The Yard.
It's like a park, really. You remember our yard, the yard. It's hosted a wedding, been the subject of oh so many blog posts. It's been rebuilt, battled against, loved, hated. It's quite a yard.
Like many back yards though, it's an ongoing saga. We'll never be "done." But we're in a strange limbo right now, and we need some ideas. Right now, I like to call the state of the yard "The Hunger Games" because what lived, lived, and what didn't ... well we hauled it off. We hardly ever intervene with a hose, and we really don't want the irrigation system anymore. (water is EXPENSIVE in the desert, let me tell ya.)
This is where you come in!
I'm not creative, or crafty, or any kind of visionary really. We've got this great big space, and other than the 1 rule: we will not water things. I have no idea what to do with it.
Here's what we're working with folks:
By the way, the rest of the dirt, the dirt that sits in front of and then goes up that hill - short of winning the lottery and building a pool, all that's ever going to happen back there is cleaning it up. Also, we will be diy repainting the deck, so we're not totally useless ...
Moving on! The rest of the park! Er, I mean yard!
Side note on the concrete pad: I have looked into some kind of shade but the cost of a shade large enough is more than I want to spend on the entirety of the project in which I am enlisting your aid trying to game plan for. 
The leftover lattice pattern there will be gone when we get the place repainted. (Bids are coming in!) Which reminds me: the budget is teeny. We need to utilize a landscape service for not only cleaning up, but helping clear some things we have in the front yard that will get in the way of the paint. - wait. I know what you're thinking "Emily, why don't you clear the stuff in the front yard yourself?"
I thought the same thing, I really did. Until this morning.
As we walked around with the painter and 1 landscaper - there were bees EVERYWHERE. Not the end of the world, yet. They fly, I can try not to tick them off. It can work.
Well then I got into my car to leave for work.
Out my passenger side window I saw a web and a spider perched between 2 cacti - they were so large that I screamed from the panic and horror.
THAT THING lives in my front yard. Not doing it myself. End of story.
There you have it folks, what would you do with this space?
