'm rinsing anything and everything and recycling it.





And for the yard, we've got a fence up top!

Valley of the Dirt People

Tonight, we celebrated the fact that the major construction of our yard is DONE. Finished. O-VER.

We had a little crab-stuffed salmon with sauteed, julienned broccoli stalks and a couple of libations. Milk for the little one. The other little one was sawing logs. No really, we had some logs back there that needed sawing and she was busy slaving away.


Now the fun begins -- the actual putting back in of stuff we want, we like, we need. I cannot wait for this shit to be completely behind us. My front yard is laughable. We are 'those' neighbors. The ones with the crappy yard. Well, really, we just have dirt.

All of the dirt to the left of the cactus, sago, and maple tree is new:


The hill I stood on to take this picture is what we used to have with some decks built on top of it. We've gained quite a bit of useable land:


Our front yard last week. All of that dirt is now in the backyard.


And just for fun... Avery wasn't allowed off of the concrete until she put shoes on. She is a problem solver, that one.

Scaryland is becoming Tolerableland

Just for you Morgan :)

Our backyard used to be not-so-affectionately called "Scaryland." It was scary. It really is still pretty scary, but I've slowly been able to envision it become tolerable, so I guess I'm going to have to call it such.

We started out with overgrown plants/trees/bushes/you name it. We had wood decking, scary stairs, a scary hill with scary creatures burrowing into the side of it. We had smushy, muddy grass. 32 oleanders. 5 fruit trees. I could go on and on, but I would bore you to death.

We decided that if we're going to stay here a while, our kids needed somewhere safe to play, and since people drive 75 miles an hour up and down my street, the front yard won't be an option until they're old enough to understand to not play in traffic.

I've been documenting the progress by taking pictures often. My husband has been documenting it with a calculator and a red pen and lots of subtractions and deductions. Every now and then we look at each other with this sort of "Why did we do this?" kind of look and then choose not to talk about it in hopes that things will work out fine and we won't be sent to debtors' prison in the process.

So here is the progression so far. We're so close to the actual building up part of the yard being done, I can taste it. No really -- the wafting in of dust through my open windows and up into my throat and nasal passages is a constant reminder that these a-holes better get this project done soon or I am going to make them come in with some Swiffers and an air purifying machine.

From the beginning to today:

This was after the 32 oldeanders were removed, along with many other bushes and plants. We had no access to be able to take this picture prior to those oleanders being taken out. This was actually taken last summer, after those things were all removed, but before we decided to spend the kids' inheritance on retaining walls.


And how things have slowly changed since then:

After removal:


First retaining wall is built and filled:


Second one is built:


Second one is filled and third one is started:


Third one is built. It is not filled yet, but it will be in about a week.


From a different view, same progression:








Once that third and final retainer is dry, it will be filled up to make the dirt level. We will gain a lot of square footage to our yard. The part that we're getting hosed on, however, is that this process has eaten up so much more of our budget than we thought it would, once it's built up and ready to be landscaped, our landscaping is going to pale in comparison to what we originally wanted. Live and learn. We will be doing a lot of it ourselves, but the retaining walls were not something we were willing to attempt.

So, that's that! Now Morgan, tell Blake to book your tickets to come visit us later this summer and we can sit in the middle of the dirt on a blanket and have a picnic together! :)

Duly Noted

Just a little sound advice. When your toddler says "Mommy, there's a snake outside the window!" Don't say, "Oh honey, it's just a stick" or "Oh honey, you're looking at the hose." Sometimes it's a good idea to actually check to make sure.

Drive by blogging

Just coming back to reality after a weekend away in Santa Barbara. We went to the most gorgeous wedding ever, and of course I have no pictures because I was on a mission to have fun and big bulky cameras and beer don't mix well. I did take a picture of the mission that we could see directly across the street, however. It was so beautiful how they had it lit up at night.


My home business is coming along nicely. I'm still working on the website. I'll post it as soon as it's built.

I also thought I'd add a few pics just for no other reason than to try to be better at blogging. I apologize to my fellow bloggers whose blogs I used to read and reply on often. I am not ditching you, I'm just finding it tough to get the time. I told Jed yesterday that I need to get a job so I can sit and do nothing on the internet all day!

I'll start with the state of our yard. We're redoing the entire thing. Here is how it looked last summer.


Here's how it looks now. The girls enjoyed watching the destruction. We're in negotiations for what happens next right now. We're not quite sure what we're doing, but the plans are geting (somewhat) finalized.




Ainsley started to eat solids recently, so it takes more time for me to feed her. She is THRILLED with the process, as you can clearly see.


Here are just some random pictures...