our neighbor Barbara

I love physical labor and working with my hands! The last two days, I've been doing a lot of house and yard work, and I've been happy as a clam. On Thursday, I spent all day (FINALLY) finishing the trim on the house (which is why I haven't posted pictures yet), and Friday afternoon was spent raking and gathering all the leaves in our yard. It sounds like an easy enough task, but it took MUCH longer than I expected! Barbara, our next door neighbor, even lent me her leaf blower! I learned that it actually takes some skill to "herd" all the leaves into one place, so as a leaf-blowing newb, I spent 2 hours blowing leaves all over the place, but finally was able to get them into two neat mounds by our curb. I also found out why those people you see using leaf blowers wear ear plugs!

Barbara and her husband, Patrick, are our neighbors in the other half of our duplex (yup, we live in a duplex, but it's on a corner and shaped like and "L", so you can't really tell). We always hear her tending to her backyard, which I was SO excited to see for the first time on Friday! It is SOOO cute, like her own secret garden! The interior of her house is also very homey and warm, with richly colored walls and other home projects that she did herself. Seeing her house reconfirms how much potential our little home has as well!

Barbara is such a do-it-yourselfer, and she does it well (unlike my slipshod door)! Later that evening, she came over and did a color consultation with me to help me figure out which walls to paint what color. Then, she took me to Home Depot, where we got paint swatches and also supplies to refinish our dining table!!! I am soooo excited for my new projects! I couldn't stop looking at my paint swatches last night. I even took them to bed with me, so I could look at them one last time before going to sleep. :)

On my agenda:
Monday, I am going to refinish our dining table.
Next weekend, I'm hoping to start painting our dining room and maybe even our family room!
Soon, I'd like to repaint our kitchen cabinets and find handles to go on the doors!

Barbara is such a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the home and garden! How fortunate for us that we live right next to her!