The Last Hurrah. Goodbye March!!!!

"I'm not sure we know what a normal Spring is around here anymore."  I said to SM as we were driving over to his nephews house yesterday to celebrate Easter with his family. 

Along the way we saw Bradford Pear Trees and Forsythia bushes in bloom.  White and yellow everywhere.  (My southern friends call forsythia Yellow Bells.)  Everything else is still holding back their buds with the cooler weather we had last week.

"Last year those Forsythia's bloomed in February."  I pointed out to SM.





"If everything is late, maybe that's an indication that it won't be so hot this year.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a normal Summer?"  I asked SM.

"You mean one that doesn't hit 90 the first of May and never looks back?"  SM asked.

"Yeah.  Or one where we don't have any 100 degree days for weeks on end."  I replied.

I feel like March this year has just been one big drag.  Like a kid that doesn't want to do his chores.  Whining and dragging his feet the whole way.

Suck it up already!

Hopefully this weekend will be "the last hurrah" for the year.  Say goodbye to freezing cold weather.  Let's hope we can moderate a bit more with April coming in. 

I did spend some time yesterday re-potting some of the bigger tomato starts.  I have a feeling I'm going to be glad I delayed so long getting them going.  The sweet peppers are only just now sprouting. 

I went outside and uncovered the hoop house to let some of this weekends rain soak onto the veggie's out there.  Everything has popped up, but nothing is really growing yet.  Even the peas are barely sticking their heads out of the ground.

Speaking of "Last Hurrahs"...Tonight is the season finale of The Walking Dead.





I've really enjoyed the dynamics of this quirky show.  The writing is brilliant and the character exploration amazing. 

Who knew I'd be into a zombie show? 

When I first started watching I was really into Ricks character.  But I've decided that if there really was a zombie apocalypse I'm more really like Daryl Dixon. 

I take my orders from the boss and get the job done. 

I've got a strong right arm and I'm not afraid to use it. 

I mouth off on occasion and you REALLY don't want to piss me off.





Yep.  That's me. 

And you'll never see me cry either.  Just like Daryl, I do that alone. 





When no one's looking. 

Except maybe a zombie or two.

I Think Too Much

Do you ever get stymied? 

Unable to move forward because of all the thoughts jumbled up in your head? 

Maybe it's my lack of quality REM sleep lately but I just can't seem to get a blogpost together today. 

I've started 5 times and have deleted every one.

Nothing makes sense and yet everything does. 

Am I distracted? 

Not really.  I suffer from a more unusual problem.

I think too much. 





Do you ever get this way?

I'm in one of my introspective moods.  You know, stuff happens and I think "Why?" and I gotta know.  So I research. 

And I think.

This morning alone I was surfing internet articles on "the qualities of leadership" (work thoughts), "algae blooms in Destin Fla" (vacation thoughts) and "the origins of Godzilla" just because SM had on one of the 1950's Godzilla movies with Raymond Burr in it.  (Which was good for a laugh BTW.)






Besides all the jumbles in my head, SM is in a sociable mood today. 

Talking, talking, talking. 

(Geez, it's like he wants to spend time with me or something.)

But I feel like my brain is misfiring a bit.  Now that I've collected so many random thoughts, I can't seem to hold on to a single one of them.   

Even SM's hanging around me is making me crazy.

So I dig into my purse and pull out my credit card. 

Yesterday was payday.

"Wanna go to Sam's Club for me?"  I ask waving it in front of him.

"I'm driving you nuts aren't I?"  SM asks.  "You want me outta here don't you?"

"Please?  I just need to decompress from yesterday."  (Intense day at work.)

"OK.  I'll get out of your hair."  SM says grabbing the card.

"You're wonderful."  I say with a kiss.

Alone.

Finally.

Now the only voice in my head is my own.

Now if only she would shut up...

Do Unto Others

A coworker showed me this clip about Mitchell, the basketball team manager.

Check it out.

Pause For The Cause

So I'm at work on Friday trying to enter my hours for the week in on our company's online payroll system. 

To do this I have to enter our company code, an Employee ID # and finally my own personal password. 

