Backyard Pool Updates

We celebrate everyday joys and the beauty of nature in our busy lives, using creativity and imagination as ways of connecting with ourselves and our surroundings. This episode provides an update on our backyard transformation project, highlighting both challenges and triumphs in creating personal outdoor sanctuaries.

• Six months of pool construction finally completed, resulting in a beautiful lagoon-like pool with waterfalls and thoughtful landscaping
• Many decisions regarding materials, colors, and design elements were challenging but ultimately rewarding
• Garden plans had to be modified due to drainage issues, with a temporary focus on elevated herb planters instead of raised beds
• "Granny hobbies" like gardening, puzzling, and bird-watching provide mindfulness and peace in everyday life
• Guided visualization exercise helps listeners reconnect with childhood backyard memories through sensory experiences

Come back next week for more conversations about joy and gratitude as we continue exploring ways to create harmony in our everyday lives.

To learn more, go to mycreateharmony.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Create Harmony
• 0:56 Our Pool Project Journey
• 4:15 Garden Plans and Granny Hobbies
• 7:40 Mindful Childhood Backyard Visualization
• 11:00 Closing Thoughts and Gratitude

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome back to Create Harmony. This is a place where we celebrate everyday joys and we really try to pay attention to good things happening all around us. Those are the types of things that you don't want to miss in the busyness of life. We take our inspiration from nature and all of its glory and relish the changes that it brings. This is a place of creativity and introspection. We use our imagination as a way of connecting with God. But don't worry, everyone is welcome to join in. You can find your place here and also take a few minutes to lift your spirits and find some fun in your everyday routine. Take a few minutes to lift your spirits and find some fun in your everyday routine. So this is episode 122, and I am your host, sally Burlington. So today I'm going to give you an update on all of the things that we have had going on around here. We're going to do a little bit of a backyard update.

Speaker 1: 0:58

So if you've been listening for a while, you know that a couple of years ago we moved into a different house and our plan all along was to add a pool to our backyard. So the house we bought needed a little bit of refreshing, some freshening inside and out. So we moved and then we worked on a lot of that freshening and then last fall we started our pool project and it involved a lot of design and the thinking and choices and decisions. But then we got started last fall. There was a lot of hardscape that had to be removed and we even had to take out a couple of trees in order to clear the spot for the pool. And when they came in to demo our backyard it looked like it was covered in rubble. It looked like an actual earthquake had happened out there. And then we've been through about six months of construction and let me tell you that was extra fun. There was lots of noise, there was lots of mess, there was mud and winter. It snowed several times. We live in North Carolina so we don't get a ton of snow, but we did have some cold temps and, you know, a lot of headache. But the good news is we are finally mostly finished with that pool project. There's still a list of loose ends and small adjustments that need to be made, but the pool and the patio are basically done.

Speaker 1: 2:18

We have water in the pool and we are really thrilled with the results. We had to make so many decisions along the road, and these decisions, I mean, they're things that take a whole lot of resources. They take time, energy, money, and so you really want to be careful with making those decisions and sometimes you have to make them with like a tiny little swatch and you don't know whether that you're going to love those pavers or that color of the bottom of the pool and all the things. But we love what has ended up. We love the results they've. It's been terrific. We love the color of the bottom of the pool, we love our pavers, we love our waterfalls. Everything has just come together so beautifully. So we chose a sort of a curvy shaped pool and we have the bottom of it is like a deep teal, bluey green color and it just looks so like a big lagoon in our backyard and we have, you know, a gray paver. It's just beautiful.

Speaker 1: 3:17

As I said before, we still have stuff that needs to be tweaked. We have a slight issue with drainage on our pavers. We've got a few steps. We put in an outdoor fireplace, a gas fireplace, and we have a few steps to get that finished. We're going to put in a pergola that's going to give us some shade and that's not going to be delivered until late spring, so we don't have all of the furniture that we're going to use out there, just little little things like that. Still decisions to be made, but it's shaping up nicely and the weather has started to get warm here in North Carolina. The sun is shining and we have been able to sit out around the pool and it's just wonderful. We did choose a little section that has like artificial turf and that our dog is loving, that it feels like there's real grass right beside the pool and we put some loungers there and just it's just just beautiful and wonderful. We are thrilled with the way that it's turned out.

