PurgedayThursday: Summer in the Yard with a Toddler and Two Dogs

There it is.  Our 200 square feet of backyard bliss.

Scott put in that hammock as a Mother’s Day gift to me.

He also built me a fountain.

{Can anyone tell me what the hell I do with a Waterlily, because I know it’s not THAT.}

He built a fence, and a wall, once the girl got tall… (I couldn’t resist the rhyme, sorry.)

But try as he might, we finally had to face facts:
Two female dogs + lots of shade + a water-loving toddler
= 105 square feet of grass hating hellion dirt.

The obvious answer has been in front of us for a long time…but it seemed like such an investment.

Except, after three summers of backyard makeovers trying desperately to get grass to live and add life to our depressing patch where greenery goes to die (even the moss didn’t take…nor did the “as seen on TV stuff”) and quite frankly, watering a dirt patch keeps me awake at night as my eco-conscience grows {annoying of me, I know} while watching Dashiell and Delilah skip through the mud pile one sunny afternoon, we decided it was time to stop bleeding money and natural resources into the ground.

FRIENDS, IT IS TIME FOR FAKE GRASS.

Wait.  I know when I first mentioned the idea of installing this stuff on twitter, a lot of you guys protested and warned me against the petroleum and various chemical content of the stuff.   Some questioned if it was really better for the environment at all.   I’m pretty sure this stuff really is.  (It’s certainly better for my environment.)  SO………(drum roll)

Enter NewGrass.  My new boyfriend of products.

This is SO the answer to my problems.  I am so psyched my head might pop off.

And it’s pretty, right?  It doesn’t look like astroturf at ALL.   (Oh which, by the way I got to go down on the field at Dodger Stadium recently at that is actual grass, so…weird, huh?)

But anyway, I spent a little time fantasizing in Photoshop about what this NewGrass would do to my run-down-not-so-kid-friendly-yard.

I know, right?  (And yes, the crazy is a given) It would turn it into a Toddlers and Pups Mud-Free Eco-Friendly Wonderland of summer fun.   Which in 1100 square feet where every room opens to the backyard, makes entertaining your toddler and dogs {and your friends and their toddlers and their dogs} much easier.   AWESOME.   We’re gonna do everything I was too depressed to finish last summer and more.   And at the end of this backyard purge of classy-adult-dinner-party-dreams, there WILL be seating areas, and play areas, and most of all…NewGrass.

Try and stop me, Scott and Internet.   I’ll show you.  

It’s gonna be a damn WONDERLAND by the time we’re done.

…And how is your purging going, lurksters?