A List to Catch Up

I love lists, and I feel sadly behind in blog posting, so here is an annotated list of what has occurred since my last real post.

--Mom and Dad came for a visit, and we bought a bunch of plants.
     - Those plants took a really long time to plant, and some of them are still waiting for their homes. It rained so much in April that there was no opportunity to plant them.

 - The plants that did get planted required me to relay a retaining wall, but that's done:

  
 --I went on a vacation to visit my little sister in Florida.

    

- She took me to a Bridal salon, where I tried on what felt like a gazillion dresses. We narrowed them down to two, but then neither of those was really exactly right, so we left without actually buying anything.

    

   - Her husband and I discussed and planned about the new patio.

     - She showed me how to make bows, which sucks, and how to make rosettes, which I like, and have continued to make:

     - We hung out, visited Grandma, and had a very nice time.

--When I got home, I went with FP to Louisville for a day, and we discussed and decided to have a geothermal heating and air system installed.

     - We also had a brief talk about the budget for the wedding. This is a subject that will need revisited between us.

-- I spent a week running a jackhammer and tearing out the ugly old raised slab in anticipation of the new patio:

     - This is really, really hot, sweaty work, but excellent exercise. My shoulders got really strong.

-- I went with my bridesdude/wedding planner to Hobby Lobby to buy paper for the pinwheels, and bought what, hopefully, will be most of what we need for those, and talked through how to do the save-the-dates, and some other stuff that right at the moment I cannot recall, but I'm sure was very important.

-- I hauled a crap-ton of concrete away from the house, with the help of FP, in order to shore up the hill behind our shed.
     - This is also really heavy work, and puts big holes in gardening gloves, but is serious core-strenghtening stuff.
     - Dad helped move a bunch of the chunks to the correct location, so I have less of that to do this week or next.

-- My little sister and her family came to visit me, and her husband and I, with some help from my dad and his brother put in a kick-ass new concrete patio and steps.
     - When I did the math, I found that I had lifted more than 15 TONS of concrete. Yeah, that's a lot.

     - I am now of a mind that this will be where we hold the actual ceremony part of the wedding, because it's flat, and nice, and big, and the top of the steps is an area that everybody will be able to see, and if everyone in the universe doesn't see my handywork, I will be very sad.

     - I will be spending the next several weeks putting in retaining walls and landscaping so that it is pretty for the above-mentioned use.

-- While we were working on the patio, the geothermal company began their installation process, which, I hope, will be completed tomorrow. Our house will have serious climate control. This is awesome.
     - While they were digging big holes in our yard they uncovered a bunch of nice, big flagstones that I am hoping to use in the retaining walls, and new deck-surround: Of course, I have to get up early in the morning to retrieve said flagstones before the workers show up and bulldoze them back under the sod...


-- FP and I spent today wandering around retail stores trying to decide where, and on what, it made sense to register. I will blog more about this, because it was a very strange experience that should be discussed in more detail.

Now that I've typed it out, it doesn't seem like a lot to have done in two months, but I assure you that it has felt like a very busy, heavy, active couple of months. All-in-all, though, it has been fun. I do love having a project, and I love being able to say, "Look what I did."