Those Damn Terrorists

Well, another week has come and gone and yet another house project has gone haywire.  It started with painting.  Painting looks easy enough, right?  I mean, they do it on those home makeover shows within one hour--with time leftover for commercials!  You put down the drop cloth, tape off all of your edges, slap a couple of coats of paint on the wall, pull off the tape, and voila--freshly painted beautiful room.  Except it doesn't really work like that, does it?  I mean, you stick to the drop cloth and it pulls away from the edge of the carpet right as paint drips off of your brush, you don't realize the span of the roller and end up painting the door frame, you pull up the tape that is supposed to protect the non-painted surface and find that the paint has seeped underneath the tape or that the tape wasn't applied perfectly evenly so you have a wavy border around the ceiling.  They don't show that part on tv, do they?  So then, we decided we're ready to put down grass.  We spend our weekends digging ditches in the backyard to bury the metal wire so the dogs can't dig out, we go buy the exact right 3-way mix, just the way they tell you to on those internet how-to sites.  Then we (read: Colby) spreads the soil and we (read: Angela) make sure it's spread evenly.  Then we do our research and order just the right amount of 5x5 patches of grass for our little patch of yard and wait for it to come in on Friday.  We pick up the grass and to our surprise find that it is not in fact 5x5 patches, but instead 1x5 patches.  Let me present to you, our yard:

That's it, that's our grass.  (And that's our sad, sweet little baby yard--we're thinking of installing a bowling alley instead of sod.)  Colby is leaving on Wednesday for another trip, so this is all the grass we get for now.  We're calling these our test patches.  If we kill these, we'll get another chance in a couple of weeks.

Tonight I have to pack for our trip to sunny, warm Arizona.  My cousin is getting married in Tucson and we are taking the opportunity to shirk our home ownership duties and run far, far away to a place with margaritas, free food, and someone else to drive us around for the weekend.  So, I was thinking about what I would pack, and how it would be so convenient being that it's a short trip I could just pack everything in my carry-on and not have to stress about checking baggage and whether or not my luggage would show up in the same place at the same time as me.  Until I remembered: The Hair Gel Terrorists.  I wish to God I were one of these totally with-it, hip traveler girls who could fit everything into little 3 oz containers and then fit it all into a properly sized baggie, but y'all, I've got hairspray, I've got special dispensers for my mouse and root spray.  These items cannot be transplanted into a smaller sized bottle and expected to survive.  It just would never work.  I curse you terrorists and what you've done to my ability to fake a low-maintenance lifestyle.  I may be an infidel, but at least I never screwed with your ability to pack efficiently.

Anyway, I think we (read: Colby) are going to plant some primroses and pansies in the front yard so that they can die while we're gone.  I think I'll go stand outside and offer words of encouragement and shiver a little in solidarity.  Have a great weekend!

Comments

[sophie]

I'm sorry to laugh at your little patch of sod--but it just seems like something that would happen to me. Good luck with your test!

I completely understand about the travel. I finally learned how to pack in just a carry-on, then they come up with this.

Have a great trip!

[Jenn]

Oh, that is TOTALLY something that would have happened to us. We're having enough trouble just getting grass seed to grow because someone (read: the dog) keeps ripping it up when he runs down the hill and skids to a stop. I swear, I'm going to snap some day and make it all astroturf. Hope you have a great trip!

[Caro]

I'm laughing with you not at you, I swear! The grass is cute, Ang, real cute :)

Thought I'm totally with you on the packing/flying thing. We're leaving for Texas in 3 weeks and while my mom is all hunky dory with her travel sized everything, I just can't make it work for me. Blast!

[Becky]

Those security controls are a waste of time for those products. I was at a comedy club in Chicago and they said "yeah, we're confiscating your lotion to protect your personal freedom." IT's just going too far.

[Sharon]

Your patches of grass made me laugh! :)

[Dawn]

I hate the hair gel terrorists, for they have also taken away the ability for you to assess the baggage check line (since you were an efficient little passenger and checked in and printed your boarding pass before ever leaving home) and decide it's too long so, whatever, you'll just carry your bag on anyway. Except, noooo, you can't, because you didn't pack everything into 3-oz baggie-friendly containers so instead you get to wait frantically as you realize you have 45 minutes to make your flight and there are still 400 people in line in front of you and sure, you'll probably make the plane but WILL YOUR BAGS?

Gah. Stupid hair gel terrorists.

[Mandy]

hey, you know... depending on what kind of grass you picked, you can cut the trays of sod into strips or squares and plant them spaced out... they'll grow together in a few months (which will go by quickly) and you'll have a yard at about half the cost.

[TasterSpoon]

That grass is friggin hilarious. I love how the pictures make it look like Colby's just getting started, and then, oops, The End.

I think Mandy's right - do it like hair plugs.

And you could put something along the border, something to climb the fence maybe, for visual interest. That'll free up a foot of sod right there.

Compost heap. Put a pile of garbage out there, that'll cover some more ground.