Simplify

As most of you know, when we bought and moved into our house five years ago (by the way, I can't believe it has been five years! We moved in Conference weekend 2003. . . ) one of the things that I thought was wonderful at the time was how beautiful the yard was. Well, I soon realized that the previous owners LIVED in the yard. Seriously, they would spend hours out there making everything beautiful and perfect. I have succeeded to ruin the yard since we have been here. I don't have the time, or the green thumb (mine seems to be closer to black) to keep it how it used to be. Beautiful flowers, shrubs, borders, and large areas of plants were groomed to perfection with the previous owners. I have decided that simplicity is much closer to my style. Putting in a sprinkler system two years ago was a HUGE help. How in the world did they keep the yard up having to haul a hose around to water everything? Another thing I have slowly been doing is taking out beds that are full of weeds (thanks to my gardening expertise) and replacing them with grass. This was my project the past couple days I spent several hours getting rid of the weeds (weeds are out of control) and moving the rocks back to make the bed much closer to the fence line, and less weeding area in the future. I went and got the sod yestereday and laid it down. OK, so my yard has a VERY long way to go, but one little area at a time will make a difference. Or at least that is what I keep telling myself. I will be so happy next spring when I can get the lawn mower out and mow this little patch and know I do not have to weed it. Now, what to do with the rest of the yard. .. .