Nelco finally came around yesterday and poured a new sidewalk in front of my house, and they graded the torn-up parts of the yard and dumped a load of topsoil. Up until yesterday I had planned on fixing the sprinkler system and then planting grass, but now I'm just not motivated enough to go through that much trouble. So until next spring, my front yard will just be dirt. It's no big deal, my lawn will match that of both my neighbors now--each of them stopped taking care of their yards last year for some reason, only mowing the weeds when they got too tall. I'll probably still fix the sprinkler system this summer, but there's no hurry now that I won't be planting grass.

We'll finally be finished with our dining room this weekend--we've actually got some color on the walls now, and I'm hoping to get started on cutting the new trim and paneling before the weekend. I've only been doing little bits of work here and there, and this project has dragged on for what seems like forever. It'll be nice having my living room back, since it's been serving double-duty while we had the dining room emptied of all its furniture.