Enjoying Your Home in the Summer

After a brief absence, I am back and ready to flood your inbox with new blog posts from The Mortgage Circle.

Even though we are currently in the middle of July, it feels as though summer hasn't even begun in Calgary what with all the rain we've been having and all. The search for my new 'summer duvet' has proven to be not necessary, at least not in the immediate near future. Today, however, has been a pleasant surprise. As I'm writing this blog entry, I'm sitting in my backyard, content in the sunshine and squinting to read what I've just writen on my laptop screen. The flowers that I have planted are so far behind it looks like it may as well be May in my yard, but my grass is looking green, and this is a huge accomplishment.

This is an area that no one really seems to educate you on - you've gotten yourself a new mortgage, you've made a few payments on it and everything seems to be in order. Heck, you've even set yourself up on the City of Calgary TIPPS program. You are GOOD!

Your first summer in your new home rolls around and you take a trip to Sunnyside to load up on new plants to beautify your home and prove to your neighbours that you will be taking care of your place, in case they ever doubted you. You buy a few new items to speed the process along - Miracle Grow and Bloom Blaster top your list but you also have a few pesky weeds. Not a problem - just pick up a bottle of Round-Up on your next trip to the store. Right? Wrong.

I'll agree to share this excerpt with you knowing that as silly as it may all sound, I know that I am not alone here. When I cautiously ventured out to see if this had happened to other people before, it had - with results far worse than mine.

You see, as I sit here typing looking out at my yard, there are loads of shiny new circles of green grass. No, I do not have a dog, and nor did the previous owners. Rather, in my overzealousness to stamp out an impending Weed Problem, I took it to a whole new extreme. I grabbed that bottle of Round-Up and conquered those weeds. Squirt. Squirt. Squirt Squirt Squirt. I wasn't alone here either. My boyfriend 'helped' and squirted the dandelions in our backyard. We felt pretty pleased with ourselves and settled down to enjoy a nice, cold beverage on our new patio set.

A few days later we began to see the error of our ways. Large, circular patches of our once green grass lay like the hide of a Dalmation dog. Quickly, after the damage had already been done, friends and family began to weigh in on our dilemma.

"ROUND-UP? You never use Round-Up on weeds." Or- "I'm surprised you didn't kill your whole damn yard-" that jewel came from my Father. Okay, okay! We get it! So now what? Well, I spent the better part of the summer digging out the dead circles of grass and sprinkling a mixture of what looked like newspaper and lint, but promised fresh glades of new grass within two weeks. To our surprise and relief, it worked! We still have spotty grass but I like to think that the varying shades of green offer up a nicely textured palette of grass, so to speak.

The long and short of it? Ask around - and don't be afraid of silly questions, especially if they prevent natural disasters such as ours. Just because you're a new home owner and you've mastered the financing portion of it doesn't mean you're expected to know all there is to know about home ownership!