and the Wall(paper) comes tumbling down!

thanks to everyone who helped!

i am so so so happy that the blue and white walls with ducks, rabbits and lambs are gone!

WANTED: Chainsaw for Killer Plants

Got home when it was still light out and the husband was mowing the front yard so I decided to put my brand new dragonfly gardening gloves to good use and get out there too. I began by trimming some very big palms and then I went for the big plant bed full of palms and pine trees. It was like visiting the jungle. Not sure if anyone's been in this area ever. I pulled, grabbed, cut and cleared about five large black garbage bags full of limbs, pine needles, dead palms and a few items of trash. I was feeling pretty good about myself until...



The Spanish Bayonet...This thing is vicious! I noticed that the leaves at the bottom of the base were dying so I went in to strip them away from the trunk and unknowingly, OUCH! I got sliced. Just to make sure I wasn't imagining it all, I went in again and tried to grab another dead leaf and OUCH! Sliced again. I decided to back away from the little stabber of a plant and walk over to my Mr. Wonderful and as calmly as possible ask him, as blood is streaming down my arm,

"Honey...WHERE THE HECK IS THE CHAINSAW?"

He laughed and said, "You're not chopping that Spanish Bayonet down. What happened to your arm?"

I said, "Is that what that is? Hmmm..."

"Yea, did you touch it?...It's very sharp and dangerous. Are you okay? Do you need to go inside and put a bandage on that cut?"

"No, no (nervous laugh)...I'm fine. I didn't really notice that it was sharp."

I then repeated in what I thought was a stern tone, "Where's the chainsaw?"

He then reinforced his earlier response by saying, "You're not going to get rid of that palm tree. They're pretty."

I then began explaining to him (while bleeding) that we can't even maintain the stabbing foliage so to me it's ugly and unsafe and needs to go immediately. He seemed to believe that nature will take its course and things will remain nice without much blood loss from either one of us.

So after this episode, I went online. I did some digging (ba-dum bump) and I came across the following comment about the savage dagger:

This plant is impossible to get rid of once its in the ground. We moved into a new house and inherited about 30 of these. I have tried digging them out, poisoning them, nothing works. If a tiny shred of root remains, it will sprout a new plant. This is the bane of my yard!

Great! Just great!! I think we have three of them all in one corner of our yard. I guess it could be worse...We could have 30 like the person above but even three seems to be too many.

Anyway, I learned a lot the other day when working with plants:

1 - Get better gloves...The kind that goes up to your arm sockets so you won't get sliced. I love the green Dragonfly gloves but they're more for show. BTW, Mr. Wonderful did point this out to me when I bought them.
2 - Don't try to trim or prune anything you haven't been formally introduced to either by your husband or by online research.
3 - Have a chainsaw handy so that no one can argue with you about your impulsive behavior. It's not wise to mess with a woman and her chainsaw.
4 - If you haven't helped in the yard and only been maintaining the inside of the house, don't come home and get ambitious. You're doing just fine making sure the laundry is done and the floor is vacuumed.

what mr. wonderful and i got for Christmas

So many projects, so little time...

We are enjoying the new place. Love the neighborhood, the trees and

it's in a good location for us.

We hope to paint the outside soon. Peach is definitely not our favorite color.

Any suggestions?

come on over!

so, today was a catch your breath kind of day. had a nice brunch. enjoyed some down time. chris mcwyatt came by the new place to check it all out. haven't seen him since china girl was in town. always good to see him. to think, we were in the same american history class together back at chs. that was nearly 14 years ago. back then, i would've never guessed he would be among one of my closest friends today just because we were so different in high school. so, anyway, my aunts stopped by on their way back from mommie-glow's house. instead of using a rest area, why not head over to my house that's about five or six miles off of the interstate? it worked out perfectly for them. the visit was quick but really nice since i probably won't see them for another month or so.

mr. wonderful talked to the z's today in the uk. so, hey to the zabi's! i will try and post photos of the new place soon. until then, maybe i'll try and post photos of what i think it will eventually look like once things are all painted, flooring is all changed out and the pool has water in it.

