She considered a field...and bought it.

Let it be known that on May 25, 2010, I purchased my first home.
:-)
It was a long and winding road that ended here - Omaha Title and Escrow. Isn't their part of the sign a bit small? I thought so, too.
The paperwork made sure to point out the fact that I'm single.
As if I wasn't aware.

But when I came home tonight and greeted my house, I knew it was mine. All mine.

And I love it!

Paige vs. the Snake

A few weeks ago a terrorist visited my home.
I didn't consider the snakes to be terriorists until that afternoon, when one took it upon him or herself to slither through the slats of my back porch.
I declared war.
My dad and I (and my valient little brother, Snickers) went on a snake hunt. We looked in all corners of the property - under bricks, vines, leaves, bushes, and finally by the deck - the most likely of all locations. We found two snakes pretty quickly, but they wriggled under the deck before my dad's weapon of choice could snag them.

Here's Snickers, trying to find them for me.

Some hide under these bricks.

The next day Natalie and I found this in the very spot I first found a snake. Its skin
seems to be a form of mockery of the snake's part: "You'll never catch me!" I see it as a foreshadowing:
I got this; I'll get you next!"

I had two plans of attack: mothballs, and this cat, who has taken it upon himself to live under the front porch, meow incessantly, and NOT catch the rascally snake.

Today, I was out watering plants and I saw this in the very spot I had earlier spotted the snake skin:

Yes, folks, that is a dead, headless snake.

Vengeance is mine.

Spring has sprung!

Hello, faithful readers! I apologize for the lack of posts - I had originally planned to only update when Vanessa was here, but spring has sprung while she is away, and I decided that you all need to see the beauty popping up around my home!

First, these beautiful daffodils surprised me with their sunny faces when I go home from spring break.
THen my lovely magnolias started blooming!

My hostas have been plotting all winter to take over the front sidewalk again, and they are slowly carrying out their plans.

This one is particularly fiesty.

I have been planting some, too. These are hopefully going to get really big and spill over the front of the planter. This is right by our front door.

My dear friend Elizabeth helped me plant these herbs. I like the look of the little herb family. We have parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme in the big one, and lavender, chives, and basil in the smaller ones.

These little guys are guarding my back door. I have planters on either side.

I cheated and bought one actual plant. This is a roma tomato plant, and he is growing very happily in the afore-blogged raised vegetable bed.

Everything else has been started from seed in the windowsills.

Here we have broccoli,

lettuce,

and shy little cherry tomatoes, which are just starting to peek out.

For some reason, this oregano got left out of the happy herb family. I need to reconcile them.

Spinach and green beans are going to have to wait a bit, though - they're going straight into the garden!

Paige and Vanessa Versus the Vegetable Garden

This past Saturday we took it upon ourselves to build a raised vegetable garden. We had all our plans (thanks to Pioneer Woman and Bob Atkins), all the materials (thanks to Home Depot and Paige's bank account), and all the man power (thanks to James and Dan).

Here is how it unfolded...

Cute gloves: Check

Self Confidence: Double Check

Reindeer, a very important element of the perfect Vegetable Garden: CHECK!

Paige became a master driller...

Our one-armed nameless gnome was pivotal to the success of the afternoon.

Omagrow dirt and newspapers!

Dan showed that stake who was boss!

Finished picture to be put later..because at this point (the last tenth of the project) Vanessa decided she should try to be helpful instead of snapping pictures of everyone else's productivity...

:)

*Edit:

Here is our finished product!

above is a tribute to the boys who so perfectly mixed the sand with the compost for our strawberry box. :)

Paige and Vanessa versus the blog

Welcome to our blog...

Here we will document our misadventures as two blondes living in an old gray house.

We had quite a difficult time coming up with a blog title, so we gave up.

Some of our Ideas (like the platonic form) were...

abiding in beauty

busy while waiting

smiling at the future

two blondes in an old house (not two old blondes in a house)

but all of these were thrown out for the oh so creative name- Paige and Vanessa...we're pretty imaginative aren't we!

In the weeks and months to come (once Vanessa finishes school -4 more weeks!!!!!!) we will find ourselves battling many ridiculous obstacles (most of which we bring on ourselves), and going on many excellent adventures. Our first was this Saturday's project: Building a vegetable garden.

More to come...later...