Garden is Growing including a new Flower

We have been enjoying lettuce and spinach from our garden and it is delicious! Blackbirds were discovered in the garden on Sunday so we strung CDs across it to scare them away. I think it's working. We have also been blessed with a new flower for our flower garden of Shih-tzus. Honeysuckle aka Honey is a gift from Amanda's cousin Julie. She was not able to make friends with Julie's other dog so she asked us to give her a home. We are thrilled to have her. She is a mess, but wonderful!

How new baby, Honey.

Our first night home.

After her first haircut.

Flower Garden Completed

We took on a new project this weekend: the flower bed in the front of the house. At some point on Saturday morning we got the bright idea of building a rock retaining wall around the flower bed instead of the simple landscaping trim we originally purchased for the project. Needless to say after moving 50 rocks around plus pulling out all the grass from the area we are both very sore and tired. We are extremely proud of our work though.

Just in case you don't know what the flower bed looked like when we moved in, here's two pictures.

















Nice, huh?















So under the supervision of Lily and Daisy...















And with Tim in his cool shades and do-rag.....




















We tilled up everything, pulled out the grass, weeds, random pieces of metal and non-dirt items, and built a rock wall.















We layed down a WeedFree mat and then 9 bags of pine nugget mulch, and total of 18 cubic feet.


















We are so happy with the results!











Our bigger apple tree is in full bloom. Absolutely beautiful!
















And the herbs we planted in our newly built gutter flower boxes have begun to sprout. If you zoom in to the picture you can see the little green leaves.

Evidence of Hard Work

Laura came to stay the week with us and did a lot of work both inside and outside of the house. Of course, she also cooked very yummy food. Amanda had a cold for the whole week so she mainly supervised. That is until Saturday. Laura left on Friday morning and Tim mowed the yard for the second time this year. We are going to pay for all that fertilizer we put on it last year. It's filling in really well with pretty grass. We also tilled up our first garden. We have grand plans of planting a little of everything. Fingers crossed and prayers prayed that we grow at least a few things that are edible after putting in all this hard work.

Here's our freshly tilled garden.

While Laura was here she got rid of the built-in box that was on our back porch. It had been built there to deflect the air coming off the old HVAC unit that used to sit under the back porch. Since our new HVAC unit is at the end of the house the box no longer needed. Our grill now fits perfectly in that end.

One of our biggest goals has been to get the fence row cleared off. Below is a picture from last summer. See all that brush, honeysuckle vines, trees, etc? It's like that all the way to behind the larger shed.

Now look at it!

This is from between the two sheds.

We still have more to do, but we ran out of energy and broke two rakes so we had to quit for the day. We moved on to building flower boxes for our front porch using gutters. We have to wait until tomorrow for the adhesive caulk we sealed the ends with to dry then we will be planting herbs in it. Pretty cool, huh?

Our pear tree has begun to bloom this week. Laura pruned the tree while she was here so hopefully the tree will produced bigger pears this year. The ones last year were so small they were not very tasty.

One of the other very cool things Laura did while she was here was help us install shades on our back porch. The evening sun is so bright that it has not been possible to sit on the porch during the evening, but now we can.

Can you believe how long Tim's hair is?!? It has never been that long.

We will update on the progress of our garden and fence clean-up.

Christmas at the Terry home

We were so tempted to start decorating for Christmas in October, but resisted the temptation until two weeks ago. I've always loved Christmas decorations, but this year is extra special because it's our first real Christmas in our home. Yes, we lived in this house last year, but below is a reminder of what our home looked like this time last year.

Nowhere for a tree unless I wanted it covered in the drywall dust that was everywhere. I also would have had to take it down immediately after Christmas because that's when we put the flooring down.

The other great thing we have to be excited about this year is the new big tree my mom gave to us along with her Garfield Christmas Village.

I'm holding off on putting the porch decorations out so that I don't torment my neighbors too soon. That will be my post-Thanksgiving project.

Playing Dress-Up

We have been playing dress-up in the Terry house.

This is Homecoming week at David Crockett High and Tim has been actively participating in the dress-up days. Yesterday was Decade day. He went with the 70's like last year, but skipped wearing the wig he wore last year. I didn't bother to take a picture of him this time, but have posted a picture of him from last year. I so do not miss living in a home with unpainted wall and unfinished floors.


Today was Twin day and the other teachers in his pod decided to all dress in the gothic style today. I don't yet have a picture of the whole group, but I do have the one from this morning. Sexy, huh?

Last Saturday, we hosted a Murder Mystery Dinner Party for friends from karate and their spouses. It had a 50s theme and we had costume suggestions for each of our characters. My character was known as "Pris" whereas Tim was the rebel.

