Since Rob and I were off Friday, we went shopping. Found this Danish bookcase - I love it and can't wait to get my books out of my mom's attic once summer ends!

My much-anticipated four day weekend started with a BIG bang! Near midnight on Thursday, we had huge scary gusts of wind and non-stop hail and lightning. I was afraid we would lose the big tree in the backyard or that some of our windows would shatter. Well the damage was legit...lost the tree in front yard and our wooden fence in the back. I am OK parting with them, but don't want to pay any money right now. We had the tree hauled away yesterday and Rob will get fencing bids this week. Fun fun! 40th street lost a row of power lines and has been closed since the storm...seems like Phoenix and Tempe got the brunt of it.

Rob and I sold my beloved green couch and are turning the spare room into an office. After two days of craziness at Ikea, this is the work in progress. It is coming together really well, we just need a new desk chair, some prints, and paint.

This is what our front yard looked like up until a few months ago. Since then, we have killed off the plants and ripped out the brick flower bed the previous owner had built. It blocked the built-in planter and never looked nice to us. All the plants were pretty unattractive and random.



A few weeks back we ripped out the brick, removed the plants, and started the daunting task of removing bags and bags of soil and dirt. Today we finally filled the dumpster with soil and redistributed the rock to even things out. I love the clean look, but still have to fix the landscape lighting and wait for the new plants to fill in. Slowly things are getting done, even in the 105+ degree Arizona heat.

Here are the results:

We baked some chocolate chip cookies to test out the new mixer. Quite a success - very yummy and not over/undercooked at all!!

Who knew I would be so excited to own something as domestic as this little guy? We received an unexpected late wedding gift in the form of a Crate and Barrel gift card. That gave me every reason to use my registry completion coupon! Rob is looking forward to being my guinea pig as I plan to try out many new recipes! I will post my first creation tonight.