HannahBerry

April 15, 2009

Asoshiated Prehess

JACKSONVILLE, NC. Population experts are concered about how skinny jeans may affect future growth of the US.  Many experts believe a rise in a fashion trend dubbed, “skinny jeans” may have adverse affects down the road.  Skinny jeans are just as the name implies, skinny.  From the waist to the ankle, these jeans hug every curve of a person’s legs and namely, the male reproductive organs.  Dr. Sanford, urologist at the Center for Male Reproductive Medicine, says this trend could spell disaster for males who wish to have a family.  “When the testicles sit too close to the body for extended periods of time, it causes a decrease in quality sperm production.  The testicles need to stay at a temperature lower than can be acheived while wearing skinny jeans.”

Beware young emo kids.  Infertility is coming for you.

Like many BlackBerry addicts, I cannot imagine my life without my trusty little BlackBerry.  How did I live life without it?  Picture this…

I’m traveling on business to a city I have little knowledge of.  I printed off directions to my hotel and the place where my business meet is to be held.  I know that up the street there are a few restaurants where I can have dinner but other than that, I don’t know where anything is or how to navigate my way around this strange city.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have Google Maps with GPS in the palm of my hand? Enter, BlackBerry Bold.  Ta da! What am I in the mood for? Frozen custard? Search it, map it, drive to it.  Easy. Getting lost? A thing of the past!

I ran out of milk. Again.  And dog food. Where’s my shopping list? My purse is full of receipts, random junk mail and who knows what else? Argh where is my shopping list?!  Ah here it is. No wait, that was last week’s shopping list.  I already got those things at the store.  Why didn’t I throw this away and where is my most recent one?  Enter, BlackBerry Bold! (Ok ok, you can throw in your own model BlackBerry in but I have a soft spot in my heart for my Bold) Where’s my shopping list?  In my MemoPad of course.  When I run out of something, I’ll pull out my BlackBerry and type it in. I never forget what I’m supposed to buy.  Why would I write a shopping list on a piece of paper that I’m probably going to lose anyway? 

It’s been a long day and I’m tired.  The last thing I feel like doing is sitting down at my computer desk to check my Facebook, personal email, MySpace, etc.  I’d much rather make dinner for my family and spend some time with them before drifting off to sleep.  Without my BlackBerry, sitting down at the computer for hours on end was my life.  Now, when I’m sitting in the doctors office, waiting in a ridiculous line or just plain stuck somewhere completely bored, I can pull out my BlackBerry and respond to the emails, Facebook updates and make sure my bills got paid.  All while being somewhere I’m supposed to be anyway! While sitting at the computer may be required, it won’t take me nearly as long to complete the tasks on it.  Result; I am more productive because I can use the time I have in better ways therefore giving me more time with my family at home. Everyone wins.

Aunt Mildred’s birthday is when? I forgot where I wrote it down.  There’s a stray dog running around the neighborhood, what’s the number to Animal Control again?  I can never find it in the phonebook.  Mary wants to know what my hairdressers number is.  I know her business card is here somewhere.  My BlackBerry holds all my contacts.  I rarely keep business cards in my wallet because as soon as I enter the contact into my BlackBerry, I can toss it.  (Exception: my hairdresser, who everyone seems to want the number for, I have a stash of hers)  Why keep the card when I can just as easily pull up the same info on my BlackBerry for easy reference?  After all, the editable fields in the BlackBerry can hold name, company, email address, phone numbers, fax number, work address, home address, even birthday and anniversary! Bonus, when enter Aunt Mildred’s birthday into her contact entry, it automatically appears on your calender.  

Before BlackBerry, I had to make sure I was in front of my computer when an auction ended on a eBay item I really really wanted.  Now, I can increase my bid wherever I am. (Great, says my husband, you can buy more stuff)

Before becoming a BlackBerry user, I had my hands full.  If I carried everything inside my BlackBerry around with me all the time, I would need a larger purse.  Here’s what I mean.  I’d need a phone, camera, video camera, an agenda planner, an address book, a map, a GPS system, an mp4 player, a calculator, an alarm clock and a laptop.  That’s a lot of stuff.  My chiropractor would surely disapprove.  Good thing he’s a BlackBerry user himself (Shout out to Dr. Sparks!)

So as you can see, my BlackBerry has become a huge part of my life, as am sure it has yours if you’re a BlackBerry user.