I do all of this and it spits back at me..."Invalid.  Try Again."

Crap.

So I do it again and get the same response.  I'm looking at my ID # and I know it's wrong but for the life of me I can't remember what the correct digits are. 












I pause, staring out my office window. 

I look down at the screen again.

Nothing. 

I'm blank.

Insert the sound of crickets chirping here.







These moments of "Duh" are happening more and more.  I realize that this is just one more side effect of declining hormones and the simple fact that my grey matter just doesn't fire on all cylinders anymore but really...

There just aren't enough sticky notes in my life to remind me of all the freakin passwords, codes, numerical ID's  that I need day in and day out to function in this modern world. And most of them are important enough that I can't put it on paper so I've got to remember them. 

Don't they know I'm over 50?










How I long for the caveman days of yesteryear.

Ugg.  Hungry.  Eat.  Scratch buttock.  Pick nose.  Sleep.

How much easier life was then.

So today I was browsing the Internet cause it's cold and rainy out and I have no motivation to do squat and I come across this article on The Huffington Post called  The Skinny On Remembering

Here's a snippet that had me laughing.

I now have frequent moments throughout the day where an uncomfortable pause falls upon whatever conversation I am having. It is a noisy quiet, sometimes initiated by me, sometimes by my middle-aged girlfriend, but it's an unmistakable moment of quiet that concerns me because it never happened to me until I got old. Thinking about these spaces of quiet in my day reminds me of what Deborah Underwood has described as many kinds of quiet: Top of the roller coaster quiet, first look at my new bad haircut quiet, first one awake quiet, jelly side down quiet, don't scare the robins quiet, car ride at night quiet. 

Along that same line of thinking, I have, as a middle-aged woman, discovered a new subcategory of quiet. There is the I forgot my password quiet, I'm not sure where I parked my car quiet, I can't remember what I came in this room to get quiet and the I can't find my reading glasses and the waitress is waiting quiet. Then there is the dreaded I cannot remember my boss's wife's name to introduce her quiet.

Been there done that. 

Glad to know I'm not alone.

Now who am I talking to again?

Hello?

The Madness...

Not much to report here this weekend.  Miss March (link to a letter I wrote) is thumbing her nose at us once again and giving us a really crappy weekend. 





40's and drizzly rain.  Not enough rain to soak the soil mind you, but just enough rain to keep you from working on projects outside. 

All the blooming trees and bushes are in a state of "pause" with the drop in temps.  It's like going into a florists refrigerator out there.

Could I show you that the lettuce has sprouted in the hoop house?  Yep.  Could I show you that the peas are popping up?  Sure.  But they're huddled so close to the soil that's it's not worth the picture.  The onions look the same as when I planted them.  Little toy solders. 

The tomato starts have their second leaves forming and the sweet peppers are peeking their heads up out of the soil.  I've been moving them back and forth from under the grow light on the counter to the south facing window whenever the sun is out, which ain't happening today.

Ah, the madness of March.  So close and yet so far.

So we'll let her be the little stinker that she is.  SM will plant his tookus in his chair and enjoy a weekend of College B-Ball tournaments.  Go Bucks!

Me?  I guess I'll be doing the usual.  Cooking, cleaning and browsing your blogs.

Are you getting as stir crazy as I am?

Incredible Edible

I was on Bee Haven Acres and found this link to "How we can eat our landscape."

It's worth the 13 minutes if you're interested.  Pam is an impassioned speaker.  She can get you excited.  And she's got me wondering what changes I can make in my own front yard.

You see, my garden is large enough that if you made an effort to look around the house to the backyard you'd see it.  You might not know everything I'm trying to grow in there but you'd know that I was likely growing some veggies.  Only the neighbors directly around me know the extent of my efforts.  That I've got fruit trees and bushes too.

My neighbors and co-workers are also the beneficiaries of my excess and it's not at all hard to have excess with a veggie garden, is it? 

The other day, I had a fellow in the building that I work in ask me if I was planting onions again this year. He LOVED getting my excess onions last year and he lit up like a firecracker when I told him I had.

