front door, back door meme

I was tagged by my friend Julie (longer ago than I care to discuss) to do this front door, back door meme. I was actually very excited to do it, but just never got around to it until now. So here goes...


This is a photography meme.

1. Step out your front door and take a picture.
2. Step out your back door and take a picture.
3. Put them on your blog, along with the rules.
4. If there are things in the photos that you particularly like or dislike, you can point them out, or just explain what we are seeing. Maybe changes over the seasons or some junk in your neighbor's yard that drives you nuts.
5. Tag as many or few people as you like - preferably at least one though.6. Do it again next month if you like.

I'm not tagging individuals this time... If you read my blog, you have a blog, and you haven't done this yet, consider yourself tagged. Now you're IT!


So this is what you see when you open my front door:

This little friend sleeps on my porch. I feed him (or her - can't get close enough to find out which) and his brother/sister and their mom. I really like these cats. I think they are warming up to me as well. Now when they hiss at me, it's more like a "Hey! Glad to see you!" hiss, rather than the "Stay back, woman, before we scratch your eyes out!" hiss that they used to give me.

This is where the kitties sleep - I really need to clean the furniture, but at least the porch is now clean. Quoc pressure washed on Thursday! Yee Ha!

This is my front door from the street. It's garbage/recycling day!

I love the wreath on my door. Yes, I realize that it is out of season now, but I just love it. I think I'll go take it down after I finish up here... I guess I need to find something else to put up there...

Most of my neighbors do a pretty good job keeping up their homes. This house, which is just across the street from us, drives me crazy. Not because it looks so bad, although the yard could use some work since no one has been taking care of it since the last renters moved out. Take a really close look. Does it bug you too? Do you even notice anything? Maybe you have to look at it day after day for it to really get under your skin.

THIS is what drives me crazy. There are no blinds in this house, so you can see in. But look in this window. Do you notice that there is a door open in there? It's a closet door. I know this because we have the same floor plan, and this is the walk in closet that is in Hayden's room. Do you want to know how long this door has been open? SINCE THEY INSTALLED IT!!! This house was built after we moved in, so I have been looking at that door and wondering why in the world no one has ever closed it. Renters lived there for over a year, and they never closed it. The owners have never closed it. Someone, PLEASE close it. Yes, I know this is stupid, and it shouldn't bother me, and I should just ignore it. But I glance up there every day, and every day, it's like nails on a chalk board. Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!

So this is what I see straight out my back door. Just my yard and the berm. Beyond that is US41, but it's surprisingly quiet in my backyard. This view will be changing soon!

To the left: more dirty patio furniture, only this porch hasn't been washed, so it's REALLY DIRTY! Oh, and see my baby orchids on the table??? I hope they make it!


And to the right - grill, kiddie table, and beer/soda fridge. Nothing too exciting.

This is my neighbor's back porch. See her pavers??? We're getting those soon, on our front porch, back porch and driveway. I'm hoping that it helps with our soot problem. We live near the TECO plant at Big Bend, and we get tons of soot on our porches. It won't make it go away, but maybe the pavers will camouflage it a little.

This is our other neighbor's yard. They are renters, which I don't mind at all. I hated that house sitting empty for so long. See that little fence? They have 3 Italian Greyhounds, and that's where they hang out when they go outside. Notice how the grass is very green in that area??? They're really cute dogs. You only ever hear them if they're out there and we walk outside. But as soon as they start barking, one of their owners will run out and scoop them up and take them inside. I've tried telling them that it doesn't bother us - dogs bark, it's just what they do - but they still take them in as soon as they start barking.

This photo is called "Ode to my grass" - My grass, my grass, how do I love thee... Seriously, ever since I moved to Florida in 1998, I have hated the grass. I grew up where we walked barefoot on our grass in the summer. It was soft and green and the ground was firm. Grass, here in Florida, is what we called "crab grass" when I lived up north. The grass blades are hard, the ground is spongy, and there are actually things living UNDER the grass. When we lived in Tarpon Springs, I once saw a little snake crawl from the top of the sod underneath and then watched in horror as I could walk OVER THE SNAKE and see it here and there as it crawled under the sod. As if I didn't have enough heebie jeebies just walking on the grass. When we moved into our new neighborhood two years ago, we noticed that they have a different sort of grass here. I guess it's called Bermuda grass? Anyway, the blades are soft, the ground isn't so spongy, and I'm not afraid to walk on it! I actually walked barefoot outside to take these pictures!!!

So that's it for my front door, back door. I'll post an update when I have one. Hopefully soon! OH! I have one already! Here's what I saw a few minutes ago when I looked out my back door:

Yay!!! That's Quoc pressure washing the back porch! Yee Ha!