I haven’t written a lot on here lately! I usually blog during lunch at work, but they started blocking blog sites a few weeks ago so I haven’t had access at work and by the time I get home there is so much going on that I never get around to it.

Lola and I had a stomach virus a few weeks ago. Not fun! She caught it first and then I got it from her. I missed 3 days of work and I questioned whether I should have even gone back on the 4th day because at that point all I had eaten were 3 pieces of dry toast and some plain rice. Needless to say, I brought my own lunch to work that day because I was scared of what normal food would do to my stomach. More plain rice and a plain chicken breast seemed to settle okay, and after that I was back to normal food.

We finally started on our new patio/back yard. Our house is on a corner lot, so our ‘back’ yard is actually on the side and it is teeny. It was ¾ concrete and ¼ grass and the old concrete had been topped with an epoxy coating and mini rocks approximately 15-20 years ago. We ultimately had 3 goals for our back (side) yard:

1. Fence the yard in so we can let the dog out without watching her the whole time. I have probably spent 20 hours in the past 2 years just watching her out the door to make sure she doesn’t run down the side of the house into the street (which she has done several times). She likes to hang out in the back yard but since it isn’t fenced we can’t leave her out there without watching her.

2. Get rid of the annoying little rocks that we track everywhere. They scratch the heck out of our hardwood floors and they are ugly and annoying. The epoxy was also starting to crack and crumble. Lola also liked to pick up the rocks and eat them. I’m sure they were very high in fiber!

3. Increase the amount of grassy area so it actually seems like a yard.

They came in and demoed the concrete with a jackhammer. It shook the entire house, but somehow Lola slept through it all. Probably because that was the day she threw up 3 times and she felt horrible. When they removed the concrete they left some ruts in the yard, which we expected.

My parents came up and helped me haul 3.5 cubic yards of dirt into our new back yard. Basically I had to fill in the area that used to be concrete. It wasn’t very deep, but it still needed a lot of dirt. We then re-graded the back yard and filled in the ruts made by the bobcat. Topped with some grass seed with straw, and voila! We finished in between rain showers, which ended up being perfect because we didn’t have to water the seed in. I’m very anxious for the grass to sprout because right now all we have is a huge area of dirt covered by straw. It’s not usable space yet, but hopefully will be in a few weeks. I’m so impatient; I want the grass to grow now!

 
 
 

This was the scene after they jackhammered the concrete, before they hauled it out. I about had a heart attack because it was such a mess!

Concrete cleared out, forms up for the concrete. The area in the middle is where there will now be grass. Concrete patio on the right for the table/chairs, concrete on the left so we have an area to step on and a paved area in front of the shed.

 
 
 

The new fence/gate! The gate is located on the south side of our house, and this is where Tawny used to wander. Once she got there, she was usually in the street in 10 seconds flat. Not anymore!

This is what we look at from our back door right now...straw. Grass seed, please sprout soon!!