these days...the slow ones, are just what i needed after the last 17 busy ones. i'm getting ready to head out of town next weekend so to be able to just sit back and enjoy the time is incredibly reviving. i read a little. wrote a little. relaxed and sat thoughtless a little. mr. wonderful and i talked about anniversary plans. even though they're not until october, we like to kind of decide where to go so we can go ahead and make reservations. he's such a good planner for us. we also discussed the upcoming holiday season. where we're going to be. if we shoud have something here at our place or go up to jax? we'll see how it all goes. anything's possible. if there are going to be changes, i truly believe this is the year it's all going to happen.

what have we gotten ourselves into?

mr. wonderful staring into our "new" pool.

it's a work in progress.

friendship rain or shine

beauty maven and dragonfly

super pr girl and dragonfly

look who's getting married on dragonfly's birthday! rojo and k!

---

did the women's run with friends this year. had a great time getting up at 5:30 a.m. and running/walking three miles where after mile one, it starts to rain. big thanks to super pr girl and to rojo for being there. also, beauty maven was there too. photos above to prove it all.

hi-d-ho

so, here i am in 2007! off to DC tomorrow for the first time. it'll be a nice break from all of the boxes.

back on thursday night for a friday filled with meetings and a little fun!

Happy New Year!

We've moved!

I'm exhausted.
No more boxes.
Please.

thanks tojo!

mr. wonderful's sister is in town helping package our little abode so that we can move into a bigger one. she arrived last night and is an awesome help! she can only stay until the afternoon so i'll miss her before she leaves. on friday, she will return with fab father and lots of stuff for us to move into the house. right now it all seems so strange. we're moving. are you sure?

as i finish up a few things here at the office, i came across yet another wonderful place to shop. have you heard of ten thousand villages? very cool stuff. tojo would love this. maybe i can send something her way soon.

another cool thing i found about a week ago was piperlime. it's all about shoes. check it out. brand new! fun stuff.

peace and love

off to celebrate with friends and family. in addition, mr. wonderful and i are frantically packing for the big move. can i just be bored for one day? nah! so not my style.

love and peace to all.

found a house

so it's official. we are getting ready to buy a home. yep! mr. wonderful and i have found a great house, in the neighborhood we wanted and the floor plan we were looking for. the only thing we weren't anticipating was the gigantic pool. it's kind of become an added bonus to the place. looking to move in before the end of the year which is extra fun since there's so much to do between now and then. but, like everything else, we will make it and we will make it so much fun! here's to growing up and doing it together!!!

what a week!

so many wonderful things happening...

first, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear friend, JoAnn! talked to her this morning and wished her a beautiful day. she is taking the fam to "D-I-S-N-E-Y" tomorrow. she had to spell it out on the phone this morning since the pre-schooler was in the car with her. couldn't help but love the idea of showing children the park for the first time. what an awesome thing!

monday was full of adventure and started early at the favorite breakfast place with APR buddy. there's so much going on for both of us. had a great lunch at PHO with the pres-elect of the Florida PR group. really great gal! she's got a lot of wonderful ideas for not only her crowd, but the entire community.

tuesday i went to work and had to leave a bit early to meet mr. wonderful's dad at blue lake. it ended up being a bust since he didn't like the place. we saw a lot of properties and finally settled on one that mr. wonderful was going to love. we were there for, what seemed like, several hours.

wednesday we made an offer on the place we saw the night before that was not at all on my radar because of the asking price.

thursday we heard back from the sellers with their counter. so, we countered. had a meal over at ID that was a bit tense due to our fluctuating state of mind.

friday we finalized the offer and settled on a selling price. in between it all, i had a great sushi lunch with some of the most hilarious people i know. we also got to celebrate with friends at creative girl and super husbands abode. it was a great evening of fun.

all this to show how quickly things happen for people in the world of real estate. as i mentioned in the rundown, the house we are hoping to make ours wasn't even on my radar due to the original asking price. now, we're going through the process and really learning so much. mr. wonderful's dad was a fantastic help and still is. we're so thankful to have him as we plug along this crazy road of home ownership.