Hey Arnold!

So, I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our family, Arnold.



Mike and I spent our Labor Day doing some much needed yard work around the house. We've been putting it off, because we anticipated having our next project done (more detail below) in June, and thought it kind of pointless to do much work before then. So the flower beds in our yard have just become incredibly unruly. Because of the pending project, it was time to finally clear out some of the growth. So, I started hacking out these terrible, horrible overgrown bushes that filled in the area to the left of our front stairs. After I was about half way through, I spotted this cute little Praying Mantis, hanging out on the stairs. So I said, "Hey, Mr. Praying Mantis!" And it looked at me. And stared me down. I thought it was just so cute, so I called Mike over to take a look. He thought Mr. Praying Mantis was equally cute. So I went and grabbed my camera and hoped he'd still be there when I got back. And he was! Perfect photo op! I snapped away...

After a few minutes of standing perfectly still, Mr. Praying Mantis began to make his way to the bushes I hadn't yet cut down. That's when I realized that I'd probably just killed off Mr. Praying Mantis' habitat, and I felt guilty. BUT - I didn't want Mr. Praying Mantis to go make a home in the bushes I was about to cut down, and then get evicted again. So at this point, several thoughts ran through my head. 1) I very quickly started hacking away at the remaining bushes, so that Mr. Praying Mantis would get the picture that this was not a safe destination for him. 2) I thought that calling him Mr. Praying Mantis was kind of formal, so I named him Arnold. Now we're on a first name basis. 3) I realized that in all likelihood, Arnold was probably a girl. 4) I decided that henceforth for all intents and purposes relating to Praying Mantii (??), Arnold shall be considered a unisex name, therefore preventing any personal offense to my new friend.

So, after I started hacking at the remaining bush, Arnold got the point and stopped dead in its little tracks. I just didn't know what to do! So, I consulted Mike, and in his great love for nature, he broke off a little branch from the trees he was trimming, coaxed little Arnold onto the branch, and then relocated our little friend to another tree/bushy area in the front yard that will NOT be hacked down in the near future. I've checked back several times today, and Arnold is still there, so hopefully Arnold will stick around for a while and be our new friend! How cute.

Now for the project...our front stairs are horrendous. Horrible. Awful. Grotesque. And worst of all, dangerous. They are cracked, crookedy, and crumbling. And the front step into our house is so large, and lopsided, that both my mom and Mike's mom both at times need help getting into the house. And the stairs are SO bad, that my 80 year old grandma, when she was here, opted to walk through the garage and up an entire flight of stairs in the basement, than go up those scary front steps, and try to manage that HUGE step in the front. Not good at all.

It was on our list of things to do before we even BOUGHT the house, but for those of you who know me, you know that most of our plans for the house were put off due to the immediate need to completely re-side the house that we discovered weeks after moving in. But we've realized that with winter coming and Bean on the way, we just NEED to get the stairs fixed, mostly for safety reasons. But it's a bonus that it will just make things oh so much prettier, as well. Once they're done digging everything out and putting all the new stuff in, we'll finally tackle the flower beds in the front and side of the house (likely next spring, since it's late in the season as it is). So we're hoping that by early next year the landscaping part of our curb appeal will match the curb appeal of the new siding job. Here are some before pictures, and I will post some after pictures when...well when it's after.