happy birthday and more...

Happy Birthday Jodi! And, here’s a little purse I knitted for her. I was able to improve on some aspects of my first knitted purse with this one. One extra cable to make it wider, a reinforced magnetic closure and a larger handle for carrying on the arm. I love how it turned out, but I also was so excited to give it to Jodi – my good friend, faithful blog reader, and fearless promoter : )

Jon’s last day of work in Detroit was last Thursday (that's his old building with the arrow over it). We saw his old building from Woodward Ave as we were leaving church last night. He’s sad to see it go, but is looking forward to the updated space in Dearborn where his company relocated. He’s got some more unpacking to do at work today.

Jon spent some time this weekend sprucing up his bonsai plants and we both think they look wonderful now. He removed the stones that surrounded each plant and added transplanted moss from our backyard into each of the pots. I have a feeling he’s going to be tinkering with these things all summer – our trip to Japan really inspired him to play with these plants again.

We started tackling the huge project that is our yard this weekend - we bought a house that had previously been rented out for five years, so the yard wasn't in the best of shape. We have big plans for this place, but after working for a few hours yesterday morning clearing out leaves, branches and nasty plants, we had a bit of a reality check - maybe our to do list won't get done in a few weekends?!? : ) Why do we always seem to bite off more than we can chew? Oh, yeah, that’s right, we’re an oldest child-only child couple…that could be it!

Our summer plans this year include sprucing up the lawn, adding a perennial flower garden to the front yard on either side of the entry deck, painting the garage, building a picnic table,

cutting down two obnoxiously large arborvitaes,

and adding in a large vegetable garden in the backyard behind the garage. We’ll have to wait and see just how much of this we’ll be able to accomplish.

We are definitely holding off on putting in a brick paver patio to replace the aging patio we have currently, though. Hopefully there will be many more after pictures to show throughout the summer!

And, it seems I've caught the reading bug again this weekend...either that or I reserved too many books that came in all at once at the library. I finished reading Eat Pray Love this weekend. An interesting, funny and quick read, but I'd recommend it with caution - it might be just a little bit too much chic lit meets bitter divorcee. Next on the list (in order of due date, of course) is The Memory Keepers Daughter.