What we did Easter weekend

While all of you lovelies were out painting eggs, catching bunny rabbits and eating noodle salad, J and I worked our tails off building a new 60-foot fence in our backyard. More out of necessity than choice. During the last storm we had here a few weeks ago, our rotting backyard fence (which was ugly anyway, seriously, the thing looked like it had been implanted from a Favela) blew down, allowing us to stare right into our neighbor's backyard. No privacy whatsoever (I felt so naked and exposed).

Unfortunately with the rains and J's work schedule, we had to wait till Easter weekend to build a brand new fence, but then we hadn't anticipated that most friends (read: men) that could have helped J would be out of town for the holiday. Sooo, it pretty much came down to J moving hundreds of pounds of wood by himself into a cart at Lowe's, moving the wood from cart to rented truck, from rented truck to our front yard, and from our front yard to our back yard. All as I watched and tried to give him moral support. Then he dug out eight 3-foot deep fence post holes across our fence line with a one-man manual auger (this part did not look fun), and poured gravel and concrete into each hole to set the posts. All just on Friday. Saturday and Sunday were spent putting up the backbone of the fence and nailing cedar planks, one by one, down the length of the fence with a hammer (no, we don't own a nail gun). Well, 145 planks and about 1,000 galvanized nails later, our fence was finished.

Measuring/setting fence posts

Putting up planks (ignore our neighbor's ugly in-law unit just over the fence line)

Lola, aka "The Supervisor"

J taking a little break

Finished fence! (above and below)

Oh yes, and on Saturday night we started putting up glass mosaic backsplash in our kitchen (we're currently in the middle of a kitchen remodel as well). A couple months ago J demo-ed the yucky ceramic tile countertops that were in the kitchen when we bought the house and installed granite countertops, but hadn't gotten around to doing backsplash till this weekend. I have to say, I LOVE how it's turning out!:


This next weekend will be completely devoted to the kitchen remodel. Those ugly honey walnut cabinets need to go, stat. We're planning to paint them white and install nice brushed nickel knobs and pulls on all the cabinet doors and drawers. Can't. Wait.

Anyway, back to the fence, the whole time J worked he didn't complain once, even though it was back-breaking and I could tell how bone tired he was. At one point he sawed through part of his finger skin, but kept on going, even though there was blood and I kept telling him he should really put a bandaid on. I feel so lucky to be married to such a great man who can work with both his brain and his hands and slog through even the hardest work without complaining because he knows it's what needs to be done for our family. To me that's the definition of a real man. So yesterday I stopped by a novelty store and bought this trophy for him, just as a funny little way of showing him how much I appreciate him. When I gave it to him last night over dinner he laughed and gave me a big hug, but I meant it. He really is the best husband ever.