I have posted several times here about my love for cooking and you may have wondered how that happened. In 2004, we were doing a complete remodel of our home and Michele and I had a couple of disagreements about what we wanted. One of the things I wanted was a gas stove. She was against it. The house she lived in during high school was sold to a fellow who thought he knew how to install a gas hot water heater. He didn’t. The house burned down so her concerns were legitimate. I told her that it was safe and that the appliances would all be professionally installed. I even told her that I would personally test each one. She wouldn’t budge. I then told her that if we put in a gas stove, I would help with the cooking. That was all it took. I never knew that, even though she was good at it, cooking was her least favorite chore. She would have much rather worked in the yard. From that point on, except when I was traveling, I did all of the cooking and she did all of the yard work. We were both happy.

I don’t think I ever realized how much work she used to do in the yard, and it has been neglected for the last few years. A few months ago, Karl and I started a multi-year project of re-landscaping the house. First we cleaned out a bunch of weeds and trimmed back all of the bushes. Then we took on the front yard which is divided into roughly five sections. We tackled our most ambitious project first, which was to remove all of the Jasmine in the large section by the road and replant with something a little more interesting. Melissa, our office manager, used to work at a nursery and was a big help. I realize that it may not be up to the standards of all of you professionals out there but I am pretty proud of it and I believe Michele would love it too. As a reference, The oak tree you see in the middle was planted by Michele as a sapling.