Taking action--can I get an "amen"?

[MorningGlow]

Good morning! I guess this is a special request for light and vibes to help a manifestation. Recently I've been fretting about the state of our house, both inside and out, including our yard. House and yard are quite...uh...let's call it "in disarray", and neither Mr. MG nor I have time to work on improving them as much as they should be improved. I have decided to find a contractor to finish the house renovations Mr. MG started and a landscaping company to revive our yard, but of course I'm not sure where to start--to figure out who's trustworthy, who will have reasonable prices, etc. I have a list and our local Pennysaver with landscaping company advertisements but haven't started making calls yet.

Today I saw that our newspaper is having an "outdoor design challenge", pairing up unfortunate yards with local landscapers. I e-mailed right away! I don't know if we'll be considered, because we're in an area that the newspaper outright ignores (the northern part of an adjoining county--actually closer to the city than other areas they lavish attention on--go figure), plus our yard might be a little TOO decimated for this particular contest, but then again, they want a challenge, we can GIVE 'em a challenge!

As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I've done the best I can, sending in an e-mail as charming and entertaining as I can make it. Can the wonderful ASAH crowd send their powerful light to float my e-mail to the top of the heap? This would be a major bonus for our suffering lil' property and a lot of fun to boot.

Thanks! :hi:

[Kind of Blue]

1. You Bet, MorningGlow!

I'm sending all kinds of good vibes for what seems like so much fun for everyone involved.

[MorningGlow]

4. Thank you kindly!

:hi: It sure would solve quite a few of our problems, I can say that much! :hug:

[Celebration]

2. email float vibes!!

Okay, will do, but I will have to improvise this..............

Seriously, just your starting a thread about it here could help. I'll add my two cents of intent by answering.

Ha, your yard sounds a bit like ours. But it was fun teaching the two year old grandson the word "clover" as we have a ton of it around. ( I refuse to poison the ground like our neighbors do.) Now he knows to shout "clover" and sit down in it when he doesn't want to go inside.

However our azaleas should make up for the clover. They don't require maintenance here.

Good luck with your projects in any case. Please get before/after pictures.

[MorningGlow]

5. Funny story about instant manifestation

Yesterday I was working on the book reviews that were coming due for the magazine I work for. I had advance proofs of some of them instead of the actual published volumes, which can be a little difficult to read, but my editor promised "official" copies of three of the books as soon as they came out. In the mail was an envelope with two of the three books in it. "That was nice," I thought, "but gee I sure wish I had the third book." I was just picking up the proof to review it, and it seemed interesting enough to want to read all of it eventually. I sat back down on the couch and heard "Wham wham wham!!" I got up, looked out the front door...the FedEx guy had just put a package on the stoop. It was the third book! Why was the third book sent FedEx while the other two came USPS? I have no idea! But it was great timing!
:rofl:

Aw, great story about your grandson!! We don't use fertilizer or chemicals either, except once in a while I'll use Roundup on some really thorny weeds that show up in the middle of the lawn. We figure if it's green and can be mowed once in a while, it's good enough! We don't need the place to look like a golf course or anything.

Thanks for the good wishes! :hi: :hug:

[Flying Dream Blues]

3. Makeover vibes to recreate your outdoor space coming your way.

It will look great...would love to see before and after pictures also!
:hug:

[MorningGlow]

6. Thanks, FDB!

:hi: Before and after pics are a must, for sure. I regret that I didn't take photos of the nasty interior of our house before we started working on it--a lot of it is still ripped up, but parts of it are much, MUCH better than before. I documented the renovations on our first house, and it made for a very dramatic photo album that our friends loved to look at.

Thanks again! :hug:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. Visualizing it happening for you!

Best of luck!

[MorningGlow]

9. Thank you, Ayesha!

:hi: :hug:

[MagickMuffin]

8. It appears we share the same Lifestyles ;=D

Way too much clutter on the inside :blush: When my FIL was alive he had his eldest son do some repairs on our house, which he (BIL) handed over to his lackeys and they made some of our problems worse :eyes: Gaps in the register vents when we had our AC installed, gaping holes under the kitchen sink, which is an exterior wall.