But why doesn't he do it himself?  Not interested?  No space?  (Surprisingly, it takes so little...)

Why do it for yourself if it's handed to you? 

That's what my head said after I walked away.  (I'm ashamed to say.)

But that's a pretty harsh statement and implies blame, which is not what I think at all.  Really...

How can you blame someone raised in a culture where you go to the store to buy what you want?  That was me not that long ago.  If that's all you know, than that's what you think is normal. 

To him, I'm the odd duck who likes to garden and he thinks it's amazing that I'm able to grow these monster onions that taste so good.  It would never occur to him to do it for himself.  No one else around him does.  Unless someone got him interested in it.

And how do you get someone curious about a thing?

I agree with Pam.  It's all about exposure. 

Changing your local culture bit by bit...Or perhaps I should say bite by bite?

I found this clip to be very inspiring.  So much so that has me wondering if I might want to get a raised bed going in my own front yard with some veg and flowers in it.  Close enough to the road that folks might be tempted to pick a tomato or a summer squash.  Maybe I could plant some veg in the landscaped patch where my mailbox is?  Maybe it will start a conversation in my own neighborhood.  And maybe they might think that they could plant a tomato next to their mailbox too.

Change is best accepted if it's done so slowly that no one recognizes it. 

Lucky for me that I don't have an HOA to stomp me down.  So maybe some veg in the front yard will fly.





"Thank You" Bev at BeeHaven and "Thank You" Incredible Edible for the inspiration.

Here's the link to their website if you want to explore some more. 

I've already got it under my favorite places and I'm looking forward to spending some time browsing their site for ideas and motivation.

Check it out!

Scrubbing Bubbles - Update

Other than the fact that I have wet carpets on a 40 degree rainy day, (brr) I would have to say that the Chem Dry method of cleaning (bonnet cleaning) appears to have spiffed up the place well enough to at least consider delaying replacing the carpet for the time being.

Which was the point of this exercise anyway. 

The stains that were driving me crazy appear to be gone. 

For now. 

One stain was a black, greasy spot the size of my hand left from SM's weight machine that we'd moved into the garage last year.  Seriously, it's gone.  Pretty impressive, I must say. 

But ultimately, time will tell. 

If the stains come creeping back in a few days then replacing the carpet will move back up to the top of the list.  If not, then I plan on managing the carpets as I always have and include Chem Dry as a periodic deep clean.

I really don't think that there's any good way to keep up carpets.  Lots of opinions out there on the best way to do it.  You can drive yourself crazy researching it.  Guess what?  Carpets are dirt traps plain and simple.  It's likely best just to have hardwoods, if you can afford them.

I will say that I was very suspicious about the bonnet cleaning method.  It's basically a huge buffing machine rubbing the dirt "out" of the carpet.  (Or spreading it around so it's not as noticeable @;)



SM and I were both a bit concerned when we saw this system in action.  We've always used hot water extraction (steam cleaning).  If you're like us and you've never heard of the bonnet method of carpet cleaning, here's a good explanation on how it works. 











I plan on vacuuming everything once the carpet's dry as this article suggests.  The Chem Dry guy said that overall our carpeting is in pretty good shape for it's age, which made me feel a lot better. 

The Jones-ing Bug

It's a fact of life around here that we're not shy about spending money.

Perhaps I should clarify that statement. 

We will drop a wad on things that directly improve our life.  Like a couple of good steaks.  Or a truck full of nice composted soil for the garden.  Or my Dermologica skin care habit. @;)

But we also have a tendency to be "El Cheap-o" if we think we can get away with it.

Example?

I drive a 1999 Jeep that's soon to hit 250K on it.  Am I selling?  Nope.  As long as it can get me from point A to point B safely, then I'm gonna run that sucker into the ground. 

Now that's not to say that I wouldn't like to be driving around in a nice Lexus like some of the neighbors do.  Sure I would.  But I don't live in the Jeep, so it falls into the "good enough" category.

What is difficult to work through is when one of us gets the "Jones-ing Bug."




You know...The "I can't live without it!" or "That is SO COOL -Lets Get it!" or "You're not my Momma...Stop telling me what to do!"

