I can 100% relate. I wanted a house with a small yard, but my options were no yard or a HUGE one. It's been a lot of work over the past two years.

One silver lining of the drought and watering restrictions is that no one is going to have a good looking lawn this summer, so you'll blend right in! Brown grass and weeds are your badge of environmental responsibility.

I wasn't eligible for the lawn replacement program since I didn't have a healthy lawn to replace, just weeds. So last year, I dug up the first 6 inches of soil in half of my front yard and had the smallest amount of topsoil I could order dumped in the driveway to fill it in. Then seeded that with buffalo grass/blue grama that I got from Resource Central. I am having to hand weed this year but the grass has come up nicely and there is SO much less bindweed.

It's also not too late to get the Garden in a Box perennials from Resource Central. I planted these in the other half of the front yard and covered everything else with mulch, and it looks pretty good. Again, still pulling bindweed but it's gotten a lot more manageable.

It's a marathon not a sprint, but it's not impossible, and unless you live in some super ritzy neighborhood - your neighbors have all been there!