We're trying to get our house in order. I just got a door frame fixed that was missing a side of trim (it doesn't match the other two pieces but I don't care), it looks so much better now and those pesky bugs won't be able to enter through it anymore. I also chalked around my door frames, another favorite entering place for the pesky bugs. Need to fix under the kitchen sink, OMG, it is a holey mess. Placed weather stripping around my windows. But I want to paint, I love painting and we could use it again, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom. And don't even get me started on pulling up the carpet, which there is hard wood floors beneath it.
Now if I could get rid of the clutter, a lot of junk mail and bills, that I turned into paper pulp for paper making projects, but there is just so much of it we started burning it instead, which we will use in our compost pile.

Also a lot of our clutter is electronic components, computer monitors, music cables, (two rooms of our house is full of musical equipment) books, it gets so depressing knowing where to start and getting motivated to do anything about it. But any progress I make in that direction makes me feel as though I have accomplished something.

Our yard has been taken over with Queen Anne's Lace :grr: those plants are the worse little nuisance. If your not familiar with QAL it is a nice plant until the flowers go to seed, then the seeds turn into those tiny little stickers that attach themselves to your socks, shoes, and anything else it comes into contact with, I don't like those plants. I've been hand pulling some of them, but there are way to many to do by hand. When I was at the Feed Store buying plants for our square foot garden, I asked about how to get rid of the QAL without using chemicals and breaking my back pulling them by hand, and he suggested spraying Vinegar on them. I haven't done so yet, but plan on it.

Sorry about divulging so much info about my projects, I probably shouldn't have written so much about myself. Ah well, if I can't share it with my ASHA friends then who else would know :blush:




I am sending vibes and as much powerful light and energy to your email as I can. I hope it will help. Good Luck with this MorningGlow and keep us posted whether or not you get the deal. Sounds like it would really benefit you and your projects. :hug:

[MorningGlow]

10. Oh man, I hear you

For us it's toys (thanks, MG Jr!) and computer equipment and cables (Mr. MG); we have large rooms (one of the reasons we bought the place) and yet stuff does accumulate... I think I'd be able to keep the place clean if half the house weren't under construction. :(

Mr. MG's office is ripped up down to the studs. The downstairs powder room...isn't...except for the plumbing. The back door is a hole in the wall covered with plywood. The mudroom (with said hypothetical back door) is half paneled with wainscoting, half not. The upstairs bathroom has no tile or anything on the wall in the tub area and nasty linoleum on the floor as we wait for the downstairs bathroom to be finished so we'll have a place to go to the bathroom and brush our teeth so we can have the tile done upstairs. On and on and on. (Oh yes, there's more...)

And outside is UG-LY! We've ripped off the siding (really nasty, crumpled, discolored old stuff) on the back of the house and took down a deck that was a safety hazard. That leaves old insulation/housewrap/window hole covered with plywood/old clapboards on the back of the house and a dirt pit where the deck used to be.

The "lawn" is a wreck and has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Oh wait--I planted bulbs last fall, so we have a lovely pale purple crocus by the front door. Never mind that the front walk is crumbling and the brick steps are pulling away. If it gets any worse the mail carrier will refuse to deliver the mail (they did it before, until Mr. MG patched the steps--which didn't last).

Are we living in squalor? No, but we need to get on the stick when it comes to finishing the renovations. The "bones" of the house are really lovely, but it was sorely abused from about the mid-'80s up till the time we bought it a few years ago. We have a terrible habit of "rescuing" houses--all three houses we've owned we've gotten for far below market value because they were wrecks, and then we kill ourselves (and our wallets) making them nice again.

I've already told Mr. MG--next time, NO fixer-upper! We're getting too old for this kind of nonsense!

Anyway, I've rambled too! There's always so much to talk about with houses, isn't there? Thanks for the vibes and energy and light. I'll keep the group posted for sure! :hug:

[MagickMuffin]

13. Yep, similar lifestyles

Our covered deck leaks from day one when we had it built. Can't enjoy sitting and watching the rain storms. But we did get to watch a family of Cardinals last year from our kitchen window that had built their nest in a little twig house we had hanging close to the window. It was fun watching them (3 babies) getting their meals and then learning to fly. We had to move it closer to the inside of the deck (it was really close to the exterior support post and one night I heard something strange, went with flashlight in hand and one of the babies was knocked from the nest, he had a bump on his head. Hubby came out and put it back in the nest. That poor baby survived, however, he had a problem learning to fly.