As intelligent, mature adults we don't fall into those traps very often but with home improvement projects we've been finding lately that one of us is HOT about an issue while the other is COLD.

Example?

Granite bathroom counter tops. 

I heard nothing but "Gotta have it" for months from SM.  From Google-ing images to HGTV shows to roaming around quarry lots getting quotes...I just wasn't HOT.  I just didn't see the point and I finally wore SM down to the point where he agreed that it just wasn't as important as he thought it was.  So far, he's happy with how the bathroom remodel has turned out.

Yeah me!

But the "Jones-ing Bug" has struck again and now it's me that's "Got to have it!"

What have I got to have?  New living room carpet. 

The stuff we have was new when we bought the place.  Really good quality, dense carpeting.  The trouble is that's it's 15+ years old and is stained beyond repair, IMHO.

2 humans, 4 dogs (1 deceased) and a cat (also deceased) have run rough-shod over this carpet.  The 3 P's (poop, pee and puke) from the critters has also graced it's surface.  Folks who have indoor pets also tend to have carpet cleaners and I've gone through 2 Bissells in the effort to keep that carpet decent. 

But enough is enough and I've told SM that we're gonna cough it up.  As in drop a wad.  SM is kinda on board with me.  Last year we replaced the carpeting in the office, and 2 bedrooms.  Good enough carpeting.  Not the best, but not crap either.

I'm torn though as I know that I've got at least 8-10 more years of the 3 P's and it's gonna kill me the first time one of these noodle-brains has an accident on it.

So what to do?  Back and forth we go.  We almost buy, then we pull back. 

SM though came up with an option.  "How about a professional cleaning?  One last try to see if it can be salvaged for a few more years?"

You might think it's crazy but we haven't had a professional carpet cleaner come here in years.  I would use our Bissell at least once a month or so.  Seemed good enough, so we never felt it needed it.  But SM does bring up a good point.  Maybe they can clean the carpet back to where it's "good enough" again.

SM researched and selected Chem Dry.  They'll be here at 9 this morning.  I'm optimistic and keeping my fingers crossed.  After all, I've got other things to spend that money on.

Like a bathroom shower stall.  Tile, shower pan, glass enclosure.  Can anybody say Ka-Ching?

POP!

Yesterday was a blue sky day with temps hovering around 80 degrees.  Can you believe it?

Neighbors who have been in hiding for the past 4 months suddenly emerge like butterfly's from their cocoons.  Wow, there are people living in all those houses?  Who knew?

Everyone was out and about doing stuff in their yards.  Kids riding bikes, dogs were barking, neighbors hollering "Hello" after having stayed cooped up all winter.  Lawn mowers and chain saws were humming.

Yep.  Spring has arrived in the Piedmont. 

POP!  Just like that.

The Red Buds are in bloom.  Most of the Bradford Pears are also beginning to pop this week.  And there's a lone peach blossom on the peach tree that we attacked last week.

 

You can see that even our maple tree has that "haze" of color you see just before they leaf out completely.  (See the header pic)

I noticed this week that I'm already getting stuffy when I'm outside so I've started on my preemptive dose of Claritin.  It's hard to believe that the pollen will be cranking out full blast soon.  You really gotta live here to understand just how intense the pollen gets.  Unless you're SM.  Nothing bothers him!

I pulled out all the hoop house stuff and got THAT set up.  Lettuce and carrots are under the hoop, while the sugar peas and onions will be out in the open as they can take a hit of the frost that we'll do doubt continue to get for the next month or so.

I also started my tomatoes and peppers. 

I set up a smaller, separate dish for my neighbor Deb who just started a small kitchen garden beside her garage last year.  She had bought all her plants from the nursery last year but I offered to start some for her instead.  I also gave her my Baker Creek catalog back in December as inspiration and gave her some of the gazillion onion sets that just didn't fit in my garden. 

Can you tell I'm trying to convert her? 

I can't tell you how nice it is to get outside after all the rain and cold we've had.  I know that seems like I'm rubbing your nose it.  Particularly those of you with several inches of snow still on the ground.

