This blog has moved!

My First Place columns can now be found on the new statesville.com:

http://www2.statesville.com/content/list/lifestyles/home/columnists/norman/

Back to summer

We've made it a full year in our first house, and just like my grass, my blog posting seems to have died.

It was looking green and promising through early May. Then spring forgot to visit and summer beat my poor seedlings into a brown fuzz. 

Speaking of droughts, the City of Statesville has lost its collective mind. Yes, Statesville may pull water from two sources, preventing drama when the Catawba River inevitably runs low. Why should we conserve? We have a backup - the Yadkin River.

What an awful way to think. I'm sure we would hate it if our neighbors up river decided they were going to be water gluttons at our expense. Sure, Charlotte should have planned better. Sure, there are always going to be people who insist that running their sprinklers in the middle of a heat-wave afternoon is their prerogative. But why should the city utilities encourage it?

It would be a lot easier to practice water conservation before it becomes necessity.

Foreclosure epidemic a blessing in disguise

A single word strikes fear in the hearts of home owners and sellers across the country.

Foreclosure.

It was a blessing for us. Brad and I bought our home from a list of foreclosed properties on the Housing and Urban Development Web site. Our real estate agent said it came with “instant equity.”

For the first-time homebuyer, that sounded great.

But as house after house on our block empties and for sale signs linger for months, we worry about that equity.

Self-doubt set in as we wondered if we had made the right decision to buy.

We’re in a good spot.

We bought our house when lenders were more likely to give loans to those without down payments and with less established credit histories.

Despite advice to the contrary, we opted for a 30-year fixed mortgage rather than an adjustable rate mortgage.

Then we did something I think many people have a hard time doing: We purposely bought a house for less than we could afford.

Then the bubble burst.

We may have to stay in our home longer than expected. We may not see that magical “instant equity” touted in closing.

But there is a reason a home is considered a long-term investment.

Accepting that changed my entire attitude.

Instead of dreaming of a vegetable garden and flower beds when we move into our more permanent house, I’m brainstorming how to arrange our current yard. I’m taking time to meet the neighbors and wave at passers-by. I’m thinking of how the office can be a nursery and how we can add shelving to the garage.

It’s reassuring to know that we have a home in a small town that has opened its arms to us.

The foreclosure epidemic has forced this transplant to sink roots deep into Statesville’s soil.

Sunshine and sizzling meat

Months of saving have come to fruition at the Norman house.

I'm a little worried about my meat consumption now that we have our own propane grill. It is way too easy to just grill up a chicken leg or chunk of dead cow.

We've had it for only three days and I've already experimented with zucchini (success) and portobello burgers (yum), too.

The best part of it all? I put the thing together all by my hard-headed self.

Wildlife

It's not often you have to watch for wildlife when mowing your yard.

I pushed our lawn mower along the side of our garage yesterday afternoon and a small critter stopped me in my tracks. I just thank God I was paying even half attention or I would have chugged along completely unaware.

This little guy was just hanging out along the wall. He didn't move when I got close to him, and he only tried to fly when I got a bucket and some gloves to move him to a safer location out of our tall grass.

Where did he come from? There are no trees in our yard, at least not large enough to support a bird nest. I thought perhaps he fell from a nest in the garage gutter, but I didn't see any twigs and the like.

Once I was finished mowing the yard I returned the baby back to the side of the garage and called Animal Control for help. They referred me to a woman who rehabilitates and releases wildlife, but she wasn't home.

I went for a run and when I got back the little guy was gone. Our neighbor's children were in their yard being dive-bombed by a mama-bird. They said the little guy made it to their bushes.

Good. Mama will take care of him. He's in better hands than my own.

Spring-ananza II

Now that's some nice looking grass! You may see red clay, but that little green fuzz is the beginning of something greener for our yard.

See my little sprouts?

Spring-ananza photos

I keep promising photos, so here they are:

I went to town on some shrubbery. The first photo is of a small cherry bush I planted on the corner of the garage. The flowers were so beautiful, but the photo made it look like it would be more of a bush than a tree.

Either way, it's on my side of the garage, so I see it every time I pull in. (Oh, I also put a few perennials in old pots - you can see one of them in the bottom of the photo).

Bumps recommended we get a Yoshino cherry tree for the south facing yard. I found one for a good price, so in the south yard it went! She said they make beautiful canopies. Let's hope ours produces some leaves and I'll be happy!

Then I attacked the utility boxes. They are hideous and stick out even more because they are at eye-level from the street. I got some edging strips that don't require digging, then filled it in with pine mulch.

The flowers are perennials (notice my theme - I'd rather they come back each year than have to get more annuals). The shrubs closest and farthest from the street are lilac bushes, and the middle is a forsythia bush.

Then we attacked the dangerous rock piles used for drainage in the back yard. I attempted to spread out the rocks last fall but stopped when I saw two Black Widow spiders lurking around.

With a borrowed shovel in hand and a helpful husband, we spread out the rocks to form an edge along our back slope. It still retains soil, but instead of two large piles it is now almost like a babbling brook.

The big black spot is where I had to fill in the hole left over from the pile. Once grass grows there it'll be a little extra piece of yard!

Yard work!

At spring's first hint of mild weather I sprinted to the home improvement store for gardening supplies.

Having no clue how to plant grass, I was motivated by the germinating seedlings on the north-side of the yard. I will not mow red dirt this summer.

After two trips to the store our yard started to take shape. Six Leyland Cypresses line the ridge of our back bank, and will hopefully provide a natural privacy screen in a few years. I also got a new hose attachment, more grass seed (it says it's drought resistant - we'll see), a container, mulch, potting soil and flowers.

