Why in the world would a single girl like Valentine’s Day?

Because when you’re single, you can get flowers from lots of boys instead of just one, that’s why.

Not that I got tons of flowers, but I got some. And I got dinners out with single guy friends, and chocolates and all those sweet Valentine’s Day-y things. Now that I’m not single, Valentine’s Day isn’t as big a deal anymore. I mean, I’m completely and supremely loved every day, not just once a year. I do still like to show D how much I appreciate him, though. So I decided to put my Christmas tools to good use and make him something.

Back in DC, we had this terrific little entry-way “landing strip” that we got from Ikea. It had a magnetic blackboard, a couple hooks and a teeny shelf that I used for random mail and the laundry cards. We used it to store our keys, dog bags, metro cards – basically anything that we would just kind of set down wherever as soon as we got inside the apartment. Well, when we left DC, we left it in the building’s freecycle. I don’t know why I did that. I loved that little thing.

Without a landing strip, we ended up putting stuff on the kitchen counter. It wasn’t long before the countertop was covered with junk mail flyers, coupons, keys, wallets, etc. I totally don’t mind clutter, but D hates it. So, for Valentine’s Day, I decided to build D a landing strip.

These are the sides. The idea was to cut them separately, then clamp them together to make sure they matched. They didn’t.

See? Straight lines, not my forte.

This is my “ah, screw it” face. (Note the safety glasses. I think they make me look awesome.)

So I kept them clamped together and used the sander attachment to sand them even with each other. It worked, mostly. I mean, if you look closely at it, you can tell it’s definitely homemade. Actually, you can probably tell at a glance that it’s homemade. And made by a complete novice. But whatever.

And so after all the cutting, it was time for assembly. The instructions said that the cutting part would be the hardest, but that was a complete lie. How the heck am I supposed to hold it together and hammer at the same time? And make sure it’s straight?

So I just decided to balance everything on its side and go nuts with some wood glue.

It worked. Mostly.

Part 2 coming soon.

I cannot wait until the bar exam. I’m going to spend days just organizing and cleaning.

Anyway, this is an ongoing project that I’ve been working on since we moved in. Yes, it’s been six months now. I didn’t have a yard in DC, obviously, and I promised myself that as soon as I moved, I’d start gardening. I wanted to plant spring bulbs and maybe a flower bush or two, maybe some grass for the dogs to run around in… Well, this is what I started with:

Actually, that’s not quite true. That’s much better than what I started with. When I first got here, the yard was completely overgrown. There were weird pavers (stacked on the stairs in the photo) kind of randomly placed (with concrete poured around them, wtf), a leggy half-dead rose bush in the upper left corner and a weird pokey shrub in the lower left corner. Oh, and you see that cart full of rocks? Those rocks were scattered around like a poor approximation of a “border” (for what? I don’t know, because there weren’t any flowers…) and there were random stone “sculpture” things kind of scattered around the yard. It was a mess.

So I hired an illegal immigrant to clear it out for me. (I wasn’t about to tote all that concrete around on my own! I tried putting it in the trash, but the trash people wouldn’t take it…)

I asked him to take out all of the rose bush roots and all the rocks (there were also random rocks just kind of mixed in with the soil, which made digging impossible.) I also asked him to level the yard out, so there weren’t holes and whatnot where he’d pried out rocks. He did a pretty good job… except that, instead of removing a bunch of the rocks, he just smoothed the dirt over them. I didn’t find out until I tried breaking up the soil and realized that it was rocks.

So I went out and bought more dirt to cover them up. My yard’s a little taller now, but who cares.

After that whole mess, I decided to lay sod. Have you ever laid down sod? It sucks. The rolls are heavy and constantly shedding dirt all over you. Also, we live in a townhouse, which means I had to walk to the parking lot, then around my neighbor’s house, through her back yard and finally into my own yard. Like, 20 times. This was the result (note the patch of extra dark soil in the upper right corner by the sod… I bought that to cover the rocks so I wouldn’t have to hire another immigrant to tote them away again):

That was all in December. Then Christmas happened, and bar exam study started, and I forgot what outside looked like. Until today. I’ve been chilling at Lowe’s lately, buying wood and whatnot, so I decided to stop by their garden center and bought a ton (probably not literally, but when I had to carry each one, one at a time, it sure felt like it) of concrete border things. I took out all the rocks the last tenant left behind, and now I’m putting my own damn rocks back in.

And that’s kind of what it looks like now. I’m pretty sure I took that photo today, but… what day is it? I totally can’t remember insignificant things like that. My brain is way to full of rules about when things need to be filed and whether or not someone is vicariously liable for something and something about contracts (I did NOT like the contracts lecturer, and I think my brain shut itself off during her 7 hours of lectures…) (Also, please note the cart full of leftover sod… from TWO MONTHS AGO. I tell you, I’ve been busy.)

So now I’m going to be spreading leftover dirt in the beds there, and finally planting my bulbs. They’ve been hanging out in a corner of the living room for the past five or so months, and I think I read somewhere that they need cold temps before spring comes so they can bloom or something. You know, that’s why you have to plant in the fall. I think. Anyway, they’ve been at a comfortable 72 degrees for the past five months, and it’s already starting to warm up outside, so yesterday (earlier today? I don’t remember) I stuck them in the freezer to trick them into thinking they had a winter.

I’ll probably plant them this weekend. I hope they bloom.

I’ve been doing bar exam study, but I don’t know if any of it is sticking (I’m guessing no) and I’ve been doing a little wedding planning. I think I found The Dress. We found a baker and a venue, and now I’m looking for an officiant. I have no idea how to go about finding a damn officiant. Supposedly I should have done this ages ago. So maybe we’ll have a wedding, but no legal marriage. I don’t know. I can’t care about it right now.

I’m going to sleep.

Anyway, I prepped some fabric last night so I could cut it today. I used a stamp pad I got to mark the pattern I wanted to cut, which turned out to be a mistake. Oh, the pattern is clear enough on the fabric, and I remembered to bring my fabric scissors, so the cutting is going well, however the stamp ink isn’t very… permanent. Until it touches my skin, after which no amount of scrubbing will remove it.

Somehow I got some on my face and I can’t get it off.