Ah, landscaping!

♥ Too pretty to pass up ♥

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been working hard on redoing the landscaping in the front yard. My oldest, the determined beast that he is, ripped out all the old Azaleas & Japanese Boxwood bushes. There were also a good number of Ixora branches that kept popping up through the Boxwoods since I got the house nearly 10 years ago. They have been a constant source of annoyance for me. While I love Azaleas, I have terrible luck with them in that they tend to get really “stickie” – no leaves, just really tall branches. They still bloomed beautifully, but the rest of the year they looked awful. I tried pruning them back, fertilizer, no luck. Darn it.

So, after he ripped everything out, we cleaned out all the roots that we could & the replanting commenced. I went with hibiscus this time, which is a classic Floridian landscaping choice. Some are classic peach & red, but this one from HibisKiss is my favorite – I planted 4 of them. :D

This version is named “Spin the Bottle”, LOL! I fell in love with the colors & the name was just the icing on the cake. Click the picture to see the full size pic.

I also planted strawberries & a blueberry bush for the oldest – well, for me too, because I love berries! But I knew how thrilled he would be to have some fruit bearing landscaping.

First blooms on the blueberry bush!

Found this really cool solar light at Home Depot – at night, the balls light up & change colors! It’s really pretty cool.

Running

Still plugging away! Obviously since I’m not posting pictures of my awesome St. Patrick’s Day Halfathon medal, I didn’t make it to the last halfathon this past weekend. But, I think it is better that I didn’t push it – I had a rough week last week where I feared that I pushed it too hard. My hamstrings were killing me, right at the back of my knees – I worried that the 5 miles I logged on a treadmill had done its usual job of giving me an injury. Happily, all seems better now, but in the meantime, I scaled back running a bit, just in case.

Reading

Replay by Ken Grimwood – Wow, wow, WOW. I’m terribly sad that this author is no longer with us. I loved this book so much. I like any story that gets me thinking & this one is one of the top of my list for doing that.

Jeff Winston is 43, boring job, failing marriage – overall, just not happy with how his life has turned out. One day he has a heart attack & dies, right there at his desk at work. Only to wake up again in his 18 year old body, in college, with his entire life in front of him again… and he remembers EVERYTHING that happens in the next 25 years. Would you change your life if that happened to you? ;)

Do yourself a favor – if you haven’t read it, go find a copy & do so!

Knitting

I’ve made it to the shoulders of my Devon (sort of) sweater, YAY! :)