Water, Water, Finally

I really don't like spending money. My husband and I have a running joke. He isn't worried about me spending money so if I ever tell him I'm going to go shopping, he has no fear of how much I'm going to charge the credit card. It's true. Spending a lot of money makes me almost physically uncomfortable. I wish I could prove him wrong...but that's one dangerous spite. 

But you know what? I think for the first time in my life, I was really excited to drop a large sum of money (house-buying/car-buying excluded). No designer shoes, dresses or handbags. You know what I was really excited for?

A. New. Lawn. Sprinkler. System. 

Yup, you read it right.

Our house didn't have a working sprinkler system when we bought it. We knew that when buying the house. Our house buying experience was pretty crazy, although the last few years have probably exponentially increased the craziness of the housing market. We decided we didn't really need one. Rain in the spring and hand-watering for the extreme heat periods would be good enough. And for about seven years, we survived. 

This is our 8th summer in this house. This year was a beast. We have had nearly as many 100+ degree days this year as the last four years combined. If this is remotely similar to a repeat of Egyptian history and their feasting and famine, then we may expect to see heat like this for another 6 years...come find the blog in 2028 and see if it holds true. I hand watered a lot this summer. We bought oscillating lawn sprinklers and I created my own "zones" as I set the microwave timer and went outside to move the sprinkler around the lawn to keep as much of the water in the grass as possible and off the sidewalk. I was really good at that. Even when I accidentally forgot to turn off the water (once), I came back an hour later and saw there was no water on the sidewalk. 

Truth was, I didn't mind watering the grass by hand. I liked being able to keep as much of the water off the sidewalk while still keeping out water bill generally low. But my kids were getting older, summer is the time to travel, especially once they're in school, and we should probably think about our foundation a little more carefully than we have been. 

So we pulled the trigger, called a few companies for quotes, and then picked one. Three days after accepting the quote, we had a new system installed. They used a Ditch Witch to create most of the trenches for the pipes. My husband used to work on their accounts and he was excited to see an actual one being used. I was thoroughly impressed with how efficient and effortless they made it look. They arrived in the morning just before 8:30 am, took a one hour lunch break, and left just before 5:30 which included a  30-45 minute walkthrough of the entire system with me at the end. 

Watching them dig channels and place pipes was kind of mesmerizing.

Let me tell you, I've never been more happy to write such a large check and trade it away for a brand new sprinkler system. Ironically, the evening after it was installed, rain was in the forecast so I could not play with my new toy. On the bright side, it was one less day I needed to pay for water for the grass.

Doesn't look great now...but now I can water it at the touch of a button!