Yard Facelift Update!

This is a quick follow-up post on my Yard Facelift- Part 1 post from back in April. I still hope to post Part 2 some time in the future. My sweetie is still in the thinking & planning phase of that one. He is such a good planner, and wants the border around our mulch beds to be perfect, just as our landscape wall now is. It will be worth the wait when it's done, I know!

I just wanted to share a few pics I took the other day of what the stone wall looks like now, after just two short months of up-keep. My sweetie still tests it out every now & then, just to make sure it can still uphold weight & won't topple. He can walk on the top all the way around, and none of the stones shift.
That's work done right, people. :)

We already had the Nandina bushes there, from when Zach bought the house. He adds new flowers every year, and they are always absolutely beautiful & popping with color. They add so much to our front yard!

Zach has already planted some new grass plugs since I took the above photos, so here is a quick pic to show that progress...

He said it will spread like crazy soon. It's so fresh and green right now! He's been working himself crazy to keep the plugs watered, since we haven't had much rain lately.
(That changed last night though! Yay!)

Also, I wanted to share a pic of our back yard, after its simple transformation. I mentioned back in this post, also posted in April, where Zach began laying out mulch for our back yard. Since he moved in, he had a chain-link fence installed in the back yard, but there were no mulched islands there, only grass and a few trees. So...

...he planned out one big island right off from the deck.

Here is the finished mulched island, complete with my new "J" flag from my recent thrifting trip. It adds a little feminine touch to the yard. :)

And here are two cute babies that happened to make it into the pic...

I also took a picture of the hydrangea I planted from a pick off someone else's plant. I was so surprised at how it easy it was to transplant, and how great it has been doing since!

It adds a lot of color to our back deck.

Hope you all are enjoying your week. I hope to make this weekend a good work weekend around the house. I got into a cleaning mood one night this week, so if I can keep that frame of mind going, I may have the house clean for the weekend.

That, hopefully, means more project time!

Roasted Rosemary Chicken

Ok, this is one of those recipes that I just made up myself as I went. I had posted on a roasted chicken with veggies recipe once before, and I was planning on cooking that same recipe one night last week. But, I wanted to try something different. I was running short on time since I had gotten my hair done that night (first things first, right?), so I knew I didn't want to cook potatoes, since they take longer. I basically had the chicken breasts & an onion to work with.

According to that recipe, the main seasoning I used was garlic & thyme. For this one, I used garlic (salt) & rosemary.

Ingredients:
•Chicken pieces (I used chicken breasts, and cut them in half to speed up cooking time)
•Veggies (I used onion only, but you could use anything)
•Olive oil
•Garlic (I used garlic salt for more flavor)
•Rosemary (I used just enough to lightly sprinkle all over)
•Salt & pepper

Spray the baking/roasting pan (I used aluminum foil- less staining), then set the chicken all around. Coat evenly with olive oil, sprinkle garlic salt/powder & rosemary, then salt & pepper to taste. Lightly toss.

Cook the chicken only at 425 for about 15 minutes, then take out of oven. I wanted to cook the onion for less time, since it tends to brown & shrivel up quicker. (If you cook potatoes, definitely cut them small & cook the entire time with the chicken.) Coat onion with olive oil, garlic salt/powder, rosemary and salt & pepper. Cook another 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through & lightly browned, and onion is tender. You only toss one time while cooking. I waited until the 15-minute mark as I added the onion, and it worked perfectly.

This is so similar to the regular roasted chicken, but the rosemary really adds a good, very different flavor.

I only made pics of the finished product...
I was pressed for time...and hungry...

It was so simple, healthy and tasty.

Hope you all had a great weekend! Ours was busy, but so much fun. We spent both Saturday night & Sunday lunch with family that we don't get to see very often, and had such a great time! Also, my sweetie got a lot of work done out in the yard. When I got home from kids' choir rehearsal on Sunday night,
I looked out in the back yard & saw this...

Yay! Our back yard's getting mulched! (It doesn't take much to excite me, can you tell?)

I am gearing up for an awesome upcoming weekend...actually many awesome upcoming weekends. This weekend, we're headed to Birmingham for a day, then rehearsal & a dinner Saturday night for our choir. We have a BIG concert this Sunday night- 6:00 at FBC, if you're in the area- and our music is BEAUTFIUL!! The next week is our kids' choir End of Year Program. Can't believe it's already been a year since our last one. It's always exciting.
The weekend after that is Sheena's wedding!!

Sticks & Stones...Yard Facelift Part 1

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend! Our little family has a standing tradition of taking Easter pics out in the yard every Easter Sunday (and they turned out so well this year!),

so I'll post on those soon.

Now, this is a post totally full of bragging on my sweetie.

He has worked his tail off the past couple of weeks.

He completely built our new stone landscape wall himself. He plans to start on the border structure next. (I myself just wasn't brave enough to help with this task. I did a little work here & there with the mulch around the islands & picked up a few sticks,
but the wall was all him.)

He started with removing the old wooden planks (some were even rotted out) and shoveling out the dirt- those pics are the Befores shown below. He then packed sand atop the dirt to create a level foundation for the stone. He then began building up the stones, using a level along the way to make sure it was all even. It was a slow process, but it had to be to make it right.
And, wow, did it turn out beautifully!!

The entire project wasn't really as pricey as I thought it would be. We got the materials (sand, stone blocks & stone pavers) from Lowes. We also got two HUGE loads of mulch while there, so when you take the cost of that out, it's not that bad. A few hundred bucks & LOTS of time and hard work was totally worth it to completely transform our front yard into what it is becoming.

To show you what it used to look like, for the full effect...

BEFORE

Yuck...

Now, here's our "new" yard!!...

AFTER

Beautiful!

BEFORE

Gaps & rotting wood...

AFTER

Perfection!

And some pics of steps along the way...

This shows after the wood was removed, and after Zach dug out the area for the stones to be placed...

Stacking it up...

Leveling it out...

Some stones were still wet, so that's why they look darker here...

Coming right along...

Starting on the supporting wall...

Done!...

He wants to tackle this area next- that will be Part Deux. We have already had the stone pavers delivered to the house, so they're ready to go. He plans to just lay the pavers, one single row,
all along the way. I can't wait to see it!!

This shows the Before of the wooden plank wall that was once there. I'll post this pic again in my next post once the new stone border is complete.

Because of the stone wall, it looks like an entirely different yard. I'm so proud of him!!

I also wanted to include some pics of our beautiful azaleas...

I love to enjoy God's beautiful creation, and especially when it's in our own front yard.

Hope you all have a great week!