Our backyard and "garden"

In March, we were so excited to buy our first home.  And it has been absolutely wonderful to be home owners.  We can fire up the smoker and the grill whenever we want (without cops stopping by) and there aren't any dogs waking us up at 7:00 every single morning.  

But one thing I'm not sure we really grasped was just how crazy our backyard was.  Here's some pictures from the yard on closing day...

That overgrowth in the back corner was actually two trees that were being suffocated by the vine, a couple honeysuckle bushes, and 4-5 other bushes.  While taking it down, we actually found a tennis ball and football caught up in the entire mess. 

The grass was mostly dormant at this point...the crab grass that is.  That's basically all that we had back there.

At the bottom of the steps and going up to the fence on both sides of the house were little dog trails.  Previous owners had two bulldogs that really wore down the grass that was there.

Underneath our pine grove were some unnamed bushes.  And the vines were starting to takeover here too.

A full view of the yard.  Lots of brown spots, dog trails, and crab grass.

Since we bought the house, Josh has been working his butt off to make the place look better.  I don't know that I've ever seen someone work so hard on a lawn.  (Have I mentioned the I have an amazing husband, because I definitely do.)  And through his hard work, here's where we are now.  

A view of the yard from the top of the hill.  Notice that all the brush is gone from under the grove of pine trees and there's hardly anything left in the back left corner.  (And our teeny little veggie patch.  :)  )  But the best part is all the green grass that we have!  Our yard is now at least 1/3 bermuda, which is so very exciting!  Plus, there's no dog trail going down the hill!

Another view of the yard from the bottom of the steps.  We had a very big area that was only crab grass.  Josh has worked extremely hard to get it all tilled under, and he's seeded that area so that we'll have even more bermuda very soon!  There's a few patches already growing in there.  This is a better view, too of the back left corner.  No more overgrowth at all!

And, as stated in the post title, here's our little "garden."  We can't really decide what to call it.  Vegetable patch, garden, small area where we're trying to grow just a couple things?  We got started very late in the season, so we only planted an ice box watermelon, squash, zucchini, and two different varieties of strawberries.  And just yesterday we saw something that looks very promising...

Our first little watermelon!  Look how cute and tiny the thing is!  I am thrilled to see this because I was very afraid we weren't going to have anything come out of the garden at all.  But there's still promise!  Just gotta let the thing grow now. 

4th of July Review and baking

This year for the weekend of the 4th of July we went up to Memphis.  We had a wonderful time with our gracious hosts, John and Kathy Tucker, and spent some time over at Mrs. Nancy Walker's house too.  The guys had far too much fun with the paddle boat.  :)  And the catfish fry...amazing!

For Mrs. Walker's get-together, I tried my hand at making some cupcakes.  And let me give credit here...I found this idea on a blog I follow - Inside BruCrew Life.  This woman has truly mastered the art of baking...and if you want some unique dessert ideas, definitely check out her site.  But be prepared because her ideas are so scrumptious and wonderful, you'll want to try all of them (but your waistline might not be ready for it).  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Here's her original post for Firecracker Cupcakes: http://insidebrucrewlife.blogspot.com/2011/06/firecracker-cupcakes.html

Isn't her blog so cute?  Her pictures are about 1,000 times better than mine, but here's my attempt at the cupcakes. 

I just used some red sprinkles to go on top of the icing.  I attempted to make stars and stripes but...well, nobody's perfect.

And the inside of one.  Again, check out the original blog for more appealing pictures.  I joked that instead of patriotic cupcakes, mine became a tribute to Bubblicious Cotton Candy bubble gum.  But they were definitely yummy!  Just make sure you use a true blue and red food coloring for the batters.  :)

Let me back-track a little too.  On Friday that weekend, we got to hang out with some of our neighbors.  They are wonderful people, and they got to have the first batch of my Firecracker/Cotton Candy cupcakes.  Saturday we traveled up to Memphis for the Catfish fry.  Sunday and Monday we stayed with the Tuckers - went to their church and enjoyed lots and lots of amazing food.  Central BBQ is a great Memphis restaurant.  (i'm drooling a little just thinking about it.)

