John expected a relaxing Sunday afternoon...

John and I are training for the Disney Marathon, which we will run with Armour and Max & Ken in January.

John's doing waaaaay better than I am; he ran 10 miles yesterday...I plodded along for 5 - and then he got up at 0700 and ran 5 this morning.

I stayed in bed. (I figured...it's Sunday, for crying out loud!)

Still, I wasn't going to let him think he had all the gumption and spit and vinegar and ...well, you get the idea.

So he got back, made the coffee (that's his task in the morning...I never do it anymore and I like that arrangement very much, thank you) and proceeded to mow the lawn.

Excellent.

So I stood in the doorway, in my pajamas, and I said,

"Hey, HON-ney!"

"Yeah!"

"How 'bout you pose with this shovel? I 'got an idea!"

"Aha."

Picture taken...Holly's plan about to be imparted...husband about to make it happen.

The plan was to take a horribly overgrown yard:

witnessed by this horrible Florida grass creeping up these beautiful Texas White Ash trunks -

We fixed that by tilling the soil around them in a wide perimeter...and then weeded, and planted heather (I think I chose that because it doesn't need a lot of water and it appeals to my Scottish roots...)

Grass chinking the pavers -

Not anymore - we just have to sweep it away!

Oh, and that huge palmetto tree that you see growing out of my third White Ash????

Well, it's not there anymore. It's been replaced by three staghorn ferns...which won't kill my poor 55-year-old tree. (I'm not sure why John didn't get an "after" picture...but we'll take one later, after they've grown a bit, and are cascading down the trunk nicely.)

The south side of the house before...

...and AFTER! A lot more room so you can see the plants!

Warning - this next picture may scare you...John said it looked like something out of Braveheart. (Though, the puppy looks great...)

We've got a long way to go, but we'll get there.