Bye-Bye Crazy Palm Tree

We have had a crazy ponytail palm tree by the front door that has outgrown it's space and got taller that the roof. It was making the front porch look junky. I finally saw that when I took the photos for the last post. The splotchy paint and moldy buildup on the steps weren't really doing it for us either.

So we borrowed a pressure washer, and Scott had a fun day last Saturday stripping the paint off the porch. Yesterday we also did the back porch and patio. I need to get me a pressure washer. They are awesome. Look at the amazing difference on the steps.

Then last Sunday between football games we removed that crazy palm tree. I don't take too kindly to removing perfectly good trees, but this one needed to go.

 Voila! No palm and much less digging than I thought. We just had to roll that sucker out to the street.

And now the porch looks so much cleaner and open. Next we'll paint the concrete....

Painting the front door

About a month ago, I bought a Living Social deal for 2 hours of handyman service for $49. He helped us deal with some exposed wiring from where we removed some light fixtures and replaced a window sill and the trim on the front door. We put in a new front door about 4 years ago, but never finished the trim. Ghetto, i know. I didn't even bother to take any before pics because these things should have been done long ago....
So after we got our fancy new door trim - well, not really fancy at all - we decided to paint the door. We settled on blue and found a nice color at the hardware store a week ago, but had to find the next best thing at Lowe's. Since it was Labor Day our trusty neighborhood hardware store was closed.

I also found a shot of the house on google maps before we even painted the exterior. When I bought the house it was dingy white with Christmas-tree green trim. Check it out.....

Pretty sweet, huh?


We think the new color looks much better, but the curb appeal still needs work. This is with our white door.....

 This is after one coat of blue. A little streaky, but after three coats, it looked pretty good. But when we removed the painter's tape as seen above, some of the door paint peeled off with it around the lock. boo! So the next morning I put a few coats over the bare spots and called it done.

Next we desperately need the pressure wash the gooey mildew/mold on the stairs and paint them. And of course, weed-eat around the castle wall around the flower beds and pressure wash them. And rip up our stupid piece of a sidewalk and install a new walkway. And I think the ponytail palm might need to be cut down. I hate to kill a tree, but now it's taller than the roof. One day at a time, right?

Fantasy football draft party

Today we had our fantasy football draft party at our house. It's the only party we've thrown since last year's draft party. But it was a good excuse to use some of the serving dishes we got for the wedding. I even got to break out our beautiful tree trunk cake stand.

It was an even better excuse to cook some barbecue and other goodies. I had a lot of veggies from our order from The Good of the Land. It's kindof like a co-op, but the woman orders organic produce from a distributor as well as from local farmers. This week we got radishes, green onions, an avocado, a mango, grapes, two starfruit, a cantaloupe, bananas, collard greens, mushrooms and lettuce for $22. I made some radish salsa, guacamole and stuffed mushrooms for the party and also some oatmeal cookies from scratch. YUM!

Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos because I was running around the kitchen all day. But I got the mushroom recipe from The Pioneer Woman. And here is one of her photos......

Photo from The Pioneer Woman

Ya'll, they were soooo good. The oatmeal cookies were also a hit.


Now, onto my team.

 -- Michael Vick
 -- Arian Foster
 -- Darren McFadden
 -- Hakeem Nicks -- go heels!
 -- Dez Bryant
 -- Owen Daniels
 -- DeAngelo Williams
 -- Jeremy Maclin
 -- Tony Romo
 -- Kenny Brit
 -- BenJarvus Green-Ellis
 -- James Starks
 -- Ravens Def.
 -- Pierre Garcon
 -- and Neil Rackers is my kicker

Not bad, but it's only an 8-team league this year, so everyone's team is good.