I’m on the four-hour flight from Phoenix to Cleveland. I just endured the movie “Bewitched” because I’m in first class and it was free. It’s the kind of movie that is only good when you have absolutely nothing to do, like on a lazy Saturday afternoon or when you are stuck on an airplane.

One redeeming quality in the movie was the American dream home setting where most of the movie took place. I’m making progress on my landscaping in the backyard, and the movie gave some inspiring shots of landscaping, gardens, lighting, and outdoor living. Without that good stuff, I would’ve been more interested in watching people wait in line for the airplane bathroom.

I’ve been landscaping my backyard steadily for the past year. I never imagined it would’ve taken this long, but I guess these things just take time. Now that it’s fall, the temperatures have dropped and I can spend more time outside.

Life has been better since Dad and my brother Pete came out to help me with things around the house a couple weeks ago. We finished a second brick patio that was “almost finished” for several months. Now I spend some time each morning sitting outside enjoying the morning. I listen to the birds, pray the rosary, and enjoy the cool air. The leafy trees filter the morning sun and shake light over the whole yard.

I’m awaiting approval from my Home Owners Association to put an arbor over the side entry gate to my backyard. A year ago, I planted a beautiful pink flowering vine plant called “Bougainvillea” that has covered one side of wall that separates the front and backyard. After a year of growing, it’s stretching up above the wall, reaching for something else to climb on. Once the arbor is in place, there will be a perfect crown of pink over my cute wooden gate. It’s going to be quite charming. It’s kind of embarrassing for a guy to talk like that, but every time I show someone my plans for the arch, there’s something in them that melts when they imagine an arch covered with pink flowers. That’s both guys and girls.

This arbor will be the finishing touch of a project that I started a year ago. It’s beautiful now, but last year at this time it was a disgrace. It was hot, dusty, and scattered with mean-looking weeds. It looked like a vacant lot where people dump old appliances and set random things on fire.

The transformation began last winter when I scrubbed the dirt and added a brick patio and winding walkway. On either side of the path are mounds with distinct desert plants that look more like sculptures than bushes. At the end of the path is a desert tree than I’ve been shaping every week for a year. It’s getting quite an impressive silhouette. At this point, it’s this area is most beautiful part of my backyard. Worst to first!

With ten days of hard work, I can finish the last quarter of my backyard. But that might have to wait because it’s time to plant trees in Arizona, and I have a couple to replace in the front of my house facing the street. One tree is a Mesquite that was never pruned and trained well while it was young. Even after two years of patient shaping, it still looks lopsided and silly. It’s time to go.

I want to plant a different breed of Mesquite in the same place, except I want to give it the attention it needs while it is young to grow into something beautiful. There’s a perfect mesquite near Candyce’s old house, and I think I’m going to go and take a picture of it and use that as a template. Whether or not you like trees, you just can’t see this one and not say something about it. It’s just a really cool looking tree.

The other tree that needs to go is actually the oldest tree at my house. It’s a Pepper tree that has a windy trunk and limbs like a Live Oak. But it has sucker branches grow on every barky surface. I am haunted by the endless amount of weeds littered up and down the tree. Plus, they grow all around the ground near the trunk too. The only time it looks nice is after I trim it, and it’s downhill from there. Plus, the tree litters my front landscaping so much that there’s no chance of keeping the front of my house clean. It always looks terrible. My friend described it as “a foot of a hair troll.” It’s time to go.

So I’ve made the decision to take out these two trees, and I couldn’t be more excited. I’m going to have to finally buy a chain saw and take ‘em down myself to save money. It’ll cost about $800 to get new trees, but I know they will make a huge difference on my home’s “curb appeal” that you hear about on every home improvement show.

It’s interesting how my creative passions evolve. I never would’ve guessed I’d be so into landscaping. But there’s something magical about working with dirt and bringing ideas in my head into a reality with my hands. Plus, a well-designed landscape makes life more interesting because you can hang out in places other than the box-shaped rooms of your house. It makes life happier when you can have parties entirely outside.

Once the landscaping is finished, I’m going open up two bedrooms to their own private patio gardens. Each room will be more bright and open once I knock out the windows parts of the wall to make room for the French Doors. Both rooms are on the north side of the house, so they are naturally darker and not as fun to be in. These new doors is going to add a lot of life to that side of the house.

I guess the big mission here is to make my house more fun to be in. Right now, 75% of our waking hours are spent in a boxy living room that makes up 10% of my house. With these improvements outside, the rest of my house and property are going to be more inviting and relaxing.

Man. Once I start writing about landscaping, I can’t stop.