Brooke here:

The pool is aaaalmost done.  We’ve (well, Brown, since these things weigh about 150lbs each) positioned the concrete planters from the last post along the two far sides of the pool.  The planters have been filled with some disgustingly cheap annuals.

Why the far side of the pool, you ask?  And what’s that stupid-looking tube in the middle of the little baby planter?  Why, we’ve gone solar, baby!*  We were over at Elizabeth and Mary’s yesterday and they had a few planters with solar path lights hiding in the greenery.   Since we had four empty planters and plenty of dark, we grabbed a few of the cheapo path lights at Target.  The little baby planter is too small to properly disguise the fixture but they can be squished down into the larger planters pretty darned well.

For the three larger planters, I had a few citronella plants lying around so those went in the center of each pot and were surrounded by the annuals.   Admittedly these aren’t the most attractive planters but they do seem to cut down on the mosquitoes.

Over the weekend, I also pressure-washed the sidewalk.  The problem with pressure-washing is that it it ends at your property line: the sidewalk looks so good I have to keep going until the driveway is done.

* Awful, awful movie.