I am a Victorian Soul, who lives in a small townhouse that was built in the mid 1970's, not a huge Mega Mansion!! I just recently lost my Hubby Joe, who was a Retired Letter Carrier. I worked night shift as an RN on a Hospital based Rehabilitation( Physical Medicine) Unit for 37 years before I had Knee Replacement Surgery and officially Retired in 2019 after 41 years working in Direct Patient Care ... I am so glad that we retired at 62 years of age and got to spend that time together before he passed....I still do love Retirement!!!!

I DABBLE IN A BIT OF THIS AND THAT!!!!

" IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BE WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN"
George Eliot
George Eliot was actually a pen name for a woman named Mary Anne Evans......

BLOGGING FOR FUN AND FRIENDSHIP!!!!!!

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Landscape Update, a Storage Trick, A Transformation and a PSA!!

 

 

 

  Welcome to Debbie-Dabble Blog!!

 
I am so happy you decided to stop by!!
 
Just a reminder, I will be posting on Wednesdays and Sundays every week so be sure to check back on those days to see a new post...... 

Today, I will be giving you a look at our row of townhouses and how the "Might as Well's" went through almost the entire row as far as landscaping the front yards is concerned.....

I will also be sharing a storage trick when packing up my "normal" decor to decorate for Holidays and Different Seasons along with sharing the transformation to Fall occurring in our Living Room....

 

And now for a few Personal Notes...
 
 
 I woke up with a UTI ( urinary tract infection) on Monday morning.....

This is something that I have had a problem with since my 20's but I have not had one in  about 3 years...

My Dr's always attributed it to my job as a Staff Nurse in a hospital .....

Why you are thinking?

Because of constant short staffing, nurses do not have the time to take a bathroom break , let alone a lunch, and are "holding it in".....

This leads to UTI's....
 
 
Luckily, because I was able to go back to my Family Physician of many years when I changed my Healthcare when I went off my Cobra in March.....
 
I got a return call back within a half hour after leaving a message at the office that I needed a course of Cipro.... 

I was instructed to come right down to the office, which has a Lab, to give a urine specimen for testing and my script for Cipro would be called in immediately and I could start taking it once the specimen was given....
 
So within 3 hours from my call to the office, I was able to start taking my Antibiotic treatment....
 
 
I am sharing this because in the Elderly, like myself, UTI's can result from dehydration and can lead to Sepsis which can be deadly for Seniors....
 
 
It is imperative for Seniors to drink a lot of liquids, mainly water, to prevent dehydration....

I know some people frown on drinking a lot especially if they take a "water" pill...

Well, I take a "water" pill daily and take it according to my plans for the day...

Take it when you know you are going to be home and awake for a few hours so you do not have to worry about finding a bathroom when you are out or waking you up when sleeping...

Now I do drink at least a minimum of 3 bottles of water a day in addition to my 2 cups of coffee a day....

Usually, I would try to treat it myself by drinking cranberry juice and lots of water but since I am a Senior, I was taking no chances...

I am feeling better now and will up my water intake to 4 bottles a day with a glass of cranberry juice thrown in there daily to hopefully prevent this from happening again....
 
 
 
 Joe and Joey are Happy Campers as this year Joe will be getting 2 FREE tickets to a Pittsburgh Pens Exhibition Game as he did in years past except for last year due to CoVid.....

Joey will be going with him as it is their Father and Son thing to do, being this will be the 3rd time they have traveled to Pittsburgh together....

They will be staying at the Cambria Inn which is the official Hotel of the PPG Arena and Pittsburgh Pens with an elevator that takes you right into the arena....

Joey insisted on getting the Suite ( all rooms in this Hotel are Suites) with a separate bedroom which will be for him like they had 2 years ago.....

This is the suite that they stayed in last time.....
 

 
 
 
 
 
 


Joey is paying for the room for the 2 Nights and Joe will be paying for food but I am not quite sure who is getting the better deal here as Joey loves to eat and has already been talking about where they will be going to eat!!!!

