Murphy's Law and Dances for the Rain Gods

I'd like to speak with that Irishman Murphy about his law!

Before we got our rain barrel installed, we were getting rain practically every day.  I joked that the minute we got it installed, we would then experience a drought.  I happily believed that wouldn't be the case when the very next day after installation we had a big storm come through that filled our barrel to capacity.

Boy, do I wish we'd had some rain since!  Our area in metro D.C. is not experiencing a drought by any means - just our little corner.  We've only had about 5 minutes of a rain shower in the last 3 weeks.  At first it wasn't a problem as I hadn't quite figured out how to use my rain barrel water.  Now that we have flowers in the yard, a compost pile that needs to be kept moist and I'm trying to not neglect my herbs that I planted and it's been a bijillion degrees I now have quite a need for the water.

The downside is, the water in the barrel has been sitting more or less stagnant for the last 3 weeks.  Not only that, the barrel still smells like pickles and needs to be flushed out.  The result was some pretty smelly water.  It wasn't so bad at first, but as time went on it got worse - probably with the heat.  It got to the point where Shane refused to use it to wash the car because he couldn't stand the smell.  So late last week when the weatherman was forecasting thunderstorms Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we were thrilled!

As the weather turned one night with storm clouds and a cold front blowing in, we ran out to the back yard to empty the rain barrel so we could fill it up with fresh water.  We hooked up the hose and tried as quickly as possible to empty the remaining 50 gallons of water.  There was some decent pressure, but 50 gallons really is quite a lot of water when you're racing a thunderstorm.  We emptied about half the barrel before it got too dark.  Sadly, we went inside and the storm just blew over our area.

We finished emptying the barrel over the next two days, but both times closing the hose bib and going inside hoping for the expected rain to hit.  As of today, we still haven't seen any rain and the barrel is now sitting empty.

Any ideas for a good rain dance? Our front lawn is brown and I want to keep my pretty petunias alive!

Get Whirly Poppin!

It's the little things in life, right?

There's nothing quite like getting Christmas gifts in June, so we finally used an e-bay gift card we received for last Christmas and purchased a couple things we've really been wanting for awhile.  Shane used his half of the money for his favorite video game.  After his X-Box died and he replaced it with a PS3, he never replaced his Oblivion game.  He happily found a copy on e-bay and got that last week. 

I really wanted to use the gift card for a Whirly Pop Stove-top Popcorn Popper - so I did.  My parents got a stove-top popper last year and kept telling me how great the popcorn was and how the microwave popcorn just doesn't compare.  We actually purchased one for Shane's mom for Christmas along with some movie favorites on DVD and had the opportunity to sample the popcorn while we were visiting.  I was totally sold.  It's just so fresh and delicious and without all the gross chemical additives.  Our Whirly Pop arrived the other day and we couldn't wait to get poppin'!

Since we didn't have any popcorn kernels in the house, we were happy to see that our Whirly Pop came with a "Real Movie Theater Popcorn" kit.  After seasoning the popper by heating some oil in it for about 30 seconds and then wiping it out, we were ready to go.  With the kit, all we had to do was dump the kernels and the packaged seasonings into the popper together.  (We have since bought our own popcorn to pop, so next time all we have to do is add a little oil and a cup of kernels and whatever seasonings we can imagine).  Then you place the popper on the burner and turn the crank to keep everything moving and heating evenly inside.  In about 3-4 minutes you have wonderfully delicious popcorn! It's going to be movie night in the Hanley Household every weekend now!

Pink Petunias make me Happy!

Thanks to a generous gift card, we were able to add a little bit of color to our front yard with flowers from Home Depot.  Hooray!

We went to Home Depot last night to pick out our flowers and some planters to put them in.  As much as I would like to purchase some perennials and get a good garden going over here, our yard just isn't prepared for it.  The garden in the front of the house would seem like a decent start, but the weeds are terrible and the soil is worse.  Just digging around to pull weeds, I have found so much building debris like broken tile and trash in the garden, I'm just not ready to tackle that project yet.  Thus, we thought the planters would be a much better option for the time being.  Plus, we can always move them around to different locations once our ultimate plan for the yard starts to come together. 

I potted the flowers this morning, and in under an hour we had a few splashes of color in the front of our house.  I should've snapped some pictures this afternoon because the plants were still looking worse for the wear from a lack of care at Home Depot when I potted and photographed them this morning.  Oh, well.  I was smiling walking up to our house this afternoon to see the pretty flowers out front.

