Curtin Call

For some reason, I’m no longer being notified when someone posts a comment on my blog and lately, I’ve been feeling like I had a “cyber-fight” with all my “cyber-friends” and that you’d all left me.

Upon further review, however, I see that my half dozen or so faithful followers are still out there so for that, I thank you.

I have to figure out what’s going on there.  This “cyber-stress” stuff is too much!

That is what I have been.  We spent so much of our summer working in the backyard that I didn’t realize how neglectful I was being to the inside of my house.  Sure, the bathrooms were kept clean, dishes were done, laundry okay, vacuumed weekly, etc., but when it came to cleaning?  Nope, I was not doing it!  I did do some catching up this weekend, though.

The other thing we did this weekend was decide that we’re going to have a yard sale next weekend.  We’d talked about this previously but we had decided that it was just to hectic of a year so we were going to skip it.  What changed our minds?  When Brian’s uncle took ill, every time we would go to visit him, he would send us home with boxes and boxes of “stuff”.  Yesterday, we decided we were going to sort through the “stuff” and keep what we wanted to keep and trash what was trash.  Problem?  We really don’t want to keep much of it but I also wouldn’t classify it as “trash”.  So, that’s that!  The weather is calling for sunny and 60 which will be nice.  We’ve done these before and I really do enjoy them!  We’ll probably mention it to some of the neighbors in case they want to join in but it is pretty short notice!

Oh, well!  Should be fun!

Here are the latest photos of my golf course!

“Backyard_13”

And the front of the house, decorated for fall:

It was a beautiful, sunny fall day so it was pretty bright so the picture didn’t come out great but you get the idea!

Or should I say what I did on my summer vacation and most every weekend therein!

We spent most of this past summer redoing our backyard.  After we’d started, a friend suggested I take photos along the way so that is what I did.

At the beginning of summer, my backyard sort of looked like this (these pictures are taken from the deck on the back of our house.  The swimming pool belongs to the neighbors in the cul de sac out back):

Fact of the matter is, it didn’t even look quite that good as all that stone in the back and along the shed, we had  brought in.  Anyone want to guess how much stone you’re looking at???  44 TON!  Yup, 44 TON!  Yes, we did get a Bob Cat but there was still a whole lot of moving stone manually!

No, we’re not crazy.  Hubby is a fanatic when it comes to his yard and because of the grade, every time he’d plant seed out there and we’d get heavy rain, it would just wash away.  Which is the reason for bringing in 44 TON of stone!

We also did some staining:

Again, we were already into the project at this point so the shed had been power washed and the deck already had a coat of clear stain on the railings, but not the flooring.

We had to get all the staining done before the “real” work could begin with the lawn.  Yup!  We managed to:

(It amazes me how much the knots stand out)

So, now it was time to call in the professionals!  Here’s the yard after they came and graded:

Shortly thereafter, they came and hydro-seeded:

This was so neat.  When you looked down at the yard from the deck, it was almost like you were floating above a gold course, or the ocean or something.  Very surreal!

Now, here’s the most amazing part!  Just six (yes, six!) days later, here’s what we had:

These photos are a few weeks old now.  The grass was cut for the first time last Thursday and as I understand it, it is getting it’s second trim as I update here!  I will be sure to get some more photos over the weekend as the yard now really does look like a golf course. 

Awesome!!!

I’m really, really, really trying to post here at least once a week.  I know.  I know.  I missed last week but I also forgot to tell you all that I was on vacation last week and anyone that knows me knows that I stay as far away from computers as I can when I’m on vacation!

So here I am – day two back in the office and I already feel as though I didn’t have a vacation.  Although I will say that for some unexplained reason, this return has not proven to be as grueling as they usually are.  Hmmmm???

We had a wonderful vacation (as usual).  No trips, near or far.  No plans at all for that matter.  We did, however, get a lot of things done that we wanted to do before the snow starts flying (i.e. Mom’s house is “winterized”, the driveway is seal coated, etc.).  I also decorated the house for fall (yup, I’ll get pictures cause I finally bought a digital camera which I am very, very pleased with!).  Include a couple of days of just plain old relaxing and this made for one heck of a vacation!  I could definitely get used to that!

