It's that time again! Time to celebrate our 8th monthiversary by recapping all of the projects we've done in the past month. Which, if I'm being honest, haven't been that exciting haha

I don't know if having two weeks off around the holidays with no projects to do threw me off my blogging game or what but I didn't get much done this month. That being said, I did do the following:

Talked about my 2013 Home Goals (that I'm currently way behind on):

Added a new rug, console table, and mirror to our dining room:

Talked about potential lighting options for our dining room:

Talked about potential bed options for our guest bedroom:

Filled you in on a few decisions I had been pondering:

Failed at painting my new dining room mirror:

DIY'd a set of faux malachite boxes for $8/each:

Informed you of the upcoming gem show I frequent each year:

(Psst: there's still time to let me know if you want anything from the show! I'll be going February 9/10 so leave me a comment or shoot me an e-mail with your requests before February 7th!)

Celebrated my fur baby's 7th birthday!

Complained about my lack of landscaping:

Man did I slack or what?! Thanks for sticking around with me during this slow period :)

I have posts lined up through all of February and halfway through March so things should pick up around here soon! Speaking of picking up, stop by tomorrow to see what I got at the Thrift Shop with only "20 dollas in my pocket" …

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Looking for past Monthiversaries?
1st Monthiversary | 2nd Monthiversary | 3rd Monthiversary | 4th Monthiversary
5th Monthiversary | 6th Monthiversary | 7th Monthiversary

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Mine was full of rain. Sigh :( Me and rain have developed a love/hate relationship over the past 8 months. I love it because it breaks up the 300+ sunny days we have here but I hate it because it turns my yard into a mud pit. You probably need to see my yards for this to make more sense...

Basically, we have a front courtyard, a weird side alley yard, and a backyard:

The front courtyard has some decomposed granite for ground cover but it stops right where the front our of house begins.

Please ignore the unruly hose and the pipes we wrapped with towels so they don't freeze when it drops to 30 degrees at night...

I didn't know this until I had my final walkthrough before closing on our house. I asked our construction supervisor where the rest of our landscaping was and he pointed at the courtyard and said "this is it." That means the rest of our yard is dirt. Dirt that grows algae when water sits on it too long:

So. Gross. That's part of our weird side alley that runs into our backyard:

Those rock piles are supposed to help keep the water that rushes out of our roof's scuppers from pooling in place but, as you can see, they don't help much.

Here's the same side alley looking towards the front courtyard from the backyard:

I have no idea what to do with the space. It definitely needs some ground cover and maybe a few plants? Something like this would be cool:

[ Image via Houzz ]

Anyway, our backyard is a little less muddy but still very bare:

I'd love to plant a few plants underneath the window to the left:

See that agave?

I bought it a last weekend for $25 and had initially planned on planting it underneath the window. My plans changed when I did a little Googling and learned that the kind of agave I got can grow to be 8-10 feet wide and 6-8 feet high. Let that sink in for a minute. I've got a monster plant on my hands and I don't know what to do with it!

Ignore the fire pit, it's going on Craigslist. I bought it about a month after I moved out here and I think it's only been used 3 times in almost 5 years.

Also ignore the patio furniture. It was the dining set in our old condo but we put it on the patio when we moved into our house because it was too small for our new dining room and we didn't know what to do with it. We're hoping to get some new furniture this year but we'll see what happens. Ground cover is more important right now since monsoon season is coming up.

Anyway, when I bought the agave, I found out that the guy that runs the greenhouse at the place I bought it from does landscaping on the side. He's been doing it for 25 years and gets a lot of the plants for his greenhouse at a nursery that's right down the road from my house. He said he'd be willing to give me a consultation and I think I'm going to take him up on his offer because I'm lost when it comes to what to do with our yard.

I've pinned a few ideas that I think could be cool:

But it'd be nice to get a professional's opinion!

Is your yard landscaped? Did you do it yourself or hire the pro's?

Today is my little fur baby's 7th birthday!

I've had her since she was 4 months old and, even though she can be a handful at times, I can't imagine my life without her :)

Thankfully she gets along with her big brothers (one's not shown). Well, sometimes...

She loves to bury herself in this blanket...

When she's not plopped on top of the couch cushion!

And 9 times out of 10 she can be seen sporting a mohawk :)

Happy birthday baby girl!

Momma loves you so much more than you'll ever know <3

In some of my previous posts, I've mentioned that I've gotten things for my house from a local gem show but I've never really explained what the show is. Basically, hundreds of vendors from across the country make the trek out to Tucson to set up tents inside and outside of the TCC Convention Center to sell their goods to thousands of attendees over a two week period.

[ Image via Tucson Citizen ]

The show is open to the public but a lot of the booths/tents are open to wholesalers only. For the non-wholesalers, there's lots of expensive jewelry and loose gems out on display along with a ton of cool mineral and fossil exhibits. If you're a local, you know to head to the show during one of the last weekends because by that point, the vendors are so desperate to get rid of their merchandise (so they don't have to haul it back home with them) that they mark everything 50% off or more!

There's a special section of the show that my mom and I like to spend most of our time in because they have tons of rocks and minerals on sale for dirt cheap. Remember the agate slices I made into coasters?

I think I paid between $1 - $2 per slice which is crazy considering Uncommon Goods is selling a set of 4 coasters for $64. If you didn't want to go the coaster route, you could always DIY an agate slice pendant like Tanya at Dans Le Townhouse did!

Some of the vendors at the show also sell agate bookends for dirt cheap. I'm talking maybe $10 - $15 for the set. I was at HomeGoods over the weekend and I saw a set selling for $30! That's not bad but not good considering I can get two sets for the price of one of theirs.

[ Image via The Agate Lady ]

See those larger slices in the front of the photo? You could stand them up on display like they're shown or you could use them as a cheese platter or even a trivet! They run anywhere from $15 - $50 depending on their size and thickness.

Vendors also sell massive geodes:

[ Image via SonicAnta ]

Those tend to be on the pricier side but small ones run around $150 - $200 if I'm remembering right. I've seen some humongous ones in the $1,000 price range though!

There's also tons of petrified wood for sale:

[ Image via Wikimedia ]

You probably can't see the price tag in the photo above but if you look at the large image on Wikimedia, you'll see that the large piece of petrified wood that's sitting on the table is only $110! That's not bad for such a huge piece!

So what am I trying to get at? Well, because everything is so cheap, I'm planning on buying something to giveaway on my blog after the show is over! I was thinking a set of agate bookends since they're hot in the decor world but maybe you'd like something else? Maybe some agate slices?

Anyway, I may also be taking a few "orders" if anyone would like a certain something at the show. As long as it's not too expensive and you can PayPal me the money, we can work something out if you e-mail me ahead of time :)

The show starts February 2nd but I'm not planning on going until the 9th or 16th so you have until then to let me know if you want anything. I'll also be Instagramming pics throughout the show so if you're not following me by now (@desertdomicile) you might want to! Just sayin' :)