Hmm.

I suppose I AM rubbing your nose in it.

Take THAT!   (Whaaa Haa Ha!)

Feeling Fruity

Last year was the first year that I pruned the little apple sticks we'd planted a few years ago.  It seemed that I was murderizing them at the time but they loved it. Not enough to give me any fruit but that wasn't really their fault.  We'd had an early warm-up and then got sucker punched with a late hard freeze that ruined any hopes of fruit from anything. 

It even killed a mature crepe myrtle.

So this year we attacked the apples (4th year) with the same ruthlessness we did last year.  But what about the peach tree?

I'd bought this poor little sucker from Walmart a few years ago.  Small and puny it was (but cheap) so I let it alone to get itself established. 

Last year it put out some stunning blossoms and about a dozen peaches, which surprised me as I thought it was way too young to do that.  Well, it must've agreed with me because all the baby peaches fell off.

So I figured this year I'd better learn a bit more about peaches.  I found this really good article on Peach Tree Pruning. 

Turns out that we were supposed to prune it in January.  SM and I went out and eyeballed it this past weekend and decided that since it wasn't close to blooming yet, we'd go ahead and shape it up.

Before shot.  Looks good to me!

 

But the article says it needs to be open in the middle.  Think of the shape of your hand holding a peach.  OoooKaaay...Snip snip snip...Remove 40% of the tree.  Really???

"Redwood" limbs will fruit, so leave those as long as they're growing at a 45 degree angle. 

Hm.  Looks kinda freaky now but who am I to judge?  If it gives me fruit this year than I'll be happy.

SM and I really need to pay some attention to the raspberry patch this year and I also tossed some fertilizer on the strawberries and blueberries as we had some rain moving in. 

Last year was our first year with the strawberries and we're hoping for a kick-ass year this year.  They're still looking pretty beat up from being under the pine straw and I need to get in there and trim old leaves out and thin out the herd a bit. 

I'm a bit nervous to go sticking my hands in there after the snake discovery last week.  I plan on using the rake aggressively first. 

Wish me luck!

Daughter Of Eve

SM and I worked out in the garden this weekend and as we did I was lecturing ...errr...discussing the many benefits of the lasagna method of gardening with SM who (like most men) prefer power tools when gardening rather than the natural layering approach I was extolling.

"See?  When you lay down the cardboard and then throw straw and leaves on top it all decomposes and softens the..."

While I was talking, SM was lifting some of the decaying straw and leaf mold off a juicy patch of ground when I heard him say...

"Snake!"

Now let me say here and now that I'm generally a "live and let live" kinda girl.  But when it comes to snakes I tend to strike first and ask questions later.

"Die! Spawn of Satan! Die!"

I whipped out my shovel and beheaded the little bastard. 




And little he was.  Just a baby.  Curled up and cold.  Hardly a threat at all. 

Over the next half hour or so I found 3 more of the little buggars and dispatched them all in a similar fashion. 

By this time I figured my garden was a hotbed of snake-ish activity. 

Just crawling with them!  (shudder)

(Well Duh!  Critters of all kinds will find a habitat in decomposing materials.  Remember last years mice?)

So anyway, I figure that at some point I might have to deal with a snakebite.  I mean I do work in the garden...you know weeding, stomping around and such.  So like any good Girl Scout I goggled Copperheads to learn more about them as this is what I automatically assumed I had crawling in my garden.




Hm. 

Doesn't really look like the snakes I killed does it? 

I really have no idea what they are but I am grateful to conclude that these are likely not venomous snakes.  As a matter of fact it's highly probable that these snakes are highly beneficial for my garden.  (All you knowledgeable snake folk out there can tell me what it is.)

Oopsie....My bad.

In my defense, all I will say is that I am a daughter of Eve. 

And after what that snake did to us girls, is it any wonder that I got all Samuel Jackson on it's ass?  (Profanity alert...but it is funny.  Cause Samuel Jackson ALWAYS acts like this.)

Suprisingly, I didn't dream about snakes last night.  Although SM is doing Jake the Snake on me! (From Two and a Half Men.)