I’ve had three days of continuous Storm use.  I wanted to give it a proper chance considering I’ve been an Bold user since November 2008.  I still think the Bold is the best BlackBerry I’ve ever used but I have a new appreciation for the Storm I never would have had had I not had the chance to use it.

I’ve noticed some noted differences between the Bold and Storm (big surprise right?).  For example, inside BlackBerry Messenger my conversations appear with a one line preview of what the contact has sent.  On the Bold, it shows the contact name but no conversation preview.  If the contact has sent a new message the name appears bold and the smiley face next to the name is yellow.  I like the Bold’s format better.  Not only is it a cleaner appearance, it saves space on the screen.

Another difference between the two is the weight.  It might not seem like a big deal but I can definitely notice that the Storm is slightly heavier than the Bold.  After carrying the Storm these past few days, my Bold seems light as a feather.

I want to touch on the sound profiles aspect again.  I still think it’s more of a pain to set up the profiles on the Storm than it is on the Bold.  One reason, the Storm gives you a 1 to 10 scale of volume for each notification sound.  This seems overkill.  Low, Medium and High were fine choices for volume in my opinion.  I don’t need a scale to choose from.

Perhaps its because the Storm I have is unlocked and previously used on a CDMA network but whenever I click into the phone application, My Number: 312-xxx-xxx appears at the top of the screen.  On my Bold, and Curve for that matter, you could choose to hide My Number from appearing on the phone screen.  I have yet to find how to do this on the Storm.  Maybe it’s programmed into the CDMA portion of the phone, I have no idea.

I have become better at typing on the Storm these past few days.  At first I hated it.  No question, it is more difficult but once you get some practice, it’s not that terribly bad. I think the upgrade I did to the .114 OS helped a little as well.  It made the keyboard more responsive and the accelerometer faster as well.

Am I going to give up my Bold in favor of the Storm?  No.  The fact is, I am more productive with a physical keyboard and I crave 3G speed.  I can appreciate the Storm for what it does but I cannot live without what the Bold is capable of.

James asks, “Do you use your Bold’s WiFi? Do you miss your off screen keyboard?” I really have no need to use WiFi where I work and live.  I live in a 3G market so my data speeds are plenty fast pretty much wherever I go.  I have AT&T service everywhere I need it.  At home, I use WiFi for my PC and Mac but to be honest it’s kind of slow.  I live in a new construction home where Embarq has not yet installed high speed DSL lines.  I have the lowest DSL speed avaliable for the time being.  I think it would be pointless for me to hook into my home’s WiFi network because at this point, 3G speed is faster.  So no James, I don’t use my WiFI.  However, I do see it’s advantages.  If I worked in a large buidling where AT&T signal did not penetrate, I’d use the WiFi all the time.  If I did not live in a 3G market and had a higher speed DSL line in my house, most definetly I would use the WiFi.

Do I miss my off screen keyboard?  Yes, of course.  I can bang out an email at 40 or more wpm on my Bold.  On my Storm? Not so much.  It is harder to be accurate when your fingers cover up the letters on the screen.  I usually type without looking at the keys on my Bold.  On my Storm, I must be vigilant of what I’m typing so that I don’t have to go back and correct my mistakes (which is kind of a pain in the butt by the way).  One thing I miss is the shift key.  On my Bold it’s super easy to type a series of numbers or symbols by holding down the shift key.  On the Storm you must press the shift key before typing a number or symbol.  Perhaps I am doing it wrong but this is how I would type a phone number.  Shift 9, Shift 1, shift 0…and so on.  I’d like to know if you can lock the shift key to keep the numbers on the screen while you type the series of numbers.

I ordered a clear plastic case for my Storm off eBay last week and recieved it today.  It’s a god send.  Sure, it makes the whole phone a bit more bulkier but for me, a female with large hands, it helps me to grip it with ease.  I find that I can type faster and navigate better with a bit of something to hold on to.  Side note, I also ordered a Zagg Invisible Sheild for the screen.  I have one for my Bold, my Mac and my husbands Mac as well.  They are AMAZING.  Not only does it cut down on finger prints, it protects the screen from scratches in the best possible way.  Check it out if you haven’t already.  It was super easy to put on if you follow the directions exactly.

Yesterday I wrote about needing GPS.  Well since AT&T doesn’t carry the Storm, there isn’t a AT&T Navigator for the Storm.  I downloaded the version for the Bold hoping it would work but it doesn’t look like its going to.  I’m going to have to try something else.  Google Maps is cool and all but I’d like for the GPS to talk to me and tell me where I am going.  Anyone have any suggestions?  I’ve never bothered to seek out an alternate solution because AT&T Nav has always worked fine.