Speaker 1: 4:15

So, speaking of a work in progress, you know I said there was a list of things that had to be done. Last spring we put in a section of our yard, we put some raised beds, because I love to garden and plant things. I'm a big fan of all the granny hobbies puzzles, reading, birds, gardening, all the things I like granny hobbies. Because let me tell you why because they're mindful and you can stop and take a pause and you can find peace in those subtle, quiet endeavors. So, all that to say, we put some raised beds in the back corner of our yard and if you've listened for a while, you also know that at some point everything was going great. The raised beds were in.

Speaker 1: 4:55

We planted the crops last spring Just beautiful growing Took pictures, herbs were growing and then we just developed a few drainage issues and things got really, really wet and really, really mucky and basically what we were growing back there was mosquitoes, and so we had many conversations about how to handle this, but what we decided was to disassemble all of the raised beds, take them apart, and that at some point in the process of reforming our backyard, we were going to sort of grade that area using some of the dirt that came out of the hole that we dug for a pool, and we were going to reboot those raised beds and reboot the whole garden. Well, as all construction projects go. We had a few hiccups in that plan and we didn't get it regraded yet like we want, and we haven't been able. You know we've been focused on the pool itself, so the garden didn't really happen and it's time to plant our plants and we have no raised beds and the soil is still. We still have drainage issues. So what we're doing about that for this spring is that we're going to just tidy up that area of the yard and we're going to store the pieces of the raised bed that we have and then maybe in the fall or later in the summer at some point we are going to refocus on that.

Speaker 1: 6:17

But we are not going to try to plant a garden this year. We're going to take a pause on that, with the exception of we did buy some planters to go up around the pool deck that we have planted our herbs in. So I have a lovely little herb garden. There's two planters and they're kind of waist high, they're like elevated planters, which is awesome because I don't have to bend down there on my knees Again. I mean granny hobbies, I'm leaning into it. So I've got some basil and I've got some sage and chives and even some fresh lettuce growing out there. It only grows for us until we get into the hot, hot summer months. We've got fresh lettuce growing, we have some oregano, we have some parsley and thyme, just all the things. All the beautiful herbs are growing. So we're going to really focus our attention this season on growing herbs and then next fall, winter, at some later date we are going to revisit the whole raised bed project and I'll bring you along on that and you can sort of see that unfold. It'll be phase something phase B, phase two, whatever of the backyard renovation. So that's where things stand right now and we are really excited about all the fun things that we'll be able to do around the pool this summer and just enjoy our herbs.

Speaker 1: 7:40

So for our closing today, what we're going to do in the, in the spirit of backyard fun, we are going to do a mindful moment and I'm going to guide you through a visualization that is sort of a backyard tribute, if you will. So, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, if you want to get yourself into a comfortable position, even if you're moving, driving or walking or whatever, you can just think about your own comfort and think about your body. Try to release any tension you feel yourself holding and just let that, let that go, shake that out. Go ahead and take a deep breath, breathe in possibilities and breathe out gratitude, sort of shift your mind towards a more settled place. If it makes sense for you to close your eyes, you can do that right now and now.

Speaker 1: 8:39

You can picture yourself in the backyard of your childhood. Place yourself right there and use your senses to sense what is happening in that backyard. What can your eyes see? Use your imagination to look around that backyard and see it clearly. And then, what do your ears hear in your childhood backyard? Listen for the sounds that that space has has and revisit again all the smells that you might smell in your childhood backyard Freshly cut grass, maybe some flowers, dirt trees. And what are the memories you want to revisit in that childhood backyard? Family barbecues, time with a beloved pet, maybe time when friends came over to play good memories with your family. Just soak up the peace of those good memories.

Speaker 1: 10:44

And now we're going to draw our time in the backyard to a close. We'll come back together here on the podcast, take a final deep breath, breathe in possibilities and breathe out gratitude, and if you closed your eyes at the beginning, you can open them now. We're all back together again. And now thanks so much for joining us today, as we got an update on the backyard at our house and what was going on back there. And then we revisited the backyard of your childhood. I used that visualization in a workshop last week and I thought that everyone might enjoy hearing it, so hopefully it was a source of peace for you. I hope you'll come back next week and we will have more conversations about joy, and gratitude and, until next time, peace, thank you.