A Little Landscaping Update

The outside of my house has been a disaster since I bought it. Horribly overgrown landscaping, and in some places, no landscaping at all. 

The entire house needs to be painted. Some spots on the porch show signs of rot. 

There’s too much grass to maintain, so this year I decided to not mow the side yard and let it grow to a meadow. 

I set the goal of filling our yard waste bucket every week, which is extremely easy to do given the amount of work needed to clean things up. I filled one just cleaning up the patio area! (Anyone remember a couple years ago when I painted the garage black and found this awesome table and chairs for free on Facebook marketplace? —All it needed was a fresh coat of paint!)

This week I mulched around the front of the house and painted the trim around the porch. 

I still need to paint the steps, add pea gravel in front of them and buy a lavender plant for the pot to complete phase one of this project. It’s way less overwhelming when you break projects down into phases! 🤪

I haven’t blogged or posted on social media in forever and I truly miss that community and part of my life. But, I thought I would share this little glimpse, albeit messy, of what I’ve been up to. Plus, a proper blog post would have shown you the weedy, messing before, but I’m out of practice and kind of just went for it! But, here’s a listing picture from almost six years ago, to get a feel for the minor change/improvement. 

 

I really would like to write more about what happened to me throughout my cancer treatment and how I feel today with a decade of maintenance meds looming over my head. Part of me feels like maybe it would be helpful for someone else to read. Part of me feels like I don’t want to upset anyone by what I have to say. And then there is the fire in me that wants to scream that more needs to be done. That the general population has no clue and that the truth needs to be spoken. I’m not looking for sympathy, but for awareness. So perhaps that is on the horizon. 

I know I’ve just spoken about two vastly different things—some beginnings of yard work and cancer treatment. But, cancer is forever intertwined in every aspect of my life now. Part of me thinks “OMG! I lugged all this home from Home Depot myself and did this project. I’ve come so far! Last year during chemo I had to leave the store.  I couldn’t even make it to the paint department before I almost passed out.” But, then there’s also “I’m in constant pain every single day. It doesn’t go away. I’m so tired. My maintenance meds are ruining my quality of life.”

Anyway that’s a little bit of what I’m doing and what’s on my mind. I hope you all have a wonderful start to your summer!