One of my favorite things about BlackBerry’s are the various themes you can use on them.  On my Bold I use the iBerry 2.0 Today Plus theme from bplay.com.  I’m not going to lie, I love the icons on the iPhone.  They are simple and easy to read.  Plus I love the colors.  If I’m going to have a half VGA screen like the Bold has, I might as well make it look pretty.  I downloaded the iBerry Neo Zen theme from Bplay. I love it.  I will download Capture It and take a few screen shots to share in my next entry.

This morning I downloaded all of my favorite third party apps.  They work the same as on my Bold except for the Weather Eye one.  Weather Eye is my favorite weather app for BlackBerry because it’s simple.  I don’t care about anything but the forecast and that’s what it delivers.  In a crisp, clear format, I can see what the temperature is currently and what it will be for the next 5 days or so.  At the bottom of the screen I can just touch which forecast I’d like to see, short term, long term or current.  It’s beautifully simple.

One problem I am experiencing with the Storm is that it periodically freezes up on me.  I’ll be messaging away and all of the sudden, my finger presses to do not elicite a response on the screen. It only lasts a few seconds but even still, it is aggravating.  My Bold rarely freezes up on me.  The worst thing it does is a random reboot.  The Storm hasn’t done that on me yet.  We’ll see as time goes by whether that stays true or not.  A RIM rep told me that the most current version of the Storm’s OS isn’t very stable.  Perhaps this is what he meant?

I loaded all of my music to the included 8GB memory card yesterday and am very impressed with the music player.  I find it easy to skip between songs.  This is helpful for me at the gym because I don’t want to hear James Blunt when I’m trying to keep a good pace on the elipical, I’d rather hear Beyonce.  One of these days I need to make a gym playlist.  That would solve the problem of having to skip songs now wouldn’t it?

Time to hit the gym…

The background:  I live on my BlackBerry Bold.  I use it for SMS & MMS, email, Facebook, BlackBerry Messenger, GoogleTalk, Twitter and AIM to keep in touch with friends, family, Great Dane contacts and my Arbonne business clients.  I use my calender for all my appointments, my to-do list holds is complete and my Memo Pad is where I store my Shopping List, songs I hear that I want to download, a birthday list of my family and various other things.  In short, my BlackBerry holds my life.  I am a heavy user.

As a die hard BlackBerry fan, I had to see what the hype was about the BlackBerry Storm for myself.  As I’m sure you have been, I have been seeing commericals about the Storm all over the TV for quite awhile.  They rave of it’s music capability with Rhaposdy, the ease with which you can do banking on the go, and also how you can use your Storm while traveling abroad.  Clearly, the marketing executives at Verizon know what they are doing.  They sucked me in.

I purchased my Storm on eBay for a decent price.  It came branded Verizon with everything that came in the original box.  The seller said it was unlocked but it was not.  Not a problem, I paid the $19.99 at UniquePhones.com and got it unlocked (got a refund from the eBay seller as well).  SMS, email, BlackBerry Messenger and phone calls all worked but I was missing the BlackBerry browser and the ability to send and recieve MMS.  A quick search on CrackBerry.com told me that I needed to follow these directions to make my unlocked Storm fully functional.  The process looked complicated at first but I was able to do it without trouble in 20 minutes flat.  I now have a fully fuctional Storm sitting before me.  Immeidatly I downloaded AT&T Navigator.  I MUST have GPS, it’s kind of a big deal.

My inital thoughts, before cracking it to work to its fullest potential on AT&T, are in list form below.

Typing.  The screen makes a clicking sound and motion when you press down on it.  It’s a satisfying click, like you have done something good but, no doubt will get annoying over time.  You have to press down kind of hard to get the response you want at times.  This will tire my fingers out when I have to type lenghy emails, which I do on a regular basis.

Camera.  I was most excited about this feature when I chose to purchse a Storm.  It’s camera is a 3.2 MP.  Supposed to be better than my Bold’s 2.0 MP.  Am I impressed?  Not really.  It has Auto Focus.  Big deal.  What does that mean to me?  That is takes a long time to take the picture that’s what.  It is very much like a “real” digital camera in that when you press the button, it has a delay before the picture is captured.  This is confusing to me because when I pull out my cell phone camera, I want it to take a quick photo while I’m on the go.

