I Know What I Did Last Summer

Last summer I committed a horrible crime.

Let me start from the beginning. Every spring, I start my planting rituals with a good ol' bottle of Roundup weed killer. I spray the soil a week or two before I plant and, voila! It's all weed free and ready for seeds and plants when I'm ready to put them in. Last year, I discovered Roundup had come out with a new product: Extended Control. Who wouldn't want extended week killing capabilities. Sign me up!

Even the bottle looks super advanced. So I bought it. And I sprayed away. I made sure to apply liberally around my rose bushes. I loved those rose bushes and I didn't want any weeds choking them out. It wasn't until after I applied it that I decided to read the label.

I was horrified to learn that this particular product was meant not just to kill weeds, but ALL vegetation. FOR FOUR MONTHS. Meaning that not only was this going to kill my roses, it would also kill any seed, seedling or fully grown plant I put in the dirt for the next four months. That was a sad day. And a sad summer. I did my best to replace the topsoil and I got a few petunias to grow, but my roses were putting out these sick little spider like leaves and no roses. Did I mention how much I love my roses? Summer was ruined. I planned to replace the roses the following spring, when the extend-o-kill wore off.

Then, this spring, a miracle happened. Two of my three rosebushes were putting out REAL leaves. I let it play out.

Finally two weeks ago, I got a Cabana rose.

Then a Bella Roma.

And then, finally the Nancy Reagan rosebush decided to show some life (believe me, this is a huge improvement over last year).

Add that to the promising buds on the new rosebush Chris got me for Mother's day and I am finally having a happy summer. My roses won't win any prizes at the county fair, but summer just isn't quite the same without them.

The Freshness of a Summer's Eve

Our clan loves Summer. Around here, Summer is shorter than balloon boy's fame. So we have to take advantage of it.

Here's what we've been doing:


Taking advantage of the short growing season of sweet corn.

Drawing on sidewalks.

Learning to swim. (I must say this is not Mommy's favorite. Who wants to spend a lovely summer day in a swampy pool area? But Emily loves it and so I endure. Sorry about the dark picture. The atmosphere in our municipal pool is quite cave-like)

Eating s'mores.

Eating some more s'mores.

Keeping our rides sparkling for all those summertime trips down the main drag with our music blasting and our windows rolled down.

 I love Summer. I hope that this year it kind of forgets to end until late November.

A House of a (Slightly) Different Color

Of late two startling things have crept into my realization: 1) As of this summer, we have lived in this house for 7 years. 2) A paint job (specifically one of a darker hue) can't be expected to last much more than 7 years.

With those two bombshells having been dropped, we decided it was time to paint. And with the additional shock of a few price estimates from painters, we decided it was time that we painted our house ourselves.

It took us three days to take the house from this:

(Obviously this is not a recent picture, but we kind of forgot the "before"shot)


To this:

We really liked the main body color, which is why we chose it in the first place, so we decided to use a similar color, but switch up the accent color and lighten the trim a touch.

Here is some interesting trivia associated with our house painting adventure:

• We went through 16 gallons of paint.
• Chris logged approximately 30 hours of painting time.
• I logged approximately 6
• A paintbrush duct-taped to a dowel makes an excellent tool for reaching 2nd floor eaves. 
• It is impossible to paint while small children are running around the yard (this accounts for my token amount of help)

It's nice to have a freshly painted house, but I hope the next 7 years go slowly... very slowly.