Cause we are CRAZY....

So here's my garden. Previously all my plants were in the ground but this last winter we had so many freezes (and I forgot to cover them... oops) that all the plants but my jasmine died. So I moved them all to containers when I replaced them. It has worked out to be so much nicer in my small space since I can just move them when they grown too large for their spot.
unfortunately the bark has been driving me up a wall it tracks in to the porch area, looks messy and seems to get all sorts of garbage stuck in it...plus the bugs that crawl in it ... gag!

I also hate that the grill takes up one whole side of our small planting area. It's a large black sun blocking blob. We got a huge grill when we moved in thinking we would have all sorts of gatherings ... unfortunately that hasn't really panned out. I think we will be replacing it next year with a smaller one that we can keep in the garage (Florida humidity eats grills so this not cheap grill is already biting the dust) I am really thinking about making a list of all the things people who are moving to Florida need to know about Florida... I just thought people grilling outside their garage was hick-ish... Now I know keeping you grill inside keeps it from rotting.

So Uber finally gave into my pleading to do something about it and we got to work Friday. We cleared the mulch (reusing it in the beds behind our house) and Uber broke up the ground and got it all leveled out. We had to carry all of the extra dirt (actually clay) out by hand and dump it in some sand dunes near our house.

I carried all of these bricks... 340... from the truck... which wasn't close uber estimates it was a good 75 feet away.

Saturday we got up early to beat as much of the heat as we could and got to work.

I decided on a herring bone pattern. But turned on its side so there wouldn't be any diagonal cutting. Uber was very worried when I laid it out the first time on a diagonal... I was just trying to figure out the correct pattern.

The sides were too small for the pattern so we just laid it staggered.

Halving the bricks.

Here's me laying my half. I would say we split the work evenly on this project... which is saying a lot because normally Uber does most of the heavy work.

Uber doing the final sweep with sand.

I can't tell you how thrilled I am about this. I really wish it could be seen from inside the house.

Pavering around the corner allowed us to tuck the grill along the side. I love how you can tell how much space we have out here now. Before it looked so crowded.

It took us roughly 7 hours to get about 70 sq feet laid.... I think it was totally worth it... though we are both completely exhausted.

I think I may make this picture my screen saver I like it so much. Did I mention everything worked out perfectly with the pavers in the pattern I wanted? I could not believe our luck we started in the front left corner and it all laid out perfectly we only had to cut 4 bricks to fit in a few of the tighter spaces... this is of course not including all the halved ones... which there were only about 15 of, which is still not bad.

Uber finally picked all of my cherry tomatoes for me... I can only reach the ones on the bottom...

then he made me this snack... yum!

Hope you all had a good weekend. Im off to try a finish another project I have going... I have this list of old project that I was supposed to get done before Mum and Dad get here NEXT WEEK but I dont think it is all going to happen... oh well!

P.S. This is my hundreth post!! I wanted to have a give away but it just isn't going to happen right now... Hopefully soon though.