Category: Homeownership

Matt and I got the keys to our new home this past Friday!! The house is nice, the surrounding areas are…well…overgrown to say the least!  It’s has some farmable land, and some timber land, and lot of blackberry and weed land.  But being the young energetic couple that we are, we’re looking forward to the challenge!

We have had the place to work on for about 2.5 days now.  And in this time I’m already amazed at how much I’ve learned…so here my friends are the dirty dozen (so far) of homeownership…

1. Always wear closed toed shoes and long pants with long sleeves!  I know it’s 80 degrees out today, but the cuts from the briars aren’t worth it! Neither are the looks from your future husband saying, “I thought I was marrying a farm girl, why do you have shorts on?!”

2. At some point you have to put a machete into use…just fair warning, always keep an eye on the machete, a real close eye when I’m swinging!  I’m effective, but dangerous!

3. Don’t mention lunch, because afterwards it will be all you can think about.

4. When using the weed wacker, stay away from the plants with burrs.  They turn into bullets and shoot out at you.  Then when you complain and your future husband again gives you the “Let’s buck up a little bit here” look, this time tell him he can do it and laugh when afterwards he looks at you and says, “Woah these things feel like bullets!”

5. Take enough breaks that when you’re tired you still remember how much you love the guy next to you, how exciting this is, and how wonderful it will be in the future!

6. When using a blower to clean the house, those big HUGE spiders that live in corners…they will shoot out at you and give you a heart attack, you will dance around on the front porch like a maniac screaming, and once you calm down enough you will step and kill the gigantic creature!

7. Be aware that when your old place was original the owners liked putting up fences, everywhere!  Wirey fences that will either trip the heck out of you, or catch on your mower.

8. If they get caught on your mower like a booby trap, you can’t pull on it and make it better, you can’t go faster to get out of the mess.  No, no, at that point you resign that it’s now going to take an hour to actually remove the mower blades to get them unstuck…oops!

9. When you’re sent into the green house that is covered in briars so much that we didn’t originally know it was there, just to check out if there is anything “worth saving” inside; no one will blame you when you decide not to go through the 32 thick spider webs with fat spiders in them.  Instead just crane your neck from afar…and give the good old, “looks pretty worthless from here” thumbs up.

10. Never let me use the weed wacker with the actual blade vs. the string, I hit my foot three times and my leg twice!  Each time thanking God that I wasn’t using the blade one, I think I would have been a little less than effective if I had cut off my leg or foot yesterday!

11. When you’re just having a ball and you look at each other and say, “Gosh we should start a landscaping business!” 16 hours later…well let’s just say we’re not in the landscape business as of yet!

12. Good things come to those who wait!  I can’t wait for what is yet to come for us!!