Profiles.  One of the things I love about BlackBerry is the fact that I can set sound profiles to reflect the enviroment in which I am spending time.  For example, when I’m in a meeting and cannot be bothered by message tones but I still want to recieve phone calls, I switch my profile to “Phone Only”.  When I’m at work, I want my messages to sound but not my phone calls so I created a profile called “Messages Only.”  I find this very helpful.  It’s a one click solution.  Desktop manager is supposed to transfer profile settings from one BlackBerry to another when using the Restore option.  It didn’t this time.  The profiles I worked hard to customize did not transfer over to the Storm.  I had to take 20 minutes and customize each profile within the Storm.  Hard? No.  Time consuming and annoying? Yes.  They are set up differently than the Bold is.  I’m not sure why.  I’m not sure if I like the way they are set up.

I am going to use the Storm continuously for the next two days and blog some more.

Urban dictionary defines the term bucket list as a list of things to do before you die.

After my BFF Megan saw the movie by the same title starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, she created her bucket list.  She hasn’t shared this list with me per say but whenever she’s bored she asks me to do something with her to cross off her bucket list.  The latest, renting a metel dectector and combing the beach for treasure.  This sounds like tons of fun and now that you mention it Megan, I’ve always wanted to do that.

Megan, you’ve sparked me to create my own Bucket List.  Here it goes.

• Go alligator hunting.  No, not with a gun.  With a camera.  I wouldn’t want to hurt it, I’d just ask it to pose with me for a picture or two.
• Take the boating class on base and rent a jet ski for a day.
• Get a map of the stars and on a clear night, find as many constellations on the sky as I could.
• Discover a hidden place on a random dirt road somewhere.  Visit said place often to relax and take in God’s nature.
• Go skinny dipping.
• Go bungee jumping.
• “Adopt” a couple kids for the day and take them for an adventure their parents may not be able to afford.
• Pay off a family members debt for them without their knowledge.
• Go to the beach after the tide goes out looking for sharks teeth.
• Visit Washington DC.
• Visit my cousins in South Africa where they are missionaries to the AIDS patients (see my link to the Farran website on the side).
• Visit the caves in Kentucky.  Or is it Tennessee? No matter, I’ve always wanted to see the stalagmites.
• Go scuba diving.  I have always always wanted to do this.  I am slightly afraid of the ocean because I’m not a great swimmer but am fascinated by what it contains.
• Become a better swimmer.
• Go for a day trip in a row boat.  Pack a picnic lunch.
• Rent a beach house for the weekend.
• Hike through the Appalachian mountains.
• Take a cruise. I’d prefer somewhere warm although many people say the Alaskan cruises are the most beautiful.
• Sleep outside and wake to the sunrise.
• Read the entire Bible.
• Visit a orphanage somewhere.  Perhaps a week long missions trip?
• See Niagara Falls.
• I’ve been to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio countless times but I’d like to go back.  I absolutely love rollarcoasters.

I will add more as I think of them.

Originally posted on Facebook, here are 25 totally random things about me. Enjoy!

1) I hate chewing gum. I will only chew it in dire circumstances, like when I had Olive Garden for lunch and I’m fresh out of mints. I hate smelling the chewing gum that others are chewing. Gross! I can’t explain this.

2) Besides the US, I’ve only ever been to Canada. Windsor to be exact. And since it’s right across the bridge from Detroit, MI, I’m not sure it even counts as “international travel”.

3) I like chocolate but I generally can’t stand chocolate flavored things. I’d choose vanilla ice cream over chocolate ice cream any day but hand me a Dove candy bar and I’m as happy as a lark in the park.

4) My nose bleeds frequently in the winter. Sometimes without warning. So help a sister out and tell me if I have blood running down my top lip, please!

5) I am prejudice against small dogs. The bigger the better, I always say.

6) Blame it on my mom losing me in the grocery store when I was a child, but I hate getting lost. If I am shopping with you and you tell me you’ll be right back and you’re not, you better believe you’re going to hear your name over the loudspeaker. Don’t leave me.

7) I cannot live without my BlackBerry and think almost everyone should have one. Because everything important is accessible via my BB, I rarely sit down at my computer desk unless I’m doing my budget or writing Christmas cards.

I do my best to avoid taking pills. If it can’t be solved by a tall glass of water and a nap, it’s probably all in your head.

9) My favorite animal is a monkey. I used to collect them. Stuffed, ceramic, even made from coconut. I had them all.

10) I have never had a home phone of my own until moving into this house and I don’t even use it now. Cell phones and brain cancer? Rubbish.

11) I’m no good at video games of any sort and do not wish to learn how to play them. A good game of Euchre or Twister is what I’m all about.

12) When I clean the house, I start with the kitchen. Once that’s done I feel as though my house is 10 times cleaner already.

13) I love vegetables of all kinds but don’t ask me to eat asparagus, squash, zucchini or cabbage.

14) I hate drama. I do my best to live my life drama free and I don’t care to keep up with whatever drama you have going on. Leave me out of it.

15) I prefer stick shift over automatic.

16) I make decisions hastily and am usually right.

17) As a general rule, I hate talking on the phone.

18) I have never been good at sports. People assume that since I am tall and thin that I played basketball or volleyball. So not the case.

19) MaLinda says I’m too pretty to be nice. I say I’m just as nice as ugly people LOL.

20) I love to speed. I like anything that goes fast. I once did 60 mph on a jet ski and 104 on Camden Rd. Those of you who know what Camden Rd is, I think you know why I did it.

21) I am sarcastic and dry humored. Don’t jump to conclusions when you hear what I say, read between the lines.

22) I don’t like bars. Not only are most of them skanky, you leave there smelling bad and looking worse. Around here anyway…

23) Thanks to the high metabolism my dad gave me, I wear the same size in jeans as I did in high school.

24) I rarely keep up with what’s going on around me in the news.

25) I prefer water over pop, broccoli over french fries and an apple over potato chips. I don’t eat fast food and I always eat breakfast.

Nothing can truly take the place of a human voice when communicating with another individual. In this day and age, we have so many ways to communicate with those around us but nothing can take the place of face to face or voice to voice communication.

If you’re like me, email is a big part of how I stay in touch with family, friends, even strangers. I go online to keep in touch with friends on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. I communicate via email to sell items on Lejeune Yard Sales and eBay. I get email right on my BlackBerry so it makes it super easy for me to get what I need done, done. The hard part comes when I misunderstand email. You cannot hear a person’s tone of voice through email and therefore it can become difficult to know what the person really wants or needs from me.
Today, like many other days, I received several emails regarding the firewood I am selling on Lejeune Yard Sales. One of the buyers was very nice and ended up coming to my house within a few hours to purchase a truckload of wood. Two other email inquiries I received disturbed me.
My ad says, “Do you need good quality firewood? You found it. For just $60 per truck load, you can heat your home this winter. We have plenty. Hardwood, not pine. We are located off *leftblank* Rd. For an extra $20, we can deliver to your home.”
The emails I received said this, “is it cut and can i have #”
That’s it.
No punctuation…heck, it’s not even a complete sentence.
So I tell the person, “I have a load of unsplit wood that is in managable size logs for $60.
I also have a load of split wood for $120.
Which would you like??”
And she says, “unsplit number and address”
Strike two.
Her inability to form a complete sentence doesn’t make me want to readily give my phone number and home address to her. Come on, would you give your address to a person who typed, much less TALKED like that? I didn’t think so. I think even if I did give her my information, she probably wouldn’t have shown up to purchase the wood anyway!
People are crazy! There ought to be a class on how to communicate online. I know there are plenty of pages explaining the basics of online etiquette, like how THIS IS SCREAMING and that yoU sHouLd neVeR, unDer AnY cIrcuMstAncES tyPe LiKe ThIs beCauSe it MAkes yOU sEeM lIkE a 12 YeAr oLd. The problem is, no one reads those pages. And even if they did, they don’t type like it. I guess poor online communication skills are just a pet peeve of mine. If you can’t speak well online, you probably can’t speak well in real life and I don’t care for that.
Just my two cents.

Friday, November 14, 2008. I purchased the BlackBerry Bold 9000 from an AT&T store in North Carolina. It’s what I’ve been waiting for all these months! I finally had 3G speed in the palm of my hand. I could view and edit MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, record video, be on the internet and talk on the phone at the same time (take that Verizon!)…in short, I was ecstatic. I sent my husband a picture of me holding it up showing it off like a new baby.