"Sup..."

So I'm sitting here writing a post. 

Pre-dawn. 

The sky is barely lightening.

SM comes wandering out in search of coffee. 

Sits down across from me.

I know better than to engage him in intelligent conversation before the second cup but he's unusually chatty today.

"Listen to them birds!"  He says.

"They've been chattering away before dawn for the past few weeks."  I say typing away on my laptop.

"They're singing like crazy out there."  SM observes.

"Course they are. It's mating season out there."  I pause, looking up at him. 

"Hey, baabeee..."  I pitch my voice higher, batting my eyelashes at him.

SM laughs, tips his head back in that quick nod that the kids do.

"Sup..." He says in a deep voice.  I laugh.




Guys. 

Always gotta be cool.

The All-Nighter

It's been a while since I've pulled an all-nighter.





Technically speaking, I did pass out for 3 hours last night. 

9-midnight. 

But it wasn't solid. 

I was up and down during those three hours, thinking it was a lot later than it actually was.

Flame on.  12:15

Flame off.  12:19

And then freezing cold.  12:35

Every 20-30 minutes I cycle through. 

Who needs a clock?

Finally, I get up at 1:00 as the intensity of my flashes always pick up between midnight and 6am.

No point fighting it.

So I watch some tube.  A really bad movie.  The Holiday with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. 



Good idea, bad chemistry and really overacted by Diaz.  Geez.  Take a sedative sweetheart.

Yawn.

At 3 am, I climb back in bed.

Toss, turn.  Flame on.  Flame off

By 3:30 I was back up and out in the kitchen. 

Screw it.

I turn on the laptop and check in with ya'll's blogs.

Turns out I'm not the only one pulling all-nighters.  I see piglets and kids being born on your blogs.  Other folks having trouble sleeping.

This got me to thinking. 

I never had children myself but I often see new Mom and Dads living on fumes during the first few years of parenthood. 

Pulling all-nighters.

I've talked to tons of people who have problems sleeping on a daily basis.  Half the people I work with are on Ambien.

No Thanks.  I rather be tired than dopey and sleeping pills make me stupid.

I have a 72yo sister in law who gets by on 3 hours sleep a night. 

Has for years.

Can you imagine?

Thank God I'm not THAT bad.

Years ago, SM and I stayed overnight at a friends house while visiting.  I heard Sandy up and banging around in the dead of night, cleaning her house while her husband snoozed.

"Menopause."  She said, as if that one word explained everything. 

At the time, I didn't understand. 

I do now.

As I sit here typing this, I have a load of laundry in the wash. 

I've pulled my seed tray and seeds out. I think I'll get some tomatoes and peppers started.

Flame on. 4:03

Flame off 4:07

Good night for an all-nighter don't cha think? 

Time change tomorrow.

Spring forward officially at 2am.

Pretty good chance I'll be awake to see it.

Flame on!

4:24

Life According to The Fiddler

SM and I haven't been seeing much of each other lately.  The only time we do is on the weekends and I'm usually busy with housework or cooking while SM does his thing.

But there is some time for relaxing.  For conversations.  For reconnecting. 

For SM to watch his college basketball games and for me to veg out in front of the tube.

Fiddler On The Roof was on this past weekend and caused us to consider how some of the songs reflected in our own lives.

I told SM that "If I Were A Rich Man" is how Seinfield got the whole "Yada, Yada" routine going. 

You know, in the middle of the song? 

"Yada-dee-da-da"

SM laughed and said it's not the same thing at all.

"Sunrise, Sunset" seems to show the routine pattern of our days lately.  I'm off to bed by 8:30pm and up by 4am while SM doesn't get home till after I'm in bed and gets up around 7am, right when I'm leaving. 

Sunrise, sunset, indeed!  "Swiftly fly the years..."  The days are sliding by with the sameness of our work routine.

And SM has been singing "But do you love me?" (see above link) when we do actually run into each other.

It's good for a laugh. 

And a smile. 

And maybe even a hug and kiss.

"After 25 years...It's nice to know..."

So if any of you "Kids" out there wonder what it's like to be married to the same person for a long time (27 years for us this year)...Just turn on Fiddler.

