Yard work, Shmard work

I started babysitting pretty young...it was a small town and my parents knew everyone. The first time I ever "for real" babysat, I brought Halloween face paint along with me (I must have been reading the babysitter's club for inspiration) and painted the kids' faces. Everything was going well until the younger one noticed that you couldn't see all of his face paint because his bangs were in the way (it was the 90's, everyone had bangs). He asked me to cut them.

For some reason, I did. But then they weren't even, so I took off a little more. And a little more. You get the picture. Luckily, his mom laughed when she came home and said he needed a haircut anyway.

I feel like something similar to that happened this weekend. David and I bought some hedge clippers because our front bushes were going crazy with long branches poking out everywhere. (Sorry, no before pictures because I'm lazy).

So I trimmed...and halfway done, realized that they weren't totally even.

See how they're lopsided?


When I was done, they're looking fairly even, but sparse. There's a big old hole in the front of the left one. The lighting is forgiving, but it's there...trust me.

David says I might have killed them...and I (cleverly) replied that I didn't care because I hate the bushes.

I really do...our front porch needs some work, but we have no idea what to do or where to start.

Other than searching for a bistro set on sale, we're at a loss. Ideas?

And then, oh man, we started looking at the back yard. All along the fence line there are random little trees and bushes, which, since we moved in, we had assumed belonged to the neighbors.

Upon closer examination, all those bushes and little trees are ours. And they are a bunch of weeds.

Since daylight was fading fast, we decided to just tackle one...by pulling.

That went no where fast. So, we decided to hack at it with the hedge trimmers.

Nothing.

So, with the help of the trusty shovel I had bought earlier that day at Big Lots (don't judge... I love Big Lots), we dug him out.

It was in there good!

Monster roots on a silly weed!

I'm shoveling and shoveling...yuck. David commented, "Man, for someone that likes manual labor as much as you do, I'm surprised you're not a republican."
Stereotypes! Liberals work hard!

Anyway, I was working so hard, that I managed to break my BRAND NEW shovel!

That is some good digging!

Finally, as night set on us, we managed to pull and cut the bugger out.

Take that, nature!

Bwahh ha ha ha!

Maggie, of course, didn't help at all.