Engleberts in Missouri [miz-er-ree]

Sometimes I think everyone wonders what I do all day long. Home alone. Without children.

Mostly I lay on the couch, eating bonbons, watching soaps and surfing the internet.

Occasionally I get off my lazy rump and clean a dish or two. Amazingly, sometimes I even sweep a floor or mop a little.

Lately I’m filling my time with home improvement projects. Like my front entry.

I repainted the walls, spruced up the wood flooring, got a pretty rug, added some art work and created a couple floral arrangements and even finally got this little storage cabinet painted and in place. I think it looks much more homey and welcoming now.

I’ve also been reorganizing cabinets and closets.

Yesterday I dug out Violet’s room. She does an ok job of keeping it picked up but every month or two I go in there and do a really deep clean. Violet loves to do craft projects and is constantly “publishing” a variety of newspapers, magazines and whatnot. This results in the accumulation of a lot of paper scraps. So vacuuming behind the furniture and getting all the scraps out from under her bed, dressers and side tables is a must.

I’m really happy with her closet. I had Steve install a couple closet organizers a few years ago. I like that the shelves are infinitely repositionable since Violet’s storage needs are always changing depending on what toys and crafty things she’s playing with the most these days. Her needs are changing though, so yesterday I decided to add a shoe organizer to the mix. Unfortunately, the original closet organizers didn’t want to play nicely with the new brand of closet organizer and the shoe cubby was about 1/2 inch too wide to fit correctly. I’m thrilled to tell you that I was able to use A POWER SAW (!!) to shorten the cubby just the right amount to fit into the organizer.

Today I’m going to start stripping the wallpaper off my kitchen walls. It’s horrible! Once that’s gone we can move forward with the remodel of the kitchen. More counter space and cabinets would be a dream come true.

We didn’t get to go on a bike ride yesterday. Violet’s back tire was really low on air and we couldn’t get the valve cover off to fill it up. It was on really tight - felt like it was glued on or something. We did get lots of fresh air and sunshine though, which really improved my mood. Most of the afternoon and early evening were spent ripping out the existing “landscaping” in our front yard.

The landscaping in our yard has always left a lot to be desired. In fact, it’s really kind of stretching it to even call it landscaping. But, when you’re looking for a 5 bedroom house, landscaping is pretty low on the list of must-have things. You can always change it. So, we’re finally getting around to changing it.

The first thing to go is our tree bush. When we moved to this house there was an overgrown Bradford Pear tree in the front yard. Two years ago we decided to trim it up so that it looked nicer. We thought it was salvageable.

Lots of trimming and pruning later, it did look pretty nice. It looked nice throughout that summer and into the fall. Then the dreaded thunderstorm season returned. During one particularly bad storm, the tree was split nearly in two. It couldn’t be saved and was cut down to a stump and the branches hauled away.

We planned to have someone come and remove the stump but for one reason or another that didn’t happen right away. A major reason being that apparently tree removal services in Missouri are extremely unreliable. You call them and arrange a date and time but they just don’t show up. I could give you the names of 4 or 5 services that you just shouldn’t bother to call.

That spring the tree stump began to grow. It turned into a tree bush. Over the course of the next year the tree bush grew and grew and grew. It looked kind of like a tree again only really short and overgrown. Neither Steve nor I could bring ourselves to trim it because we really just wanted to yank it out and replace it with a new tree. One that would have more than 2 foot of trunk.

Turns out, the key to having a tree removed is to find someone who wants to sell you a new tree. If you say you’d buy a brand spanking new Orange Glory Maple tree but an old tree has to be removed first, they will come and yank the old tree out of your yard so that the new tree can be planted. And they will do it within days of promising to purchase the new tree. While they are there yanking and planting, you can also convince them to yank out other poorly located trees. They will even haul away all of the branches.

Voila…

Looks like hell but still somehow better than it looked before. Now there will be much digging and yanking out of grass and smaller plants and weeds in order to create a much nicer planted bed. I have my heart set on some nice boxwoods along the front. We’ll also be creating a new bed out in the yard with the new tree as the focal point.

More landscaping adventure pictures here. Also, there’s a new message from Eric on the Family Message Board. Come out of lurking today and leave him a little shout out - it will brighten his day immensely!