April Windy Showers

Posted on May 24, 2011 by April

I’m participating in a blog color story series hosted by Jules, of Pancakes and French Fries. Each month, Ms. Jules will recap a month in the life of herself and her family using colors that have been previously chosen for that month. For instance, April was “grass”, so everything with an emerald hue was included in that months color story. May will be ‘Jacaranda’ , so for those of you who are like me and don’t like big words, that means everything purple. You can find more details over at Jules’ blog home here.

April Windy Showers, sounds like a weather girl doesn’t it? But it pretty much sums up the month of April for all of us who live in the great Southwest. In New Mexico, spring doesn’t come with rain clouds, it blows in with lots of wind, dust, and fire threats. Maybe the wind is making my head spin too much so it was too hard to get my color story done! Yeah, that’s why it’s coming a month late!

April (the month not the blogger) brought lots of cheerful and sunny yellow my way. If you remember from the color story for March, Ms. Jules had chosen yellow for March and green or “grass” for April. However, I being the rebel I am, decided to switch the two. Mainly because April is my birth month and namesake, and yellow happens to be my favorite color. Honestly, the reasons being less rebel like and more selfish.

April started off with a birthday celebration, mine! I turned the big 3-0, I thought it would be more traumatic than what it was. But really, 30 just feels like 29, sometimes it feels like 50, and oftentimes I wish it felt like 20, but 30 really isn’t that bad.

For my birthday Bubba and I went to visit my mother in G-town. She took us out to one of the local eateries that our family has been patronizing for nearly 20 years. I had the red enchiladas…YUM…YUM…

After gorging ourselves on the greasy goodness of cheese enchiladas and sopas fresh from the fryer, we decided a hike was in order. You could almost hear our arteries clogging up, so a bit of exercise was much needed. Besides that, who could pass up such a beautiful and sunny day?

After our little nature walk, it was time to eat again. Yup, when any of my family get together we are regular Hobbits with our 6 or 7 meals a day. (breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper; by the way I had to google Hobbit meals. I’m dweebie but not that dweebie! And on another side note, second breakfast and elevensies, is actually the same meal with a different name. Just in case you were wondering.)

A birthday would not be complete without a birthday cake would it? At least that’s my rule, and fortunately my sweet momma agrees, and slaved away to make my favorite, carrot cake with pineapple! YUM…YUM…again…

The month of April not only brought me my 30th year, but also a little road trip to AZ, you can read more about those escapades here.

While in AZ I spotted the prettiest yellow trees or maybe bush? Nonetheless, I love them and a want 2 or 30. Does anyone know what they are?

Here’s a close up…

While in Arizona, the Bubs and I, also sampled our first In-n-Out burger. It was good, but not nearly as heavenly as New Mexico’s cherished Lotaburger.

Upon our return from the freezing cold that was Arizona, (again you can read about those freezing temps here) we visited a local rose garden where I captured this beauty.

Which helped me come to terms with finally throwing out my old dusty and dried out wedding bouquet. Of course, I couldn’t toss it without taking some pictures of it first. These dried up roses mean a lot to me, not only because they were from the day I legally became someones wife ,but because I , with the help of my mother and sister made all the floral pieces for the matrimonial event. Including this bouquet of yellow roses. Maybe soon I can muster up the courage to do a post about the wedding day.

Late April, brought a time to celebrate the Risen Savior.

For Easter, we went to my sweet mom’s house again. And yes, we ate, talked, then ate again…YUM…YUM

The day after Easter brought these delightfully fattening yummies. If you love regular Reese’s you’ll really love the white chocolate variety. I had to put them in the freezer as to not polish off the entire package!

The last week of my namesake, just as the grass was starting to grow in, the beasts I call pets suddenly got interested in the watering system. Which consisted of a fancy sprinkler and a hose, but it sounds so much more sophisticated to say “watering system”. I was so upset, I wrote a whole post about it.

However, with a little trip down to the local Home Depot the watering issue has been rectified, if only temporarily.

Let’s hope the remainder of May and all of June will bring just as much cheeriness as April (Again, the month not the blogger, although I am pretty cheery if I do say so myself!).

Fortress of Solitude

Posted on May 13, 2011 by April

Just like Superman, I now have my fortress of solitude! Yep, that’s right the wall is complete! Granted, one wall is a row of block higher than I had expected, but that just gives me that much more privacy. Which is quite lovely considering we had zero privacy to start with. Here’s a little reminder of what the old wall looked like before construction began.

