Why not?

As if ripping up our kitchen wasn't enough, we decided this weekend to do some landscaping, too. Actually, we'd been planning this project, but we weren't going to do it until next year. Then a friend of ours mentioned that he had a bunch of dirt he needed to get rid of, and since we wanted a bunch of dirt, suddenly the landscaping project became top priority. Especially since the friend wanted to drop it off at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning.

We got the brick border and rock put in, but we still haven't planted anything. If you look carefully, you may notice that our grass doesn't look so much like nice green grass, but more like dry, brown, crunchy, dead stuff. That is because we failed to realize just how arid our semi-arid climate is, and didn't water enough at the beginning of the spring. After this careful analysis and the observation that the tree we planted in the backyard, which we have watered faithfully every morning and every night, has more dry crunchy leaves than green ones, we decided to wait until next spring to plant in our new landscaped area. No point in complimenting a brown yard with more brown shrubs. People driving by, who see our yard compared to our neighbors' very nice green ones, get the genreal idea: we're not from around here.

By the way, that's Nick sitting on the front step in our designated phone calling area. This cute brick house of ours not only has crazy construction and an ass-backward wiring system, it also prohibits any cell phone from getting reception inside. So when I talk to you on the phone--rain, snow, or shine (which is probably more dangerous than the previous two out here)--you can picture me sitting here. Because that's where I'll be.