Rainy Day Funds. Alternate Title: A Mini Facelift.

Not me. Silly. My backyard. I had been given a small bit of money when I graduated that I had been keeping for a rainy day. Well, over two years have passed and the rainy days just didn’t seem like they needed anything. So I decided to use it on a sunny day. (Also, pause for a moment to acknowledge the fact that I still had that money two years later. Nothing short of a miracle there.)

Our backyard has been “in transition” for YEARS. When I first moved here it was more forest than yard, with two large trees creating a canopy and zero grass. Just dirt and violets. Frankly, it was kind of awesome. I love me some woods, and I really loved how those violets looked when they were in bloom. But we had foresight, and knew that when we had a family we would want a backyard for the munchkins to run around in.

Enter the slow crawl. One year we had the trees removed. Very sad, I know. But the structures they were growing dangerously close to heaved a big sigh of relief. The next, we tilled and planted seed. (Or was that the same year?) Then came the patio with the best of intentions, but the poor thing was installed without aforementioned foresight, and it was way too close to the dingy garage to be comfortable.

So over the years, the grass has grown, there have been some hits and some misses when it comes to flowers, but we basically have a backyard. We use the patio as Bananabread’s play area, with her sandbox and plenty of empty stone to chalk up. We have a gazebo with out table and comfy chairs. We even have some stuff in bloom this year!

But, oh, that dingy garage. See for yourself.  

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Apologies for the half sun/half shade. So that was at 3:00 in the afternoon. ish.

And this is two hours later

Much nicer, yeah?! We like color in my household, so a pop of sky blue was what we needed back there. And those little baby evergreens that you can barely see in there? Those are Wintercreepers, of the Emerald Gaiety variety. We were able to score all those babies for 24 bucks. Cute, right? And they will fill in nicely and provide some greenery out here for winter campfires.

So, there you have it. How I spent some rainy day money. A nice little (necessary) facelift for the backyard. The window box comes next spring!

Apologies about the layout of this post. This is my first time doing a post with pictures from my mobile, and I have no clue how it is going to look. Or how to navigate it for that matter. Stick with me though, I promise it will get better!