Whistle While you Work

Fifteen years ago, my ex husband and I purchased the house that I reside in now. We were recovering from some finacial difficulties brought on by his tour in Germany for Desert Storm, the first Iraq war. Although we married young, he being 19 and my being 18, we were able to purchase our first home just 5 months after getting hitched.
We ended up selling that house in order to pay off some debt, catch up some late payments all due to a decrease in pay caused by his tour.
But things were looking up and although we werent able to get the house of our dreams, we were able to purchase a fixer-upper with high hopes of ..well, fixing it up.
The thing about buying a fixer-upper being the only affordable option is, that if you only have enough money for the cheaper house, you probably dont have the money for the 'fixing up'.
Thus was true in our case.
Just three years later, we divorced. I was awarded the house in the divorce. And as such, have inherited the fixing also.
The house at the time we bought it was about twenty four years old and just getting to the point where most all the plumbing and electrical were outdated. Things like the furnace, and water heater were reaching the limits of thier lives and some of the 'secrets' of the previous owners lack of DIY talents were beginning to rear their ugly heads.
But little by little, and small catastrophy by small catastrophy... I have been able to reconstruct most of the rooms in the house, and get a lot of the yard work completed. It gets expensive.
Now that I am finished with school and have a lot more weekend freetime, and with the nice fall weather we have had this year, I am feeling stir crazy and beginning with some much needed and well past due yard work.
When we purchased the house there were hose bibs on both the front and the back of the house. Both of which had broken off handles and had been pinched and mis-shapen from use of pliers.
Because hose bib replacement is a bit intimidating and there is a small bit of welding involved, I continued the use of pliers until they became worn and rendered worthless.

Because one room of the basement is unfinished we were able to replace one of the two pretty easily as there were no finished walls covering the pipes. The other remains broken until I have time and money to tear into the sheetrock. Running a hose around the house became a real issue and my back yard fell victim to the lack of watering. There is no sprinkler system installed and all is watered with small fountain sprinklers.

This is what my once lush backyard has become, No more grass, just overgrown with weeds. I do not have the money right now to pay anyone to landscape, I dont have the money to rent a cat for the day, so here I am, Halloween morning with shovel and rake in hand, tilling the dirt and raking it smooth so that in the spring I will be able to re-sod.

I am excited to have my yard back, I am excited to have the time available to get it done. It is hard work, better than the best Gyms. And I had a lot of help company. My dog loved lying in the cool dirt as I dug it up.

Here is how I see it. As I am great at starting projects...and not as great at completing them, I want to post the progress here. Then I will have to get it done right? And in a reasonable amount of time.

Later last night with tired hands and sore limbs, I chapperoned a teen halloween party then headed out for drinks with my own friends for a couple hours...Good times at Halloween. And now, I am off to get on that dirt again. Hope you all had a great Halloween.