Outdoor Gazebo

After spending 2.5 hours putting together our new gazebo, which I used my birthday money to pay for, a very important piece broke. The small center hub which holds the canopy. At first we got frustrated then we thought about it. Our first solution was take the part back to the Home Depot and see if they could exchange it for a new one. That didn't happen...they were sold out of our model in the district.
Before our last resort which was take down the entire thing and take it back to the Home Depot we called the manufacture and they are sending us a replacement part. The bad part is it will take 7-10 days for the replacement to get to our house.

In the mean time we have a half put together gazebo in our backyard. Sometimes - time is more valuable than money. I'm so glad we don't have to take this down and put a new one back up again.

Have you ever had a time when something like this happened to you? Was the item made right?

Block The Sun

When Accounting Dude and I first meet he already had a house and I lived in an apartment. So it made sense that I would move into his house. Well, lets just say that it was a man's house, and it was decorated by a man in his late 20s-early 30s. Meaning - big TV and white wall, not much more.So I had to make some changes. I started with the inside, but eventually moved to the outside.

You see this brick wall behind the azaleas gets nothing but afternoon sun beating down on it. For the longest time it had nothing in front of it until I realized that it would help our cooling cost if we planted something along that wall to help cool it. Azaleas are some of my favorite plants so that is what I choose. I know they don't look that big now, but in a few years I hope that they cover most of this wall and help with our cooling cost. So is there somewhere around your house that a few plants could help reduce your cooling cost?

Earth Week

This week won't be a normal week of saving and spending. This week we will be talking about different ways that Accounting Dude and I try to be green and save money while doing it. I'll let you know right off the bat we aren't the most green people out there, but we do try!
Up first this week;
The new trees we planted this weekend. We planted two pear trees. Actually, we got them at a really good deal. I'm a member of the Home Depot garden club. You should join if you aren't already a member because they send out some great coupons.
This club sent me a coupon to buy one tree get one free. Well, Home Depot didn't have pear trees and that is what I really wanted to plant. Like most cities Home Depot is right next to Lowes, so Accounting Dude and I drove to Lowes went in to customer service and asked them if they would match the coupon. The manager read the coupon several times and then said sure. So for $18.96 AC and I got two pear trees. Let me tell you we picked the two tallest and strongest looking trees they had.
We were prepaired for the manger to say no about the coupon, but we were pleasantly surprised when he said yes.
Now, we just hope that the trees will live and that in a few years we will have some fruit.