The Bold is everything I’ve been dreaming about and more. First off, the screen is to die for. If that doesn’t catch your attention right away, you need to have your eyes checked. It’s a half VGA, which means pretty much nothing to me. I just think it looks like an HD plasma TV. Yes my friends, it’s that good. Then there’s the housing and keyboard. It’s attractively packaged in smooth black plastic with a leatherette backing. It feels great in your hands. Solid and smooth. RIM did a great job with the packaging.

I immediatly downloaded the iBerry 2.0 theme from bPlay.com because I adore the iPhone icons. They are easy to read and colorful. I didn’t care too much for the two themes that came standard. The gray icons were difficult to tell apart.

Using the BlackBerry Desktop Manager, I did the Switch Device wizard to transfer my information from my 8310 to the new Bold. That process was a little disappointing to me. It didn’t transfer the information I needed it to! I only got 35 of my 400+ contacts and my profile settings and sounds did not transfer. I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for this but when I have to spend 15 minutes redoing my message sounds, it’s frustrating. I have a different sound for everything. One for SMS and MMS, a different one for email, Facebook, BB Messenger and GoogleTalk. That way I know what kind of message I am receiving when I hear my BlackBerry go off.

Everything was going great until that evening before bed. I don’t know what caused it but I had a series of Uncaught Exception errors. My Bold crashed. When a battery pull and clearing of the event log did not work, I did a wipe handheld. As I watched the little black bar go across the screen wiping…wiping…I thought for sure I’d made a mistake in purchasing this sexy device. I was devastated and disappointed in myself. How could I have spent this much money and not even 24 hours later my device is broken? After the wipe, I restored it with the information backed up on my computer. It’s never been better! I haven’t had any errors or mishaps since. I am not worried about this slip up. Technology isn’t perfect after all.

All in all, I am VERY happy with my Bold. This smartphone has everything. Although I do wish it could remote start my car. That would be nice.

In other news…the long anticipated MySpace application for BlackBerry smartphones has been released. If you’re like me, you were super excited to see its release. Having it on my BlackBerry means less time sitting in front of the computer at home to check my messages and comments. I can take MySpace with me on the go. Very useful. I downloaded it on my 8310 at first and then on my Bold. Both times, the app failed to perform.

The concept of the MySpace app is much like the Facebook for BlackBerry app. It’s set up much the same on the screen. I have found one difference however. No push notifications! Common sense told me to have email notifications going to an email account I have set up on my BlackBerry. I thought maybe they would bypass my inbox, and go straight to the MySpace app (this is how the Facebook app works) but I was very wrong! I had a friend comment on my page just as a test. I got the email notifying me that the said friend had left me a comment but no notification from my MySpace app. I checked the settings, made sure I was logged in, etc. No luck. So I researched it on Google. No luck. What’s the point of having a MySpace app if there are no push notifications?? RIM, you have failed me on this one. Step it up.

Living in the middle of nowhere has its advantages…and disadvantages. One one hand, you’re away from the city life which is perfect if you crave solitude and peace. But on the other hand, it’s usually not as “developed” as properties within the city limits. By that I mean you have to get your hands dirty to actually have a decent looking yard. As is the case with my house. When we first put an offer in on the house, there were trees and brush all the way up to the back of the house. There was one particular tree that we could touch if we just opened the dining room window and stuck our hand out. By the time we moved in however, about 30 feet behind the house was clear. It was a huge change but not good enough for two large dogs to run in. So, my husband began the project of clearing our near acre and a half lot to make room for a fence for our two Great Danes.
Front yard before:
Back yard before: ” alt=”Back yard before” />

See how close the trees were to the house? I’m not a good judge of distance but that thick brush like ground cover continued back quite far. We intended to clear out our entire property only leaving the large, healthy trees for shade. After clearing enough to make it through on foot, we decided not to continue clearing our entire lot. For one, a fence of that size would be extremely expensive and two, it would take too long to clear. Before we knew it, it would be time for my husband to deploy and the fence still wouldn’t be up. We couldn’t have that so we just decided to clear a substantial amount of land, enough for the dogs to run and be happy, and fence that portion in.

After the majority of clearing was done: ” alt=”after” />

The backyard with a fence half completed: ” alt=”After” />

Since the last photo, we have completed the fence, put up the lattice you see against the deck, brought in some fill dirt to make the ground more level and laid sod near the deck so that the dogs could “wipe their feet” before coming inside. Our backyard is now a great place to be!

Now if only I could find some patio furniture I like…

Just for good measure, here’s a photo of my front yard after I did some landscaping last week. I have never landscaped before so I’m a little proud of my work
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