Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Yard-Life Crisis

Skylar and I had a midlife crisis about our yard and in the last two weeks we have used all of your college funds to toil and labor our Earth.

I'm sorry. I know you wanted to be astronauts. But you're just going to have to settle to be asstronauts instead, which is a job waiting tables at a gay-themed restaurant over by the airport.

I don't remember exactly how it started, but I think it was something Skylar said. We've had an ongoing fight about our landscaping because we have completely competing visions and tastes for this sort of thing. I want it to look like if Walt Disney designed a garden for Joseph Stalin, with straight lines, perfect symmetry, not a thing out of place, and ongoing mysterious disappearances of my political enemies.

But if you ask Skylar what he wants, he's like "IT MUST LOOK LIKE NO HUMAN HAS EVER EXISTED." Skylar wants an organized mess. He wants the equivalent of sexy bed head for the yard.

Because we have a total inability to see eye-to-eye or compromise MARRIAGE IS GOING TO BE SO GREAT we have been at a stand-still all year, vetoing one another's ideas, and getting nothing done in the process.

Until two weeks ago. I had finally had it with this, and so had Skylar. So we had a conversation wherein we discovered that we both really just wished our yard looked like our neighbor Lynne's yard. Lynne has somehow captured both of our conflicting tastes at once. Her yard is like if Disney gave Stalin bed head. And then murdered his political acquaintances.


Here's a picture I took last summer from her backyard.


See?

So since we agreed on that, we made a deal with one another wherein we decided we would invite Lynne over, ask her what she would do if this was her yard, and then just do whatever Lynne said.

The very next day we had Lynne stop by and spend an hour walking us through every corner of the yard and imagining that this was her house. The only restriction we gave her was that we were not willing to remove any of our trees. (There were no trees on the property when I moved in so we have planted all of our trees in the last five years.)

Lynne was helpful, and gave us ideas that didn't need any convincing for either of us. The very next day we got to work. We ripped out bushes, moved sprinklers, and got new pots. We had Mr. Pham come in and move borders and expand the patio he put in for us last year. And after two weeks we have a pretty new yard. And now you're all going to be asstronauts.

We still have a lot of work to do, and much of the stuff we've planted needs to grow in a bit before it looks good, but whatever. I want to share our progress.

Before:




After: 





Before:


After:



Before:


After:



Pots:



~It Just Gets Stranger

11 comments:

  1. Oh I love it! It was great before, but even more defined now (yet still with a touch of whimsy?)! Love! Lynne can be your couples therapist. Also, I need to know how this recent interaction was with Mr. Pham. He’s one of my favorite characters! Herminda too.

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  2. Good job LynnandPham!!! Amy Rose

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  3. Love it! So cute and such great lines.

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  4. It looks great-- changing the fence with the slats is my favorite upgrade.

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  5. Fairy lights instantly make everything more magical. Even when people disappear under mysterious circumstances.

    Also I have been enjoying your blog for 7 years now OMG WHERE DOES THE TIME GO WE ARE SO OLD NOW and you have always had a way with words but the Disney/Stalin jokes were next level and I need more of this content.

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  6. ahhh Skylar, I'm with ya bud, a true Pacific Northwesterner, and before I even read this line: "IT MUST LOOK LIKE NO HUMAN HAS EVER EXISTED." I knew that was going to be his preference being from Portland area and all. :D

    Goals: https://www.ohmegardens.org/thegardens/photo-gallery
    I grew up just down the river from here.

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  7. Bigger patio is MUCH better and I love those pots.

    Mainly I'm just impressed with all of it because I do NO yard work and if it weren't for my husband our yard would look worse than it does. He has some grand ideas but I'm usually not willing to finance them so we have a meh yard. The one exception I make is for the rhododendron (that is a weird word to spell!). I LOVE rhododendrons so I will pay for as many as he wants to buy.

    Also - it's okay if you used my college fund but please tell me you didn't dip into your wedding fund!

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  8. I would add a Pergola over the patio, I don't care for the apts behind you being able to see your patio...I'm sure you don't care. It would bother me.

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    1. oooooh and then plant a white and a purple Wisteria vines to cover the pergola. there's your whimsy!!

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  9. This comment has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but how else do I contact you? I'm too lazy to figure that out so here it goes.

    I IMPLORE you watch the newest original Netflix thriller "my secret obsession." Your reviews are LIFE and I NEED one of this movie. You can tell how very serious this is because of all the capital letters. Please and thank you.

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