I was so excited to  have such a choice of flowers - all I could really keep on our apartment balcony were impatiens because of all the shade.  Now the front of the house gives me enough daylight to choose flowers that work in full sun.  Oh, the choices! I couldn't decide on what colors I wanted, so I decided to just do two different things.  Why not? In the first pot, I planted a Cordyline Red Star (that's the purple spike), two things of Celosia (which are apparently great for cutting) and a Marigold (a favorite of my youth).  

I filled the other two planters identically.  I started with Dracaena Spikes, added pink Petunias, Dusty Miller (a silvery leafy plant I loved when I was younger) and finished with Lavender Skies Supertunias (a Petunia hybrid that will trail over the edge of the planter).

It's not much, but it's a start and it makes me happy.  That's what it's all about, right?  What gardens or containers are you all planting this year? Any favorite plants or flowers from childhood?

To Do List

Sadly, we haven't really tackled any projects around here the last couple weeks.  The past two weekends have been filled with family get-togethers and youth group activities with the high school kids we work with at church.

However, I tackled the monster of projects by trying to come up with a list of all the projects we want to work on in the hopefully near future.  I came up with the following list:  (The items in red are big priorities for us right now, and the items in bold face red are super priorities). 

Exterior

• Replace locks on front and back doors (We recently learned how bad our locks on our doors actually are and need to take care of it ASAP!)
  
• Paint front and back doors
• Weatherstripping around front and back doors
• Replace storm door
• Install new light fixture in front
• Paint mailbox
• Purchase new shutters for front windows

Dining Room

• Purchase new to us dining table and chairs
• Purchase new to us stools for breakfast bar
• Purchase “hidden” desk for under front window (Incognito Desk by Crate and Barrel, preferred)
• Rug for under dining set
• Hawaiian maps and frames for gallery wall above dining table
• Bamboo matchstick shades in three windows
• Additional lamps for lighting - maybe a fixture over the dining table to replace the boob light (that's a real term!)
• Refinish bar cabinet
• New cushion for papa san chair

Kitchen

• Install mosaic tile back splash
• Seal granite counter tops
• Install cabinet to cover dryer vent
• Bamboo matchstick shade in kitchen window

Utility Room

• Replace water heater - preferably a tank-less water heater

Family Room

• Fabric window treatments - probably valences above the wood blinds
• Hang pictures and art work
• Plan and install shelving on empty wall
• Storage solution for music equipment
• Heating solution for winter - probably a space heater (our baseboard heat in the addition is not going to cut it in the winter)
• Install ceiling fan
• Custom wood bench along empty wall above where the duct runs creating awkward space - creates storage underneath

 Stair Closet

• Install one or two shelves for additional organization
• Install hooks to hang brooms and mops
• Screw bag dispenser to wall
• Install light

Linen Closet

• Install shelves
• Sand door so it will close properly

Bathroom

• Sand door so it will close properly
• Install floating wall shelves above toilet
• Install dual flush tank converter on toilet
• Purchase rug
• Replace trim around window in shower (they put wooden trim in a shower - it's already causing a fight against mold and mildew!)
• New light fixture over vanity

 Our Bedroom

• New bedding
• Window treatments - probably Roman shades
• Custom storage bench under window
• New hampers (I want these Umbra hampers)
• Frame and hang Cherry Blossom painting
• Full length mirror
• Additional art work for walls
• Jewelry box for Allison’s dresser
• Install organizer in closet for ironing board, etc
• Clean out clothes and donate
• Nightstands
• Lamps for additional lighting

Backyard

• Clean up fence
• Install rain barrel
• Install deck/patio
• Purchase and install shed
• Build compost bin
• Dig up ginormous dandelions
• Till, fertilize and plant grass
• Remove old and rotted wooden shed pads

Front Yard

• Remove chain link and lattice from fence?
• Remove paint from walkway
• Edge sidewalk
• Re-do retaining wall along driveway
• Level out ground and replant grass (It's oddly mounded and completely unlevel - a pain when mowing it with our reel mower)
• Remove old garden under front window and extend front steps to create a small patio
• Create garden along fence with neighbors

This is what we have in store for probably the next year or so.  I really hope that we can make some real progress.  I always work better when I have a list - there is nothing more satisfying to me than being able to cross something off a list! Hopefully by posting it up here, it will help hold us accountable to what we want to accomplish with work on our house.  I still need to go through and identify those items that we're going to have to save for so we can plan when we would like to cross them off our list.