All day I work and do things with the kids and think of hundreds of things to write an article about.  Then I sit down to do it and…nadda.

Cleaned house today.  It was actually raining when I woke up, and rainy days are house cleaning days.

The cable guy came, tracked mud across my carpet, thank you very much.  My high speed internet is not connected correctly, or wasn’t, he fixed it.  (Something about it not being grounded and a bad splitter.)

Hit the grocery store and my bank account is $250 lighter.  Ouch.  Is it me or have groceries gone up lately?  Whenever my husband and I grocery shop together, we play a “guess the total” game.  He always lets me go first, and usually I win.  That is if winning means getting the closest to the total.  He tries to give me a hard time and pull out the Price is Right rules on me…ya know, if you go over by even one cent, you lose.  But in my mind, I win.  Hahahaha

Lately though, shesh.  Last month I was dead on (I still play even when my husband is not there, heh) and this month... not even close.  Of course a magazine with Angelina Jolie on the cover at 98 pounds kinda threw me.

I am a trash picker.  Hear me roar.  When we bought this house two years ago I wanted to get an antique table with drawers for the foyer.  I am not an antique snob, but a lot of older pieces really do have more detailed work, and seem more delicate.

I found a few things at local antique stores but the prices are outrageous.  So a few days ago I was taking a walk with my youngest and saw an antique table with four drawers sitting in the garbage of a house with a FOR LEASE sign in front and two large POD units in the driveway.  HELLO!

I walked home (ok I ran) hopped in my van and went to pick it up.  It’s in great condition, but needs refinishing.  I started stripping it the next day and hope to finish getting all the dark stain off it this weekend.  I will post pictures, before and after, when I’m done.

All my very favorite pieces in the house are garbage or street side finds.  My husband teases me about it.  I think he’s probably happy I can take a throw away, refinish it, and make it something beautiful (at least to me).

I am thinking about how boring the concrete on my driveway looks.  I am researching faux painting techniques for concrete.  My biggest concern is the paint fading or coming off.  We use a lot of salt in the winter and I imagine it won’t work well with cement paint.

This weekend I hope to buy the last bit of mulch for the summer season to go under my Arbor Vidas.  I cleaned under them, thinned them, cut out the dead spots and now all they need is a little mulch to get them through the summer .

My husband is due home in two weeks.  Of course actually saying it may jinx it…so consider this brain wave communication…hahaha.

I tried everything to kill the stupid aphids eating my ornamentals.  Nothing worked.  They were just too bad.  So I bought some Bayer Tree and Shrub insect killer.  It’s systemic, meaning it works from the inside out.  I mixed it with water and poured it around the base of each tree trunk.  It is expensive, but soooo worth it.  Now whenever a beetle or aphid bites a leaf, DEAD.  They just keel over.  And it lasts for a year.  WOOT.

I do a little victory dance when I find a dead beetle sitting on a leaf with a small hole by its body.

Take that!

Something else I learned about aphids.  They’re really cows.

Ants treat aphids like we treat cows, er kinda.  They herd them, will pick them up and place them on the stems of plants (food source).  Then the ants massage the aphid and it produces some sweet stuff ants love to eat.

What?

I think it’s interesting!

Ants are truly some amazing creatures.

I kill them every chance I get.

Buwhahahahahaha.