Finishing the backyard

Given my recent grant of tenure (yeah!), it appears that I will be staying in Bloomington.  I was reluctant to make major additions to the house, especially as the tenure decision got closer.  After all, why sink a bunch of money into the house if I won't be around to enjoy it?  I already did that once - in Peoria, I barely finished my basement just as I made the decision to leave Bradley and come to ISU.

So I put up a manly sized maintenance free deck.  While I participated marginally in the process, Aaron (my brother-in-law, or at least my sister-in-law's husband) helped design and build the deck, along with his brother.  At first I thought the final deck was too big, but now I'm getting used to it and have enjoyed just relaxing on our new outdoor furniture.  What a difference!  We literally had nothing in the backyard previously, so now I'm hoping that this will get us to spend more time outside.  Unfortunately, the weather hasn't been that nice for us to really enjoy it as of yet.  But summer hasn't officially started yet either.

The railings had to be special ordered and once they get installed, I'll get to work on stage two - landscaping around the deck.  If anyone wants to help out, I could use the extra hand.  I've convinced myself that by doing the landscaping myself, I'll clearly save some extra money.  And with that money, I'm going to buy a new cooking toy for myself - the Big Green Egg.  More on that another day.

Song suggestions?

I used to be addicted to Guitar Hero, spending too much time mastering fake guitar. I convinced myself that playing the real guitar would be slightly more useful or slightly maybe more satisfying. Therefore, I bought a guitar last December. I took a month of lessons, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to get out of it. I was just so horrible when I played, I felt there was very little the instructor could actually teach a brand-spanking-new player. I decided to just try to learn on my own until I felt I could get more value from a teacher.

It's been about five months and I definitely have improved, though that doesn't really say much at all. My fingers are still very weak and uncontrollable. In my life, I have never played the guitar or any stringed instrument and let me say that I find it significantly more difficult than the piano. I've described the piano as linear, but the guitar is two-dimensional. Right now, I can play basic chords and barre chords, though changing chords comes very slowly.

I'm always looking for "fun" songs that are easy enough for me to play so that others could at least identify the song, but challenging enough to help me to improve. Most are simplified versions of more complex guitar playing, usually involving basic chords that don't change too quickly.

Here are the songs that I can pretty much get through right now.

• Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton (my wedding song)
• Audioslave songs
  
  • I am the Highway
  • Like a Stone
  • Be Yourself
    
• Hotel California
• (The first half of) Free Bird
• In My Head by Queens of the Stone Age
• February Stars by Foo Fighters
• Your Touch by the Black Keys
  

I'm working on getting some Metallica songs too, including Enter Sandman and Seek & Destroy, which I have read are two of the easier songs. If you've had any experience with the guitar, please give me some more ideas. Otherwise, it gets pretty boring to play the same songs. Thanks!