Not knitting...

I haven't been knitting. *blush*  I've been working outside instead.  There's just something about Spring and Fall that make me want to be outside.  I've been helping a carpenter friend build a deck for my next-door neighbors.  It's almost halfway framed, and I'm planning on helping tomorrow afternoon, after church.  I didn't get to help today, except for unloading lumber from a truck.  I had my monthly "day off" today.  I went to one of the LYSs in my city, and bought just a little bit of luxury yarns.  Then I went to Walmart and treated myself, to two pairs of jeans that had never been worn by anyone else!  Haha...I usually shop at thrift shops, but I haven't been able to find any jeans lately that I liked and that fit, so I decided to bite the bullet and pay full-price($12 each).  I also got a very cool stepping-stone for my "shady spot" in the back yard.  Then I went to the garden center and bought 4 cubic yards(which amounts to a huge pile) of brown hardwood mulch for the same "shady spot" and other spots around the yard.  I spent hours this week, preparing the "shady spot".  I pulled up all the old landscape fabric, and killed all the weeds and ants that were under it.  I trimmed the trees shown in the picture below, and cut down two others.  Then I put the border pieces in place, and put down new landscape fabric.  And today, I got to put down the new mulch.  With help from Hubby, Angel and Princess.......

 And here's my very cool stepping stone...... I think you can guess what state I live in, if you didn't already know.  I'm also going to buy a very cool bench with a star on the backrest of it, and put it right back there against the fence.

And since we had plenty of mulch, we put some in the side yard, where I had previously laid stepping stones...

I'm pretty happy about how both areas turned out.  Now we're talking about tearing out our old(weirdly-shaped) deck, and building a new(rectangular) one...which I wanted to do three years ago, but Hubby vetoed.  It took a suggestion from our carpenter friend to convince him it was a good idea.  He(the carpenter) is my new best friend. ♥