It answers most of life's little questions.

Sacrificial Carrot

After tossing and turning, I finally got up this morning around 3am.

Standing in the dark, I offer the dogs their "snackie" and put them out to do their business. 

SM wanders out.

Surprised I ask, "Can't sleep?"

"No.  You?"  SM asks and turns the kitchen light on.

"Flashes and chills."  I reply, shrugging. 

SM looks at the kitchen counter with a frown on his face. 

"What's that?"  His finger wands over and pokes at the object in question.

"That's a sacrificial carrot." 

SM looks at me.

(On the counter I've placed my purse and car keys.  I don't normally leave them there.  I put them there if I need to remind myself to take something with me when I leave.  Yesterday, I ran out of carrots at work for me to snack on.)

"I put that little nub there to remind me to grab the bag of carrots out of the fridge and take them with me to work tomorrow."

SM picks up the tiny nub.





Looks at it. 

Lays it back down.

He turns to me then, wraps his arms around me and lays his head on my shoulder as silent, vibrating laughter shakes his whole body.

After a moment he's laughing so hard he's crying.

Such is life in the wee hours of the morning around here....

I Used To Be This Girl

Not so much anymore...@;)

Slap Me Upside The Head And Take Away My Charge Card

I'm starting to feel that SM and I are improving the economy single handedly.

Really...

I guess it's not that hard to do since we've put off making any improvements to the house in over 5 years.  Inside and out, it's time to just suck it up and replace, renovate and repair.

It sure ain't cheap is it?

It's a good thing that I've been getting a lot of extra hours at work.  The bank account has been Yo-Yo ing.  Cash in, cash out.  Nice and fat, then drained dry.

(I get the hives just thinking about it.)

So besides the "in progress" bathroom (we're still undecided on the shower area), we found a new reclining love seat and reclining extra wide chair for SM back in January (on sale at Macys) and took delivery on it a few weeks ago.






Why is it that when you change one little thing in a room, it kick starts a whole room renovation?  I really wasn't planning on doing anything to the living room but replace the nasty, stained 20 yo carpeting.

But with the new furniture all that's changed!  Suddenly everything looks old and dated.  Scruffy!

Now I'm looking at repainting the walls and buying new accessories like pillows, wall art, coffee and end tables, lamps...  (sigh) 

It's a vicious cycle, I tell ya!

Plus I HATE shopping! 

I hate it more than I can say which is why we've been doing so much of it while the weathers been so crappy!  SM pushes me out the door with the logic that all I'm going to do is sit and watch TV.  He's right. 

So off we go hunting for more crap.

Yesterday, we found a discontinued 5 x 8 rug for our kitchen floor at Pottery Barn. 





PB has great quality stuff but who can afford it?  We usually steer clear of them but they offered the rug for $190.  (Usually costs $350)  The colors were in line with the kitchen walls and cabinet color (Thank God) so we went ahead and jumped on it. 

I was also eyeballing some of their pillows that were on sale ($48 reg $18 sale) until I realized that it was for the covers only.  I guess this is how PB sells them.  You buy the cover and the pillow insert separately.  Once you do that these pillows are easily 50 buck or more!!

Once I realized that I knew I was in the wrong store.  Just get the carpet and go already!

Fortunately today is a clear blue sky day.  So what if it's chilly out?  At least I can get some yard work done.

Which got me to thinking about stuff that I keep putting off buying for the garden.

So I sat here this morning and placed my order for my onion sets.  I also went shopping for shade cloth (sun damaged produce), row covers (insect control) and a kneeling gizmo (all that weeding to look forward to). 


 

I've been wanting all of these things for a few years now and I'm excited to see the benefits of using them.

Whew...Now I can put away my ever so hot (and sizzling) charge card and go outside and enjoy the day.

It's Not The Thing You Fling...

After working 50 hours (in only 4 days) I'm feeling a bit like the piano at the end of this clip.

Later today, when I do finally come down to earth and my bits and pieces are scattered everywhere, I'll try to remember why I do what I do.

"It's the fling itself..."