As promised, I am back to recap some of my recent 40 by 40 List accomplishments! All of these were things that were done close to home.
4. Redo My Front Yard
This was one of the tasks I was most excited about when I put it on my list. Aside from the occasional seasonal flowers, I hadn’t changed anything in my front yard since I moved into my house over eight years ago. Mostly because I didn’t want to have it landscaped and then accidentally kill everything.
Then last spring, the horrible tree in my front yard had the good sense to blow over in a storm. The only downside to this development was that the afternoon sun now had clearance to blaze through my living room windows. So, it was finally time to track down someone to spruce up my front yard.
After plenty of research, I decided on Mill Creek Landscaping, and it was a fantastic decision. When Julie came out to see my current yard, we chatted for a few minutes and I told her I needed something low maintenance and that I’d like the beds extended around the walkway up to my front door. Within a few days, she had drawn up a plan that was absolutely PERFECT. Lots of variety, lots of purple and lots of easy plants. It makes the front of my house look so much more inviting and I loved working with them.
5. Reread Harry Potter
Not too much to say about checking off this task, but it is always lovely to return to this world and feel the embrace of characters you love. It’s imperfect, parts of it haven’t aged well, and it’s devastating to learn the author is rather awful, but I hope it still brings good to the people who need it.
34. Buy a Bike
So this is an item I changed on my list. The task was originally to buy a bike and ride it to Katfish Katy’s. Bad news. Katfish Katy’s is closed. That info combined with the fact that I have an adventure planned to walk or bike the entire MKT Trail meant that I decided to cull this item back to simply buying a bike.
When I was a kid, we rode our bikes all over the place. Our neighborhood was full of hills and a park you could tear through on your bike to get to the other side. But to be honest, I hadn’t ridden a bike (except for a spin bike a few times) since my first year of college. But after my friend Sara raved about her new bike, I knew it was time to go shopping.
I headed down to CycleX and within about 30 minutes, I was leaving with a shiny new bike and helmet. I can freely admit that I haven’t ridden it as much as I would like, but I do love knowing I can hop on it anytime and cruise around my neighborhood again.
37. Clean Out All the Things Still at My Mom’s House
Now, this was a fun one! For many years my mom has been asking me to come clean out the many possessions I still had boxed up in her basement. I promised her it would get done because I had it on this list, so I took an afternoon off work and we got to it!
My mom had already pulled together the 20 or so boxes still at her house. When we opened the first, we were greeted with all of my school papers. All of them. From preschool to high school. That box definitely took the longest to sort through but was likely also the source of some of our most hilarious finds, including an essay I wrote about my sister when she was five.
Other notable discoveries in our day included: my snow globe collection, my rock collection, middle school notes from friends, the boa I wore on my 21st birthday and so much more. I was definitely in a ruthless mood, so I managed to pare things down to one file box and one box of books to leave at Mom’s (she has better temperature control) and one box of photos and one box of randomness coming back to my house. It was a blast to go through everything and I know Mom is happy to have it out of her house. Check it off the list!
Those are my recent “On the Home Front” tasks from my 40 by 40 list. Next month, I’ll catch you up on my travel-related accomplishments.
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