On the way back home, we stopped into Starkville, MS, to visit some of old stomping grounds and see a friend for a cookout.  On the drive from Starkville to Montgomery we got to fireworks here and there, which was pretty cool.  It was really a great extended weekend (I vote for lots and lots more of those!), and I learned a great new idea for baking!

The Power of Cash

Back to blogging!  Sorry for my long break, but I'm back with a new plan to save money!  It's all about the power of cash (and coupons).  This idea started (kinda) with the All You magazine Grocery Challenge.  The challenge is to spend just 25 bucks per family member per week on groceries for 4 weeks.  I signed up for the challenge, but really didn't do so well at all.  In the first week, I spent something like 80 bucks.  :( 

But, the challenge did help me figure out one of my biggest issues.  I always shop with my debit card, always!  I can't even remember the last time that I carried cash with me on a regular basis.  By using the card, though, if I went over the weekly budget of 50 bucks, it was no big deal.  I always had more than that in my checking account, so I would just spend it.  Now though, I have decided to take cash with me into the grocery stores...and only 50 bucks.  The power of cash is that it forced me to sit down and plan everything out - absolutely no splurge purchases and if something was more than I thought it would be, it stayed on the shelf.  And I'm budgeting for tax, too.  Crazy that I've lived in Alabama for a year and a half now, but I always forget about that pesky 9.5 - 10% sales tax, even on groceries. 

Now, the breakdown of my first under 50 dollar grocery trip!

Publix

What I got:

1 gallon of milk

1 package frozen Tyson mini-chicken sandwiches

1 package ground beef (burgers were already on grill at time of picture-taking)

1 package frozen Perdue chicken breasts

1 package Lance crackers

1 16 oz package Kraft shredded cheese

3 boxes Pop-tarts

1 carton strawberries

1 12-roll package Cottonelle toilet paper

1 notebook

1 box Kashi cookies

1 box Kashi cereal

1 box Kashi cereal bars

1 Coffee House creamer

1 pint Blue Bell ice cream

1 package Hillshire Farm roast beef

Used:

5.00/55.00 purchase Winn Dixie coupon (competitor)

1 free Coffee House Breve creamer mq

1 free pint Blue Bell ice cream mq

1 Free Kashi cookie wyb Kashi cereal and cereal bars sq

1 2.00 off Kashi mq (recyclebank reward)

1 1.00 off two Kashi cookies/crackers/bars mq

1 1.00 off Cottonelle sq

1 .50 off Cottonelle mq (doubled)

1 .75 off gallon milk mq

1 1.00 off 1 lb of cheese mq

1 .55 off Lance crackers mq

1 .35 off Hillshire farm lunch meat mq (doubled)

1 1.00 off Tyson chicken sandwiches mq

1 .50 off Driscoll's strawberries mq (doubled)

1 2.00 off 3 Pop-tarts mq

Total before coupons/sales/tax: 73.75

Total after coupons/sales but before tax: 36.59

Saved: 50%

Total spent (including tax) 41.73

Winn Dixie

What I got:

2 brownie mixes

1 Strawberry cake mix

1 carton of 18 eggs

1 package steak (for country fried steak)

Used:

2 50 cents off Duncan Hines boxed product coupon

1 B2 Duncan Hines products, G1 brownie or cake mix free coupon

Total before coupons and tax: 14.02

Total after coupons (still before tax): 5.40

Saved: 61%

Total including taxes: 6.24

Overall savings: 52%

Total spent: 47.97

I was really very proud of myself that I was able to make it under 50 bucks.  It did make me nervous though to see the totals before any of the coupons scanned...knowing that I wasn't going to use a debit card for back-up!  Hubby seemed pretty happy too, especially since there's a good amount of things in this trip that will really make for good meals!