We are being visited by our families this month. My mom is coming up Thursday and staying thru the weekend. Tim's mom and dad are arriving the following weekend to stay thru Wednesday or Thursday. We love it when our families come to visit.

If Tim dresses up as anything else interesting, I'll post them later this week.

Long Time, No Post

Since the major construction projects around the house are finished, I don't think about updating this blog, but I've been told that some of our readers are interested in an update so here goes....

We went to Knoxville for the Terry Family Reunion. This was the first time in about 15+ years that everyone has been together. We had a great time!

There are all nuts so I blended in nicely.

We received the gift of a new riding lawnmower from our parents.
We also received the gift of a new Big Screen TV and stand.

We planted two bell pepper plants and have enjoyed several peppers off of them. The picture is of the first peppers we picked from it.

Our deer have returned this year as well as the turkey. They come into our back yard and eat the apples and pears. We did not spray the fruit trees and the bugs took over the apples before we had the chance to enjoy them. The pear tree had too many pears on it so they did not grow very big and only the deer have eaten them.

This was taken from the back bedroom.

We've been very busy since the school year started. We started back in karate classes in April. Tim is actively participating in his Masonic Lodge.

I became an AVON representative two weeks ago to help us pay off the evil credit cards so we can maybe start a family. By the way, my website is www.youravon.com/aterry3894.

We are hosting a Murder Mystery Dinner this Saturday for some of our friends. I could be living with a murderer.

My mom is hopefully coming up in two weeks to stay for a long weekend then Tim's mom and dad are planning to come up the next week. We have a busy month ahead.

If you're lucky, I'll remember to update after some of these events. Have a great week!

Visiting family, a broken rocking chair, new furniture, and our first (dead) snake

Since the last post a lot of things have happened. Some wonderful, some not. We had the honor of being with Tim's grandmother when she passed away Memorial Day weekend. She was an important person in Tim's life especially when he was in grade school. She had a poodle named Rebel who was her constant companion for the last 11 years. My mom is taking care of him right now.After her funeral, Tim stayed in Savannah, TN, to help his parents begin to sort through the paperwork. Apparently, Maw never threw anything away because he found tax returns back into the 1950s. He and his family came to Kingsport at the end of the week for a week's vacation at our home. The family included Tim's mom, dad, niece (Kelsey, almost 15 yrs), and nephew (Jonathan, 12.5 yrs). Beside the usual suitcases they also brought a recliner, cedar chest, and dining room table and chairs from Maw's home. We don't have to eat on a card table with folding chairs anymore!

We had a great time all week enjoying lots of local activities including Wetlands, Bays Mtn, and Fun Expedition. We worked on the yard and played lots of badminton. The kids enjoyed the slip-n-slide, but only one afternoon. They complained the next day of being very sore and refused to play on it again. We built a campfire and pitched a tent for the kids. We made s'mores and had a good time around the fire before the kids settled in for the night. Or at least it was supposed to be for the night. Unfortunately Jonathan didn't believe us when we said he would get sick if he kept eating s'mores so sometime after midnight he and his sister moved back in due to him feeling very sick to his stomach. They never offered to sleep in the tent again. We had a casualty during the week. The rocking chair that Tim's dad got for us at an auction and painted UT orange cracked right down the middle of the seat. It's now in the burn pile. Our geranium was blooming like crazy though.

On Thursday, Tim's dad set up his kettle and fixed a delicious meal of TN river catfish. We all ate until we couldn't eat anymore. We invited Pat and Midge's family to join us as well as friends from work and church. This meal timed out perfectly for Pat's family as that was his last night on this Earth. Unfortunately Pat was diagnosed with liver cancer only a few weeks ago and was unable to handle chemo. He was able to be at home his last few days and was surrounded by his family. My mother arrived on Monday in order to tell him goodbye and be with Midge. She and Midge developed a close relationship last summer while she worked on the house. Pat was the one who mowed our yard last summer because he knew we didn't have the time. He also offered all his tools to us whenever we needed them. I lovingly referred to their home as the Nunley General Store.

Here's the whole family at Bays Mtn.

My mom left on Friday while Tim and his family left on Saturday. Tim came back home yesterday which was just in time to deal with our first snake. Earlier this summer I saw the tail of a snake as it slithered into the field beside us. I spread moth balls along the edge of our property hoping to keep out future visitors, but apparently it didn't work. This afternoon, while sweeping the porch, I moved the bench aside and saw a black snake coiled up and napping on the cool concrete. Unfortunately, snakes are the one phobia I do have so Tim was called upon to remove the visitor. The goal had been to coax it to the field since it was not poisonous, but it kept trying to come back to the porch so it had to die. Our hoe is now known at the snake killer.