We just scored BIG on some free bricks. We were just talking about buying some concrete and making a Hypertufa walkway (I have a brick and rough rock plastic forms) when I checked Craigslist and saw the ad for free brick. They had just posted and I called and went the next day. When we got there they told us we could have even more than they had originally planned. :woohoo: They also had two very large pieces of Petrified Wood and I made a comment that I liked them and they told me to take them if I wanted them. I snatched them up right then and there. We just got back from our second trip and still have one more trip before we have all the bricks and paver stones.



You should check out Hypertufa, maybe you could make something from it. Of course I don't know your zoning laws but it could be inexpensive way to address the outside of your house.


This link explains how to make Hypertufa, be sure to read the last paragraph:rofl:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Do-You-Want-to-Make-Some-Tufa-Rock?&id=1458008



http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/hypertufa/2003043436019325.html

[MorningGlow]

14. Awwww about the cardinals!

Mr. MG is a big birdwatcher, and he's pleased we now have a couple of windows looking out over the back yard--he wants to put the birdfeeders back up for the first time in three years.

Hey, bonus manifestation--Mr. MG finally put the back door in! Woo hoo! :woohoo:

Thanks for the Hypertufa links--I'll check it out! I don't know of any zoning that would prevent that, but I'll see! :hi:

[MagickMuffin]

15. While looking for my molds I came across this site

They have all kinds of molds to make interesting designs to choose from

Castlestone


Cobblestone


Fieldstone


Limestone


Ledgestone


River Rock

They sell them as kits where you can purchase several and they include extra stuff to start and finish your project. Not sure what your budget might be, but some of these kits seem worth while.

http://www.themoldstore.us/


woohoo: Glad to hear you now have a backdoor. That must make you feel much better.


You should have him look at the pics in this thread. There is so much more to look at their site as well. :hi:


Oh yeah, here's the link to my molds and a pic ( I have the one in the pic and also one that is a brick design ) but I think mine are larger.




http://www.packagepavement.com/walkmaker.html

[MorningGlow]

16. Wow! That is so cool!

Of course, that first pic makes me want to turn my home into a castle--literally!
:rofl:

I will bookmark that for when we're ready to redo our front walk at the very least (although I still dream of a side path, an archway, and roses...sigh...)

The door is good! Our alpha male cat, however, wants to know why we opened up a giant portal to Squirrelville (good) and then blocked it right back up again (bad)...!

Now the question is how long will the shims be sticking out of the sides like porcupine quills...and when will the doorknob replace the tuft of insulation in the handle-hole...?

[MagickMuffin]

17. Here's how you should address the door

"Honey, lil MG Jr could hurt himself if you don't get around to finishing the door!" :rofl:


My feral kitties don't really seem to mind being indoor cats now. They will approach the door but the noise they make, makes them have second thoughts. However, when the cable guy came out to check on our problems the female Sango snuck out. I had a terrible time getting her to come to me. My babies don't like ANY humans except me and hubby. They are :scared: 'dy cats.

Before I had them fully tamed they killed a squirrel and took turns eating it. By the time I noticed the top half was gone already. They were starving babies.


I did like the molds at that site but they are a bit pricey, especially since I don't have any money. And the price of cement has gone up :-(


One of my plans was to use the molds I have and do a paper pulp mix. I used a cookie cutter as a mold once and it turned out very solid and very lightweight. I didn't add any adhesive glues, it was just straight paper pulp, squeezed until all the water was gone.
I also saw a program once where a man Clyde Curry, in South Texas was making paper bricks, he went to banks and took their shredded paper and made his pulp using a ingenious contraption he built, then he made his bricks from that.

Interview here:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/eves-garden-papercrete-palace.php

Here's their website lots of really cool pics in the photo gallery: You gotta check this out. Very cost effective since you can ask large corporations to give you their shredded paper.

http://www.evesgarden.org/

[I Have A Dream]

11. I'm happy to send vibes your way, MG.

Good luck! :)

[MorningGlow]

12. Thank you, Dream!

:hi: :hug:

[crikkett]

18. Amen, sister

:hug:

[MorningGlow]

20. Thanks, Crikkett!

:hug:

[BlancheSplanchnik]

19. imagining you finding the smoothest way forward

easily and with smiles!

:)

[MorningGlow]

21. Thank you, Blanche!

:hug: :hi: