March 2023 – So much snow…

We got hit by some SERIOUS snow throughout March 2023… So, I’m not going to go back on what I said in my last post lol. We still had a mild winter and I refuse to complain! (Though I fear I jinxed us by saying that in February…) With April here spring really is close at hand and I am SO looking forward to dirt and gardening and laying out on our deck. March just totally SUCKED weather-wise. It was FRIGID and we got at least three feet of snow. Unfortunately it meant for Lodi (now working nights at his new job) often coming home exhausted only to have to tackle plowing us out.

Terrible weather meant that, as a driver, his days were excessively long anyway besides having to come home and move snow for hours at a time.

So, basically, Lodi just slept, moved snow, and worked for nearly all of March 2023. (We figured he was putting in upwards of 15 hours a week extra just because of the crappy driving conditions.)

It got so bad there for awhile we hardly saw each other and just kept up the mantra of, “This is not normal – things will get better!”

I mean its one thing to plan dates as a couple but trying to plan an hour or two a day when we’re both home AND awake seems a bit much lol. Not to mention we both pretty much spent all of our awake time in the house tip toeing around trying not to wake the other one up.

I’m still loving and working on my new office workshop and am entirely too pleased with myself with how its coming together.

My brain is turning to summer projects as I am so very ready to get outside again.

I have three projects I’m excited to tackle.

We’ve badly needed new gates on our deck for years and I finally have a pretty solid plan on how I want to build them.

We really need a awning over our garage’s access door as, despite Lodi’s best efforts, the run off from the garage leaves it frozen solid the majority of the winter.

The lazy chick in me also wants to add a gutter down that side of the garage to help direct any rain we get toward our horse’s water tank. Yes that will mean any pine needles, leaves etc. will also be going in his tank but they already are anyway so we might as well get a fuller tank out of it.

One last building project I’m looking forward to is seating for down around our new fire pit.

A consequence (which we should have foreseen) of our new pea gravel lower deck is that any furniture sinks about six inches down into the gravel leaving any “normal” height chairs way too low to the ground.

The sudden drop after sitting actually led to a lot of hilarity but its time to address this problem.

I want to build an outdoor sectional sofa / bench!

Here’s my inspiration from Keeping It Simple:

I KNOW HOW BAD THOSE DESIGNS LOOK LOL BUT YOU GET THE IDEA!

IMO everyone at the fire deserves an armrest and a drink holder so that’s a mandatory addition.

Their bench is awesome but its MASSIVE and I want to be able to store as much of our outdoor furniture over the winter as I can because (as March 2023 has shown) we get some pretty horrible weather here…

So, basically, I’ll be building at least four separate love seats combining the top two designs together.

I have these really big hopes to do them at angles so they “fit” together like one large piece of furniture that wraps around the firepit like the above inspiration… but we’ll see how it goes.

(Being able to walk easily between seats without having to go over anyone (like in a movie theater) is pretty nice even though a “wrap around sectional” all fitted together would look amazing.)

So, I’ve been considering IF I do want to do the whole sectional thing where they all fit together and make sense I could build each “love seat” with a double arm rest / drink holder in the center and no arm rests on the outsides.

Those sides would be at an angle (wider in back, narrower in the front) and would thus, when put beside each other, fit like an octagon around the fire pit.

Big important thing is that the seat is still plenty wide enough even with the angle.

Another thing I need to remember is that I’ll definitely have to experiment on how much taller they need to be to accommodate how far they’re going to sink into the pea gravel!

I kind of love the idea though I am in NO WAY looking forward to figuring out the right angle so they perfectly go around the pit…

We’re also hoping to tackle the little shed out in the horse pasture by siding it and fixing it up into a bunk house!

Our raised bed garden really needs a complete rebuild but I’m determined to give us a much more easier going summer so that’ll probably be a next year project.