Since they have last been there, the Living Dead Museum has been moved back into the Monroeville Mall where scenes of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead were filmed....

Joey is a huge fan of Horror Movies and George Romero's works so they plan on stopping there on the way to Pittsburgh.....


And on the way home, they plan on stopping once again at the National Flight 93 Memorial Park, mainly to see the Tower of Voices, which was not there the previous time that they visited.....

 
They are looking for some other places to visit that they have not been to in the 2 times they were there before and the Hotel provides a shuttle to take them where ever they want.....

AND.....

I will have a mini vacation myself being HOME ALONE!!!!

LOL!!



Way back in the beginning of the Summer, we apparently started a Trend in our neighborhood  ....

When we landscaped my new next door neighbor's front slope, a case of the Might As Well's spread down our row of townhouses....

I will start up at the end of our row by the Woods....

This is my neighbor Sara's house which is the end unit.....
 
 
 Sara landscaped her own slope in front of her house.....

 
 Sara's next door neighbor Jonathon commissioned Sara to do his slope and front flower bed.....
 
 
 
This was Sara as she cut down trees, pulled weeds and really worked hard on Jonathon's slope....
 
 
 Before she put the mulch down.....
 
 
 Jonathon will most likely be selling his home and wanted absolutely nothing left in the yard....


 He was never into yard word, that is for sure!!!
 
 
 
 Sara had our neighbor Dave, who lives on the other side of our Court who is a Landscaper, deliver 2 truck loads of Mulch for her to use on Jonathon's yard.....
 

 She did great job, didn't she???
 
 
 
 Little 6 year old Maria who I have shown pictures of before is one of Sara's daughters......

Her other daughter Mia is 14 years old....

Next up is Brandy and her Dad Joe's yard.....

 
 I shared pictures before of the work Brandy did which involved pulling weeds, taking out a lot of plants that her Dad did not want and transplanting one of these sedum plants......
 
 
 
 
 
Here is her slope all finished.....

 
 
 
I am skipping the house next to Brandy's because they rent the house and are not into taking care of the yard that much....

Next is my neighbor Ed's front yard....


He lives in my former neighbor Elly's house and Elly planted all the perennials and ground cover on the slope....

 
Even though Ed is renting his house, he commissioned Joe and I to landscape the yard for him as it was too physically hard for him to do with his knee and hip problems....
 
 
 
 
 
You may remember we cut back Ed's Burning Bush as it was looking like it was dying.....
 

Look at it now as it is showing new growth.....


And then my neighbor Tom, who lives next to Ed, said he "Might as Well" do his too so we helped him with his yard.....
 
 
 


This is Tom's slope......

 
 He chose to leave those 2 rhododendrons as is to provide some privacy for him when he sits out in front of his house on the area we made from pavers, provided by Brandy whose Dad no longer wanted them....
 

And my next door neighbor's yard that seemed to start it all....



When we did this flower bed for my neighbor, we originally left the yews in place and just trimmed them....


Joe has now cut them both down.....

 
This is how it now looks and it is really strange to be able to see all the way down the row to the woods....


And her front slope....


 
 
 Looking up at our house from the steps......
 


 
 
 We also ended up doing the slope of the house next to us on the other side....
 
 
 
 It is owned by our neighbor Caled, who lives on the end of the row and rents this house out.....



Caled trimmed the shrubs in the front flower bed and Joe will finish cutting that one shrub down on the far left.....

When it gets a bit cooler, we will pull the weeds and put mulch down here ......


We are waiting because right now the mosquitos are out in full force and I have been getting bitten alive!!!

So that is what our row of townhouses now looks like after a Summer of Landscaping!!!

It really snowballed into a neighborhood project.....
 
But I think all our homes look much better because of it.....
 
 
 
I started the Transformation in the Living Room from Summer to Fall.....
 
