no longer a real estate mogul!

I CLOSED ON THE OLD HOUSE TUESDAY!!!!  wooooohooooo!  it feels soo good to have that officially over with!!  no more double mortgage payments, no more having to go over to take care of the yard and clean out the garage and wonder if someone was going to leave crap in the alley or break in!  No more having to swing by after work to pick up junk mail so that it didn't fall out of the mailbox.  Ugh, it's just a huge weight off my mind!  Up to the day of closing, i didn't let myself get too excited - i knew things could still fall through or get pushed back, but surprisingly, we closed on the day we were supposed to - repairs and appraisals all went fine - everything worked out!

So to celebrate, we didn't go out to dinner - we went out and bought a chainsaw!  and a tree!  We sprung for a red oak that's about 11 feet tall - not giant, but bigger than anything we've bought so far (because we've been trying to add trees on the cheap!)  Meadow View nursery is just up the street from us and they were having a big sale on perennials and trees and shrubs so we got a bunch of perennials and also a smoke bush, which i've been wanting forever!  Billy went out this morning and cut up a bunch of limbs that have been piling up.  success!

the red oak:

 the smoke bush:

Oh, and I made the rain barrel last weekend.  we now have two rain barrels - one on either side of the shed!  yay!  all my life I've wanted a rain barrel - now i have two!  they're nothing fancy, but it's 110 gallons of water and it makes it super easy to water the tomatoes every day!