So, that’s it for me.  How do you do?

I know, I know!  I’m not supposed to be using the computer but mom’s been so darn lax about updating this thing and I have some really exciting news to share!  I have a new baby sister!  Yup!  I-am-so-excited!!!   (I’m also very sad because I had to lose my big sister to get her but she lived a long, happy life and I used to drive her crazy anway!).  You ready?

Here ya go:

Me and my Shadow!!!

Okay, here’s a front angle:

      

And now a close up:

And one of me after a long day of playing with my Shadow:

See!  Now isn’t she just the cutest little thing?  See why I couldn’t wait to share those pictures of that little cutie?

Now, if you promise not to tell mom I was here, I’ll try to get her moving to get some pictures posted of what they’ve been doing to my great big litter box that they call their yard!

I know I vowed some time ago that I would update this blog more frequently and I obviously did not keep my word this time around!  Couple more days, it would’ve been a month.  Yikes.

I haven’t not (is that a double negative?) updated because there hasn’t been anything going on.  In fact, there’s been lots going on!  We’ve done soooo much work around our yard this summer that I look out at it in awe!  And don’t worry, you can enjoy it, too because I did take pictures!  We’d already started the work when a friend asked me to take picture of the progress so I don’t have before/before pictures but I do have some before and lots of after pictures!  Now, all I have to do is get them from camera->computer->blog which I will work on real soon (I hope!).

Work has been quite busy and we’ve been in our new location for nearly two weeks now.  The space itself is brand new and quite nice however, (for those of you that haven’t already heard me whine) we are now as far out on northeast campus as you can possibly get and I’m really not happy about that.  We’re not even in an MIT building so most of the space is rented by non-MIT companies so I feel as though I’ve totally left academia and returned to the corporate world which is enough to cause me nightmares on it’s own.  Ugh.  What to do, what to do? 

That’s about it right now. Hope to get those pics posted in the next few days!

As usual, we had a wonderful vacation last week!  The time we spent in Maine was so amazingly relaxing!  We did a trolley tour of Portland which was lots of fun (okay, except for going over the Casco Bay Bridge).  I didn’t realize how big Portland is and we already started discussing what we’re going to do next year!  Three cheers to Kathy for letting us use her place!

We also got in two Sea Dogs games and President Bush (not “W”) and Barbara were there and he threw out the first pitch at the game Wednesday night.  It was pretty exciting to have been so close to a President!

We got back late Saturday morning and I immediately went to the couch and caught a nap.  Sorry but I’m just not used to the late night stuff.  Yeah, I took another one in the afternoon but I think I finally got caught up!

Yesterday, we started staining our deck (it’s 12’x24′ so it’s going to take awhile).  We’re actually using what they call a “toner” which is darker than a “clear” yet keeps the natural look – very nice!  Another couple weeks and the landscaper will be there to tear out the side and back yard, grade and hydroseed – so exciting!  I love this outdoor stuff!

Frosty and Shadow are continuing to get along wonderfully!  I have to give a three cheers to Carol and her two youngest boys for taking such good care of them while we were gone.  Not only did they go and feed them every morning but they would go back in the afternoon to play with them, too!  Carol even admitted that she played the “chase the shadow” game with Frosty (so named prior to Shadow’s arrival!).  I know how happy that made them because we didn’t even get a little bit of the cold shoulder from them when we returned!

So, that’s what I’ve been up to.  How about you?

I could see that Frosty and Shadow were really learning to love each other since they’ve been running, chasing, wrestling, destroying my house, etc.  for some time now.  Last night, though, just put the icing on the cake!  I noticed Frosty laying in the dining room with Shadow sprawled out across him in what appeared to be a typical wrestling move.  However, upon closer inspection, Shadow was not nibbling at him, she was WASHING him!  Yup!  Licking around his neck, his ears and so forth.  And he was just laying there as if to say “Yes, I am king.  You, my servant, shall wash my ears!”

So, I ask you – how cute is that???

I did manage to get a couple snapshots of Shadow and am hopefully going to pick up a “still” digital camera over the next couple days.  Next week is vacation (yay!) so I will try to get some good shots of her/them and I’ll post them when I return.