Life is so lame without my camera!

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I love the word "lame."  Most of the time, its the exact word I need in order to convey exactly what I mean.  And right now I think it is truly lame that I still haven't heard from Nikon in two weeks (not since they e-mailed to confirm that they received my camera. The camera I Fed-Exed to them so they'd be able to get it back to me as soon as humanly possible.)  I feel so limited without it!  I LOVE to blog and my cravings to blog are crushed every time I get the urge and then remember I have no stinkin' camera.

Like for instance... I'm DYING to show you our new front flower beds.  The before photo of these flower beds is horrifying.  In fact, "flower beds" is too generous a description, they'd probably be better described as an "abandoned trailer park" or "haunted graveyard" or "our lawn posing as a flower bed."

I happen to have those before pictures though... taken with Superman's blurry I-phone.

See what I mean?

Here's the wide shot.  This is the view that screams "trailer park."

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And here we have the view from the sidewalk...

Notice the lovely border the previous owners put around the perimeter of the beds.

Oh wait... That's GRASS!  Why on Earth did they line this thing with a border of ugly grass?

(I'd also like to point out the "plant on top of another plant" shown in this picture.

???????

Was this a purposeful design element?)

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Let's turn our attention to this close-up.

Now you can see where I get the "lawn masquerading as a flower bed" description.

What's with the humongous blank areas?  Where are the bushes?

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Finally, you see the corner of the beds.  This happens to be the only area we left somewhat intact.  

And by "intact" I mean, we kept the crepe myrtles.

But , by golly... I kept looking up and down our street wondering "Why do everyone else's crepe myrtles look so Southern and charming and mine look ... well... like this?!"

Well, apparently you're supposed to prune these suckers.  Who knew?  Not me, that's for sure!

Anyway, you're supposed to cut off the branches that sprout from the ground so that the tree is forced to expand upward.  

Genius.  I learned that from The Skinner Bros.  (They did our new landscaping... I can't WAIT til you see it.)

I guess this turned out to be a pretty photo-y post after all.  :)

But I reeeeally can't wait to show you the afters.