satisfaction

I don't know what we do wrong, but our yards, wherever we are, tend to grow weeds. Serious weeds. And I'll peek in our neighbors yard, who are snow birds so they don't live here, and I know they don't have landscapers, but their yard is completely weed free! How is that!? So I bit the bullet and bought some tools and gloves and cleaned up our yard. I started a couple days ago, but really did most of it today. And why didn't I take a "before" picture?

So the people who lived here before us had a dog that apparently pulled up bushes that were once in this little yard. I counted about 6 bush skeletons piled back in the far corner of the yard. Along with so much petrified dog poop! Also a "rug" of dog hair! It really had formed some kind of a gross mat of fur.

And when pulling weeds, do you know the satisfaction of pulling on the weed and the whole root system comes up with it? I love that! I hate it when I pull the weed and the weed just breaks off leaving the root in the ground. So I pull slow with steady pressure to get the whole root out, and it usually works. But can you imagine how satisfied I was when I pull and this came out?!

That's right! This weed was growing out of a tennis ball buried under ground. Good thing the weed didn't break off leaving this behind.

At least I got a before picture of our little dog run area on the other side of the house.

That is some kitchen island thingy that was here when we moved in. Gwen and Drake love to play in it and call it the dungeon. There used to be a butcher's block on top but as you can imagine the sun damage it and I thought it was too dangerous for the kids to be standing on and I thew that part out.

And here's the after!
(those are bushes and are supposed to be there)

This garbage can was completely empty this morning

And yesterday, I made these muffins that are supposed to be like Mimi's Cafe's honey bran muffins (which I LOVE). They were pretty close, and with all that bran and 3 cups of raisins in them, no one in our house will have BM problems. Another thing so satisfying!
(If you make these, I'd recommend cutting the recipe in half, it makes a lot!)