Break ground - then throw a party.

I realize that I am a great procrastinator. I really need a deadline to get almost anything done. So if there are any major projects that need to happen, they will usually get started oh, maybe a few weeks before Christmas, or a birthday even. Yeah, that will work.

In our old house we didn't really use our backyard as much as we wanted. It was mostly grass so there was no real patio area. Our table and chairs kind of stuck in the grass, there was no shade, that kind of thing. A nice backyard, but not as usable as we would like. So we enlisted the help of my father in law who is an absolutely fabulously talented landscape architect. He came up with some great ideas that I never would have. And since we were doing it ourselves it wasn't that over the top. Just very creative. Good, plan in place.

One Saturday I egged The Man to help me break ground by breaking up a small peice of concrete that needed to come out. Boy was that fun. Sledgehammers flying! And then I promptly proceeded to tell him that now that we started the backyard we needed to get it finished in 6 weeks so we could have his 40th birthday party in our beautiful new backyard. I have to admit that this bit of news did not really go over well with him or with the FIL. But the man knows me well and just kind of went with it, after the initial panic attack. But I was convinced we could get it done. And we did. We kicked butt! And we have awesome friends who would come by to help. Seriously, we told people what we were doing and they came, of their own volition, to help out. So cool.

We were finished almost 3 days before the party, so no sweat there. Seriously, that is a huge time cushion in my world. I am used to finishing things up as people are coming in the door. I think it is genetic. On my mother's side. Turns out that any family wedding (and there are a lot of them) or other big event will find either my mom or one of her sisters (or maybe me) doing up a hem or some such thing on the day of, usually as we are supposed to be going out the door. I wonder if my cousins do the same thing? I would have to think so. That particular gene is pretty strong...

We did end up moving at the end of the year after the backyard redo. A few close friends' first question was "How does the backyard look?" Luckily this house has a fully functional, party ready backyard. Seriously, we lucked out. But now I think I want to make a few changes...