The most instant gratification is on our front porch. I was scared to plant an azalea bush in the yard (after all, shrubbery is very permanent in my mind), so I planted it in a large container. I then put phlox and some other light purple flower in the bed lining the porch.

I still have a list of things, but the weather turned on me.

I want to get Brad a grill so we have a reason to go out on the patio. I also want to get a forsythia bush to hide the utility boxes in our front yard. The biggest to-do are trees. I want shade trees: one on the south and at least one on the west (back). Bumps recommended a certain kind of cherry tree, and I've also been looking at magnolias. 

I'll post photos soon.

Just say no to shopping bags

That’s my new mantra heading into the spring.

Recent stories describe the insane quantities of plastic bags consumers use and how they are almost impossible to get rid of (according to the Environmental Protection Agency, plastic bags can take 1,000 years to decompose).

So even if you reuse the mountains of bags as trash can liners or to dispose of cat waste as we do, they still end up in a hole where they’ll live well after I’m gone.

This week I jumped on the canvas bag bandwagon.

The only stores in Statesville where I’ve seen the canvas bags are Wal-Mart on Highway 21 and Bi-Lo on East Broad Street. They hang by the registers and are fairly reasonable (Wal-Mart’s are $1 each).

The bags have a square base and easily hold what three plastic bags would hold. A full-cart shopping trip last weekend resulted in five canvas bags – the same trip would have resulted in at least 10 plastic bags.

The bags also have a much longer handle, making it easier to throw a few on your shoulders with your purse. That is especially nice when you’re carrying groceries alone and don’t want to make multiple trips or cut off circulation to your fingers.

Even though stores sell them, it is obvious that the retail world is not ready for canvas bags.

The first bags I purchased were scanned by the cashier and tucked neatly in a plastic bag without hesitation. When I asked to use the bags, she looked puzzled.

I now go through self-checkouts. It’s not to avoid the cashiers, but so the cashiers can avoid me. Having worked at a Wal-Mart to pay my way through college, I remember an items-per-minute statistic kept for each cashier. It takes longer to prepare each bag, meaning less items scanned. I don’t want my canvas bags to skew a cashier’s stats.

At some stores I refuse a bag altogether. One cashier yelled down the row of registers to the door greeter, “HEY! This girl doesn’t want a bag. She paid for this stuff!” A bookstore in Charlotte asked repeatedly if I wanted a bag for two small books, and a drugstore cashier was stumped when I refused a bag for a greeting card and photos.

But despite the quizzical looks, just saying no is easier than it first seemed. Keep canvas bags in your trunk, and politely refuse bags when you don’t need them.

If not for an environmental perspective, try them out of your hatred of picking up groceries after your plastic bag rips open.

He finally got his French doors

Brad and I enjoy home improvement shows - especially the house flipping ones. It seemed they all did the same thing: Travertine, granite countertops, hardwood floors and French doors.

No, no, no, and yes. Well, sort of.

Our refrigerator is about to die. Since it looks as if it were born in the '70s, we decided to replace it rather than try to have it repaired.

The store we bought it from had a very nice deal: 18 months no interest, free delivery and free haul away/recycling.

They deliver our new French door fridge on Wednesday. The freezer is on the bottom as a drawer, and the refrigerator doors open out like the French doors from the flip shows. I can actually fit a baking sheet or casserole dish in my new fridge!

This will come in handy during the Brad Norman March Challenge.

Got my mind on my lawn

After the mud crystal aeration and relatively strange wet weather, I pulled out last year's fescue from the garage and went to town on our dirt yard.

One bag covered patches on half the yard. As I went to bed that night I smiled when I heard rain falling.

I know it's a little early to plant grass. Wait, I don't know that. I don't know anything about grass.

But I'll update if my stab in the dark is successful.

Ready and waiting

Last week's mild weather made me ready for spring.

Here's my wishlist:

1. Tree(s). If I can just have one, it will go in the large gulley washed out in our front yard. If I could get more than one, it may be Christmas at the Norman house.
2. Grass. I have a bag of drought-resistant Fescue and some fertilizer I intended to spread last fall.
3. Color. I planted a few perennials in the porch flower bed to hide a white PVC pipe, and I'm hoping these renew this spring. If not, I'd like to do some potted plants on the porch steps, or maybe on the sidewalk. If I get really crazy I might plant something new on the back slope, too.
4. Rocking chairs. I would really like to get two rocking chairs on the front porch, and perhaps spray paint them black.

Mud crystals?

The strangest thing happened to our yard after this week's snow.

I looked out our back window as the snow melted and saw what looked like loose top soil had been thrown around our yard.

I've never seen anything like it so I bundled up and went for a closer look. The photos above are what I found.

My guess is that the water soaked into our hard-as-nails red dirt yard, then froze. The ice had nowhere to go but up, so our yard is now laced with strange mud crystals.

Good news for us though. Now perhaps we won't have to aerate when we sow grass seed this spring.

Perfect timing?

I read somewhere that the days of 100 percent home financing are over. The days of forgoing the down payment are over.

I'm glad we got in the real estate game before the door closed. We would be years away from a home if we would have needed a down payment.

On another note I'm a little worried about our neighborhood. The for sale signs posted when we bought the house last summer are the same for sale signs posted halfway through winter. We don't expect to be here for more than a couple years, and the apparent selling freeze doesn't fare well with me.

Of course I'm a very firm believer in the idea that the path makes itself clear to you. The path to this house did. We were just going to "look" at houses, then this house was added to the MLS the day we set up visits. We moved in just before our lease ended. Now the door of opportunity closes behind us.

I'm not very worried about selling this house. When it's time, I think we'll know.