the great outdoors

When last we chatted, the yard was looking like this:Better than weed-a-palooza, perhaps, but still leaving "a bit" to be desired. Enter the heavy machinery!!
For the record: yes, the nice men at Home Depot will laugh at you, the scrawny blonde chick, as they help you load the giant roto-tiller into your Beetle. And yes, you "may" need to call the Mr. at work when you get it home & realize that you cannot get it out of your car unassisted. And it's definitely a bad idea to use your body weight to steer it, since it weighs considerably more than you do, especially when your job requires you to wear shorts most of the time and you have to explain repeatedly that "No, nobody is beating me."

BUT: once you take all of that into consideration, you have yourself a fun and noisy (Zöe was not pleased) way to make sure those weeds don't come back!
Why is it that when most people picture "woman gardening" in their heads, it involves someone genteel in a sun hat amongst lots of flowers, but when I try it, it involves heavy machinery that could maim a person? Also, why do my arms look like they belong on a dude in this picture? WTF?!?

Ahem. Moving along. So: after 2 days of tilling, during which both the Mr. & I pretty much exhausted ourselves in an effort to avoid paying another day's rental fee, we had clean tilled dirt. And my daily scouring of Craigslist began to pay off.
Thanks to D. in Hacienda Heights, who wanted his river rocks gone so he could plant some grass. (Free, folks -- my favorite price!)

And thanks to S. in Reseda, who's re-doing her backyard & wanted her Heavenly Bamboo gone. Bonus: it's not actually bamboo, which means it won't attack the foundation & sidewalk. Also: another freebie (plus a little manual labor to dig them out of the ground.)

That's the reverse angle.

And since I tend to get overly excited about things, I figured I may as well build some raised garden beds, where we can plant things that smell good and may even turn out to be edible:
I found the instructions online -- they're upside down here, waiting for me to dig holes for the corner pegs. And yes, the nice men at Home Depot will laugh at you as you cram a few 10'-long boards into your Beetle. Why does everyone keep mistaking me for a damsel in distress, I wonder? Not only am I not distressed (at the moment, anyway), but I'm pretty sure I don't even qualify as a damsel ....

Oh, and just because we're so effing proud of ourselves: We seem to have finished the kitchen!
Well, except for the stove & a table. But those can wait until we get our tax refund ... unless I find 'em for free on Craigslist.