Notice the ugly chain link that was serving as a trellis? That would soon be going away.

Here you can see loose bricks.

And more loose brick…

This is my leaning tower of terror. See, how the wall curves slightly? That’s caused from an old tree that had grown right next to the wall, and had been chopped down many years ago. It’s stump had been left, leaving pressure on the old block wall, causing a weakness. But the stump had been there so long, it was pretty much rotted away and came out of the sand pretty easily.

Here you can see how low the wall actually was, we could look all the way down the street into all of our neighbors backyards. In some spots the wall was 3ft high, in others it was 4 ft. The perfect height for neighborhood kids to look over and watch you water your weeds. I’ll miss the kids, they really were sweet. But, I love the privacy!

The morning work was to begin, they pulled up, unloaded, and started tearing down the old tittering wall right away.

Our old bricks were so crumbly it didn’t take much to get it demo’ed.

Did I mention the amount of supplies needed to get this job done? This only shows half of the stuff they actually used, since most of it was still on the truck. Dummy me, I didn’t get a shot of the truck with all the brick and toys.

Remember that old chain link trellis? Yeah, I was happy to see that go down. I may or may not have done a happy dance.

Unfortunately, they weren’t able to get my fortress completed in the two days we had hoped. Apparently, the old bricks they had planned on reusing were too crumbly to be used again. They had to buy more bricks, and put in more reinforcement.

But on the bright side, the dogs liked having new things to sniff over the weekend.

Here’s what the wall looked like after two days of their hard work, and my annoying picture taking.

My plants got a trimming too, I hope the poor little things come back. They were already half dead before my yard became a construction zone.

After keeping the dogs away from cement, that apparently smelled too good to resist, Monday finally rolled around. The poor guys worked another full day, but finally, after 5 full days yard-less, and 3 days of a yard full of brick layers, the fortress was complete.

The doggies love their new lookie-loo holes. The neighbors, probably not so much.

Did you notice the wall seems to have helped with trash being blown in from the street? Well, probably not, since you don’t live here, and don’t see it in person. But believe me, it’s really helped. We’ve had a few windy days since completion, and I’ve had a lot fewer McD’s wrappers tangled within my Rosemary. There was so much trash blown in on these windy New Mexican days, that I just couldn’t keep up with it. I typically pick up trash once a week, when it really needs to be picked up everyday. Apparently the “trashiness” of my yard did not go unnoticed, one of the wall guys politely mentioned that he had hoped all of their trash had been picked up, because they were unsure what trash was already there. Talk about an embarrassing moment. I foresee much yard work in the near future.

Speaking of yard work, last Sunday I went to Wally World with my lovely mother (not the fanciest way to celebrate Mother’s Day, but it suits us), and the good folks over at W-world had all potted plants marked half off! It’s like the little plant fairy’s knew we were coming. And they knew it was a deal my mom and I just couldn’t resist. Certainly a perfect way to celebrate Mother’s Day with my gardening loving momma.

Three shopping carts full of plants later, 1 cart for my dear mother, and 2 for me. I ended up with 3 Spanish Brooms, 4 Snowball Bushes, and one green bush that I can’t remember the name of. Plus, several annuals that will go in pots in the front.

Yeah, we may have gone a little overboard, but boy was it fun. And yes, I am the crazy lady that brings her fancy camera with her to Wal-Mart. You wouldn’t believe the odd looks I got while taking the photo above.

Well, off my fortress of solitude, to untangle wrappers out of my plants!

They shall call her blessed…

Posted on May 11, 2011 by April

Mother’s Day was on Sunday, and yes I realize it’s now been three days since the celebration of mother’s and motherhood. But why should we only celebrate our mom’s on Mother’s Day? Why not celebrate them everyday? Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to post my ode to mom’s a little later than planned. But, my point being, mothers are so very important they need to be recognized and celebrated. Especially my mother, after all, she raised me, a shining example of everything perfect right? 😉

Here is my mother and I on the day that I became Mrs. Bubba and Bubba became Mr.April.

Thanks for being my mother and teaching me so very much. It’s your teaching through example that I learned to trust in Christ, if I didn’t have that faith I wouldn’t have the wonderful life that I have been blessed with today. I am truly blessed to be able to call you mother and friend.

I can’t mention mother’s without talking about my beautiful mother-in-law. She raised seven kids, that’s five BOYS and two girls. I can’t imagine how stressful that must have been. But, all seven of them have turned out smashingly. Especially, the second oldest, but I’m not biased.

“Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband [also], and he praiseth her.” Proverbs 31:28