Desert drabness can be changed one plant at a time

If you live as I do in the desert, then you have come to accept the little pebbles that they call the desert landscaping. Sometimes it is too dreary for words. Sometimes it makes you lose your sense of style and originality, or maybe that is just the Home owners association.  Sometimes it is just painful to run catch a fleeing cat before she leaves your yard.

So perhaps you remember that a month ago I decided that this year I would have a garden. I would not try to incorporate the plants form the East as I have tried and failed so many times before. No, this time would be the building of a winter friendly, summer surviving garden.

November has arrived and the flowers are surviving except where the pups are dining on the leaves and on one of the portulaca.  But no weather damage and they have survived thus far the strange dip in the temperature we encountered last week. It was into the 40's in the night and back only into the 60's during the day.

The next venture into the garden is adding in a pond for the Water element and a fire pit for the Fire element.  I already have the plants growing in Earth and my wind chimes celebrating the wind. This will give me all the elements that I have been looking to have in my garden area.

I truly believe this will be good for the feng shui chi of the family to have all four represented.

Saturday

Good morning to a beautiful cool Saturday morning. It was about 60 this morning and considering a few days back it was 80 this time of the day it is Nice!

We walked down to a yard sale to see if they had anything irresistible. Found a shirt for Kenn. So when I got back Gerry was in the car with both pups. He was going to grab some breakfast and taking them with him. So I was invited and went with him .

Going to go get Milasia today to spend the night. Still working on wedding plans and still working on wedding details. We are trying to blend Halloween and wedding and so far there have been some realy nice ideas springing up.

Invitations today and then timing relaxes some.
Decided not to do the firepit until after the wedding. So no one gets burned.

Gerry just was notified that his grandmother passed away. :( I am very sorry to hear this. He has been trying to contact her for a while and wasn't able to get through to her. He is sad and I am sad for him.

So I am about to head out to work in the yard. I am loving the plants and the improvements. Pictures will be added soon.
Home improvement here I come.

Work Work work work

Monday is not too bad today. Decent workload and since I had such a busy hectic physical weekend, it is a bit boring.
Lucky for me I have my pictures of my garden to keep me company. Casey woke up all enthused about how it looks and made a few Mahalo pages to celebrate.  Thanks Casey for all the hard work you did. 

Gerry is going to call the HOA today and see if we have permission to paint our trim. You have to get permission orr they fine you. How strange is that.  Ding you for making the house look nicer. Weird. I hope so it needs a freshening up, a little sprucing up as it were. I want to go with a color that will accent the beige stucco and not make it look too uniform. So I am thinking about a nice Sage green.  If I have to go with a blue shade then I am nnot sure what to do. Blue is a bit 80's & 90's isn't it?  So I am going to start checking out houses.  If you see me outside your house, fear not I am just checking out your paint colors.

Filhinha escaped into the yard yesterday a few times, but she never left the enclosed back yard. So that was a comfort.   Not sure if you have seen the mahalo blag I do, but you are welcome to go visit it and see the websites I have been making and since I am actually being paid some for them it is a total bonus. Here is the link to the blog http://mahalovic.blogspot.com/  and if you want to visit the pages, please let me know how you like them.  I would love your feedback. I am going to make it the best day I can. To help that along here is a picture from my albums.

Planting and wanted to update.   I just got back with 2 red tip photinia shrubs and 2 massive plantings of Portulaca and 1 container of my much missed Liriope Silver Dragon ( looks like monkey grass). While I was at Ellis' I got 2 cuttings from some cactus and now I am researching how to best plant them and have them survuve and thrive.
So once I cool down I am going to go finish planting them and then I will hopefully get a nice picture.  I am so ready to move outside for the next 2 seasons. I have more on my wish list but for only an $11.00 investment I am well on my way.

Went to Ellis' house and wow the changes he has made already.  He has gotten the Living room and Dining room painted a very nice sandy taupe. This painting job made those wall open right up.  I am not sure what color drapes she wants to get  but maybe she can find some nice colorful ones that will really pop in that room. His room is a nice blue and it looks so wonderful.  The entire house needed painting and they have done an excellent job on it.
Cody spent the night. I think he only comes over to play World of Warcraft. He is obsessed with making new characters more than actually playing.

Work is creeping up on me.. I am hoping for a great and calm week. If it can't be calm let it be entertaining.