First thing I did was pack away all the late Summer "Under the Sea" decorations and haul them up the attic..... 

I stripped down the Seasonal Tree......
 
 
 
 I got out the Fall/Winter linens......


Cleaned and polished furniture.....

 
 I stripped down this Tree too!!
 
 
I changed the peach doilies out for ivory ones....

 
 
 
Changed out the peach lace linens for the Fall/ Winter gold chenille ones.....
 
 
 
 
 And packed away all my "normal " decor items....


I then changed out the Summer curtains and drapes for the Winter ones....
 

I cleaned the window dividers and changed the peach lace curtains to ivory ones.....


 
 I cleaned the mirror and changed the drapes on the faux window.......

 
And even though I would have loved to have been able to have the air conditioner out of the window, it is not yet cool enough to do so and temps are supposed to be above average next week too!!!


Until we can take it out, I pulled the ivory lace curtains back and will clean the windows then....

 
 
 
 I have mentioned this a few times before but I am amazed by how much clearer I can think now that I do not have to worry about work and deal with all that stress.....

I usually like to hang things from the curtain rods including Seasonal items and it has always been a hassle using wire hooks.....

I remembered that I had peach rose bud shower hooks and they work well hung from the curtain rods and are easy to use to hang things from!!!!

I positioned them where I usually hang things so it will be simple to just change them out with the Seasons.....

 
You may remember these signs that I bought at Dollar Tree and embellished them......



I hung them here......

 
 
 
Joe helped me to flip the rug to even of the wear on it.....



This all took 3 days......

Now tomorrow ( Friday) I will start to decorate the Living room for Fall......


I have been asked many times what do I do with my "normal" decor things when I do my Seasonal decorating.....

I store them in the tubs used to store my Seasonal decorations in after I take them out.....

Now this became a problem when I started to use mostly Seasonal decorations for Fall and Christmas.....

I would pack them away in the Fall tubs but then I would have to take them out, piece by piece, and then transfer them into the Christmas tubs for storage.....

About 5 years ago, I thought of an easier way to do this.....

Now I pack my "normal" decor in small boxes after I clean everything.....

These small boxes are labelled as to where the decor items are from......

 
I then am able to put these small boxes into the tubs that hold my Seasonal decor after I empty them.....

 
 I also have the tubs marked as to where the decorations go so after they are emptied, I place these small boxes into the corresponding tubs.......


Now when I have to take down Fall and Halloween, I take the small boxes out of the Fall tubs so I can pack up those decorations and when I unpack my Christmas decorations, I simply put those small boxes into the tubs that the Christmas decorations came out of.....

The Christmas tubs are also marked as the where the decorations inside of them go so it makes it easy when I unpack them from the Christmas tubs......

After Christmas, I then put most of my "normal" things back ......

This method that I devised makes it so much easier for me......



The final thing that I want to share in this post is this beautiful Sunset......

The first few pictures were taken from the back yard as the Sun is now just barely making it around to the front of the house.....



 
These were taken from the front porch......


 
You can see how the Sun is setting close to the end of our row of houses.....



Soon, it will not be making it around to the front and our front yard will not see the Sun until April.......

I should be back to posting on my regular schedule of Sundays and Wednesdays....

And I hope to be sharing some of my Fall decorations in the Living Room......

So I hope you will stop by to visit again soon!!

Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!

Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE  give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment.  If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......


I am linking up to these parties:
 

 
Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!
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13 comments:

  1. Miss MerrySeptember 17, 2021 at 12:09 AM

    First, I am so jealous of your "alone" time! Woo Hoo! I love my husband and family dearly, but gosh, time to myself? I hope you have made plans (even if it is sleeping for 24 hours straight) so you can really enjoy it. So sorry about the uti. I have fought that battle myself. I find that if I really keep up on liquids (I am a pro at finding a bathroom), it helps flush the system. Back up is the cranberry juice, but you are right - don't hesitate on calling the doctor!

    All of the front yards look so good! It looks like they are professionally landscaped! Great job!!!! I bet you just bask in the beauty every time you open your door.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 17, 2021 at 2:58 AM

    Yes indeed everyone's front slopes look much nicer, which in turn makes your slope look much nicer. You and Joe have worked very hard and it shows (Sara too). You have the best front porch though with all your cheerful, seasonal decorations. Sounds like a good time Joe and Joey have planned. That suite is nice. And they have father and son bonding time while you get some alone time. Win-Win! LOL Hope you're feeling better from your UTI.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie-Dabble Blog and A Debbie-Dabble ChristmasSeptember 21, 2021 at 10:57 AM

      Thanks so much for visiting again!!
      Yes, I am feeling better, thank you!
      Thanks for you kind words about my porch!!
      Joe and joey are excited about going since they missed last year...and I will definitely enjoy my alone time!! LOL!!
      Hugs,
      Deb

      Delete
  3. LindaSeptember 17, 2021 at 10:25 AM

    All the precipitous slopes look wonderful. Where on earth do you keep all those boxes when they aren't in season? Hope that cipro is clearing up the infection.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie-Dabble Blog and A Debbie-Dabble ChristmasSeptember 21, 2021 at 10:52 AM

      Linda,
      I am feeling better..Thanks for asking...Okay, all inside decorations are stored up the attic. All outside decorations are stored in the storage shed that we rent and that is also where i keep my stash of empty boxes....Thanks for stopping by as often as you do!! Stay safe, healthy and happy!!
      hugs,
      Debbie

      Delete
  4. Creations By CindySeptember 17, 2021 at 5:15 PM

    I hope that you are getting much better with that UTI. Lord I've been down that road . Your porch always looks so nice. You are one talented gal. Hugs and blessings, Cindy

    ReplyDelete
  5. Carol @Comfort Spring StationSeptember 17, 2021 at 11:30 PM

    I'm glad you are feeling better. I drink cranberry juice religiously every day to prevent UTI's. It really does help me. I love how you started with your happy fall decor outside - a great way to say hello.

    ReplyDelete
  6. MinnieSeptember 18, 2021 at 12:28 AM

    Well my stars,
    The, Might as wells, all look beautiful. You should be proud.
    So sorry about your UTI. Hope you are on the mend💜
    Fall in your house is looking cozy. But I’m not surprised because you always dabble things up comfy cozy.
    Thanks for stopping by my iPad
    Blessings to you 💜
    Minnie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie-Dabble Blog and A Debbie-Dabble ChristmasSeptember 21, 2021 at 11:00 AM

      Minnie,
      Thanks so much for taking the time to drop by again!!I am just thrilled that everyone is happy with how their yards look and our row as a whole now looks...I am feeling better, thank you!! I do love the way the house looks in the Fall as the traditional Fall colors are my favorite!!
      Stay safe, healthy and happy!!
      Hugs,
      Deb

      Delete
  7. Joanne September 19, 2021 at 2:06 PM

    We went hiking this week and I think I easily have 24 bug bites up and down my arms and neck; the mosquitoes were awful! Everyone's yards are looking so nice.

    ReplyDelete
  8. My thrift store addictionSeptember 19, 2021 at 3:26 PM

    Debbie, the "might as well" landscaping looks great! I love your sunset photos too! Thanks for sharing at Vintage Charm!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Lowcarb team memberSeptember 19, 2021 at 6:04 PM

    Goodness me, you've certainly shared a lot with us in this post, thank you.
    Always good to see your photographs and those sunset ones are glorious.

    So pleased that you are now feeling better.
    Do take care, my good wishes.

    All the best Jan

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnnSeptember 26, 2021 at 4:44 PM

    Sorry to hear about your UTI, Debbie. I'm a big water-drinker too and so far, has kept UTIs away! Your home looks lovely and I love how organized you are. Thank you for sharing at Party In Your PJ's

    ReplyDelete

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