2 useless things: weeds & dead computers

Okay, first let me say that having a blog is no good when you can't remember your username. That's a kind of essential first step.

Anyway, now that that's taken care of let me say hello and thanks for reading! It is a little odd that I am writing in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday, but my hard drive on my school computer died, so I am finding it hard to get re-motivated to work from home. This is the 3rd problem I've had with this computer (iMac G5 - looks cool but doesn't work so well, apparently) and so I hope my advisor will buy me a whole new computer instead of just a new hard drive.

Chris and I were busy last weekend working on various home projects. He helped our friends, Erica and Tim (Erica is my officemate), get ready to tile their bathroom. Which is very nice of him, but left me to do landscaping basically by myself. I weeded for hours, pruned rose bushes, laid down weed-proof fabric around our huge pine tree and in the island in our front yard (with some help from Chris), moved mulch from said island to the perimeter of the pine tree, cut branches off the pine tree b/c it was dropping pollen down my clothes, and attempted to move rock from our backyard to the island ... only to find out our wheelbarrow has a flat tire. We are remedying that and will recommence with the rock-transport tonight. When we are done, I think it will look very nice.

If you haven't been to our house yet, we have a pretty big backyard but about 1/3 of it is covered by rocks. And since we try to pretend that that part of the yard doesn't exist, a multitude of weeds grow every summer in the rocks. Last summer, one weed named Horace grew to be 8-9 feet tall. So this landscaping project will serve 2 purposes: 1. improve the look of our front yard, and 2. help us in the never-ending quest to rid our backyard of weed-infested rocks. I want to put a bench under the pine tree, from there you could enjoy the shade, a glass of sweet tea (or a beer), and the view of Ft. Collin's famous Horsetooth Rock - a strangely shaped rock formation atop one of the foothills west of town. The sunsets over the foothills can be spectacular, so that would be nice. Hopefully it will be a calm afternoon so pollen won't fall on you.