No internet yesterday

That's why there was no blogging.

I'll be attempting to get it back today...

Read more...

Rainbows & butterflies

For the past year I've wanted to feel settled.
To feel like I could just exhale.
I do.
I feel happy.
Content.
And ok with my place right now.
- -
All is well.

Read more...

Serious pruning

The "Cousin It" bush/tree thing in the courtyard before...

The lovely "Secret Garden" tree after.

C & I tag-teamed this one. The tree is LOADED with thorns. Who knew?
I believe we'll do flower beds or something in the dirt patch beneath.

Read more...

The wall is slowly going up...

This is the part of the wall separating our back patio from our neighbor's.
I believe they'll be painting it. Eventually. When the other parts are done.

This is just to the right of the picture above. From the patio out into the yard.
The wall looks super-high. I'm wondering if it will actually be that high for the length of our yard.
If so, I think that's somewhat unnecessary.
But, who am I but merely a renter?

Again, just a bit further right from the last photo. Trench dug.
Neighbor's yard on the top (to the left of us).
Our yard is the one with all the dirt piled on it.

I'd say the best part of the wall-building would be the 3 workers who show up every morning around 9 a.m. and remain on our back patio for the day.
They've taken to storing their equipment in a wooden crate on our patio that came with the house.
Huh? What? I guess our casa is their casa.

Read more...

Washer and dryer installed and working

Can I tell you how amazing (yes, amazing) it is to use a large capacity washer and dryer after you've been using a stackable, miniature-person, teeny-capacity washer and dryer combo?

AMAZING:
Before in the itsy-bitsy washer we could wash at one time, maximum:
*2 pairs of C's shorts and one pair of mine.
*3 towels, and 2 washcloths. And, that was stuffed.

Here?! HOLY cow! I could fit like 10 pairs of C.'s shorts if I wanted to. AMAZING.

Friends, on the serious side - when you live without something and then magically it appears in your life it is pure sugar. Sweet, sweet sugar.

Note: Thought I'd show you the "room" our washer and dryer are in. It's "open air" and is located behind our kitche. (There's a door dividing the space. Whew.) It is so open air that yesterday three birds decided to fly in and scare the hell out of me. (I say hell, because there was no other word for it.) As some of you know, I'm not big on nature and am not one to welcome nature into my home.

Today, a cockroach also welcomed himself in the laundry room and I killed him DEAD with RAID. It was amazing. Then, I left the corpose there in his foamy deathbed until C. could get home to dispose him properly.

Read more...

Wanted: A stove

Unfortunately, the stove we wanted to get at Home Depot is out of stock and they don't know when more will be in stock. SO... we will get one at some point this week... just might spend a bit more than we wanted. Until then, this lovely little jobby will sit in our kitchen and hold water bottles and the like.

*Note: Thank GOODNESS for the toaster oven. :-) (Ironic, I know...) But I'm thrilled we're actually using a toaster oven in lieu of a REAL oven. You know, as all people should...

Read more...