February Flowers

Since it's our first year in the house, we decided to trim back and weed most things to see what comes up. I've planted a few seeds here and there but mostly we just want to see what the yard does on its own. It seems like overnight, things started growing and blooming. Here are some pictures of the February flowers.

Heatwave

It's going to be around 87 degrees here today and we're hearing about lots of snow up north. Just sayin'.

Stuff

Here's what we've been up to, fun for us but dull for the blog:

• Killed a number of fire ant mounds
• Sprayed the powdery mildew on our holly bushes with fungicide
• Lots of wiring and crawling around in the rafters*
• Touched up the guest room paint
• Cleaned up dead plants and leaves around the yard**
• Numerous trips to Home Depot
• Adoring of kitteh
  
• Reading of scholarly articles
• Writing of code in PHP

*Austin plans to post about his projects (that's for you, Mike and Bruce)
**Stuff is already growing here! Love February in TX.

Cat Feet

Here's Stinky doing more weird stuff with his feet. This is me after a long Friday, how could you not smirk if a cat puts his paws on your face just for fun?

Home Improvement

Here's Austin cutting holes into the wall for the TV. My dad was thoroughly impressed with Austin's nerve (though he used another word).



Here's the almost-finished product. The TV is mounted but some wiring and speakers still need to be sorted out.



And here's a gratuitous picture of Stinky. He really likes stretching out his paws for some reason and I like the white tips on them. Austin is on the phone to Nick here on his Blutooth.

Warm Home

Another busy week is behind us. Yesterday, my friend Beth came over and we had a girls' night. Very relaxing and very long in coming. Beth kindly brought us a housewarming gift- a bottle of South African wine and the sweetest thing ever- a Nelson Mandela apron! Our family and friends have been generous with housewarming gifts but this is pretty neat:



Today we were going to stop by Whole Foods to grab some ingredients for a nice V-day dinner but it was a huge cluster #$%& there. They had traffic cops in the parking ramp and that thing was full to the gills so we decided to have a re-do on that project. If the garage was full, imagine what the store and lines were like. Um yeah, not so much. Instead, we spent a very romantic day killing fire ant mounds (they're all over! ugh!), mounting the flat screen TV above the fire place, building Ikea bookshevles, and other homeowner stuff. Probably not cupid-approved but we're happy feathering our nest and not battling the crowds.

Quick Update

We've been busy here with work and school and home improvement but it's all dreadfully boring to blog about. Here are two pictures that are more interesting than me reading journal articles or Austin writing code.

This is the guest room, fully painted in Arabian Red, but still in need of touch ups and trim. I'll post a better picture when it's all put back together. We're really pleased with how the color came out and how nicely it goes with the black and white bedspread.




This is me tearing out a thorny rose bush in front of our holly bush. Lots of prickly stuff in front of the house! It's really fun to begin gardening in February.

Get Off My Lawn!

Ah, the perils of suburban life. Here are two examples from today:

Half-assed toilet papering of our tree. They barely got one go around!



Fire ant attack. We just killed a mound yesterday and I literally stumbled upon one while trimming out the dead plants in our flower bed. I had to pull off my jeans (thankfully we have a fenced in yard) and ran to the house shaking them off. It's true, the bite does feel like a burn but luckily I noticed right away so I was able to avoid a big swarm. Now we have to kill them and keep Stinky away from the flower bed where he likes to lay so he doesn't get into the poison.

Color Theory

Total first world problem here in the Lunderoy household... what color do we paint our kitchen? Sigh. It's sooo much harder than we anticipated... Seriously, it's frustrating and time consuming but fun and exciting and a good "problem" to have. Here are a few pictures that Paula snapped during her visit of us working on the kitchen.

My approach to choosing- the internet, wine, and color samples:



Austin's approach- patchworking the wall with big blocks of color: