As promised

Bear with me, this one may get long!  There are lots and lots of pictures too.

 After a great little surprise at work, I rewarded myself with this Huffy Cranbrook Cruiser from Wal-mart.  I had been thinking about getting a bike for a couple weeks since I was tired of wasting gas whenever I needed to run short errands in Hilliard.  There's a bike lane on the main road!  I hardly ever see people using it.  I hardly ever see anyone on a bike out here, but I've always been one to go against the grain at times.  I didn't want to shell out more than $100 for my first bike in years, just because if I didn't commit myself, I wouldn't feel bad about the money.  Good news though!  I love my bike and have been going on short rides around my neighborhood every couple of days since I brought this home.  My only complaint about the bike is that it didn't come with a basket or a bell.  I did pick up this Wald 133 basket (quick release) that just hooks onto the handlebars yesterday.  If that doesn't work out, I'll track down the grocery basket that attaches to the frame.  And maybe one day I'll get myself a Schwinn Cream or another attractive cruiser!

 Remember my rant about my storm door?  My step-dad was kind enough to solve that problem for me once again last weekend.  I gave him a small list of little things to fix throughout the house when he was here, which were mainly things I wanted to do but didn't know how.

 This always baffled me.  I love this thing because I put the shovels, brooms, etc. on here.  But it never made sense why it blocked the electrical outlet once you put stuff on it.  It's been relocated to the other side of the garage and placed at a much friendlier short girl level.

The light works!  YAAAAAY!  I thought the fan was broken too, but it turns out that it's just really quiet.

 This hook was relocated next to the front steps.  The petunias have since been moved to the steps because they were weighing down the hook and pulling it forward.  Oops!

My poor tree.  I put some Round-Up all over those weeds and started pulling and trimming, only to discover that some of these weeds have roots an inch thick and are buried deep into the ground.  I tried digging them up but it's pretty much useless.  I need to borrow my neighbors' clippers with the longer handles so that I can trim these buggers low enough to the soil that I can place Weed-X over them and cover it all with mulch.  The weeds on the back side are about three inches tall, and I can't cut them with my little hand clippers because they're so thick.

I found out from some neighbors that the previous owners last year just stopped paying attention to yard work.  They would mow but that was about it.  I thought at first that the insane weeds around the tree out front were due to negligence on their end, but with how thick some of these are, I'd say it's been a few years since those were addressed.  I'm the fourth owner of this house, so I think it's been an issue since owner number one.  Each owner would do something to address the problem, and it finally ended with someone putting down a mulch-looking pad of sorts on top of the weeds and hoping for the best.  My poor little tree!  I'm going to work on it as best I can this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, it's the Columbus Pride Festival today!  I'm bummed I can't go.  I'm working the weekend part-time job (the one that pays for gas and groceries) during the afternoon and may just stay home tonight to avoid looking for parking in town tonight.  Parking is always annoying on weekends, but I'm sure it would be even worse today.  People are coming from all over to attend this.  Perhaps Chloe and I will go for a bike ride to get sushi tonight?

To end this looooong post, enjoy some puppy pictures!