home improvement project 1B

after walking up to my front door for a total of 790 days (give or take), it finally got to me. it being the planters and general "look" of my walkway. there isn't much to the entrance to our humble abode- but that doesn't mean it has to look so bad.
when we moved in, someone had been using the dirt area under the stairs as a trash dump and had let a spider plant loose in the planter. said spider plant had taken over an area 6 or 7 square feet and had managed to kill a bougainvillea and three jasmine plants. the spider plant had become so invasive that i didn't even know the jasmine existed until i'd cleared 1/2 of it away.
so, a couple of weeks ago, ella and i got our head scarves out, donned our "work clothes" and started tearing away at the spider plant. after 3 or 4 hours of manual labor, we'd managed to clear all of this (please note ella's gardening clogs):

out of this area:

and now it looks like this:






and this:

and the area under the stairs that looked like this:

now looks like this:


although i'm thinking of adding a few finishing touches, home improvement project 1B is now as they say "close enough for government work."
it's made me a much happier person...we'll see what john thinks when he gets home and sees what i've spent money on...

oh, and in case you're wondering- home improvement project 1A was laying a rug in the front room...hey you gotta start somewhere?!? it looks awesome.