Bunny killer

We have rabbits living in our yard. We've co-existed with them peacefully for over two years now. I like seeing them when I come home, or leave for work in the morning.

Chris called me outside this morning, just outside the garage door, one of the rabbits was lying dead on the pavement.

The only thing we can figure is that we have a bunny killer in our midst. Every now and then, there is a yellow cat that will come and hang out in the back yard. Just lie there for a while and then disappear. We may see him for days in a row, and then not for several weeks.

He showed up yesterday. This morning we have the dead bunny. We think he was bringing us a present because he put it by the door. Growing up in the country, I know cats do this - kill something and bring it to you. I hope this does not become a regular event.

Now, we are debating on who gets to remove the bunny from the driveway. I just can't do it!

Time off

I have been enjoying 5 days straight off of work Thur - Mon -- 3 more to go before it is back to work. Thursday, I just took care of things like returning movies (but first I watched Personal Effects which I hadn't had a chance to watch since I'd rented it and it was due back), going to the post office to mail off a couple of packages, did some random cleaning. Chris and I went to dinner at Red Lobster.

Yesterday, I worked in the garage all day long - from 6 am - 5 pm, and managed to catch up on all of the laundry also. I also took all of the trash to the dump. I know it's not the way most people want to spend their time off, but I'm feeling good about getting this stuff done. I am trying to minimize.

I got up at 7 am this morning, and sat on the sofa and promptly fell alseep again until I had to wake Chris up at 9 am because he had to go into work today. He just left a little while ago, and now I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do today... guess it's back out into the garage. I'm making a second run through boxes and trashing some of the things that survived the first cut. But I think I must pause for breakfast first.

Milestones, cleaning and Life School Musical

I can't believe I forgot to mention that I reached another milestone - one month without Coca-Cola on the 26th. I'm still sticking with it.

I've also been diagnosed with pernicious anemia and am getting B12 shots - I feel so much better. Didn't actually know that I felt so bad! Guess that is where I'm getting all of the cleaning out energy that I've had lately.

Yesterday, I got up early and started on the kitchen. I started pulling everything out of the cabinets, called Chris in "for a minute" and about 5 hours later we finished. We were ruthless - we only kept the things that we really use. After we went through the cabinets - we started on the pantry. I'm almost ashamed at the state the pantry got in - we didn't even know what we had. We tossed so much, and now we know exactly what we have. I organized all of the storage containers. Willy has his own shelf of food and treats, etc. Was able to find a home for all of the kitchen gadgets that were awaiting attention.

I have a few more boxes that I want to go through, and finally - our two households will be merged! Chris and I each moved our lives in the house and we didn't quite have enough room for all of it and it was so easy to just stick it in a room and shut the door -- and of course the garage got it's share. It's almost all done - I'd say 75%.

I am really happy with the progress and the results are the best part!

Scrapbook stuff is sorted and what I kept is organized. A few people have gone through the give-away goodies and loaded up. I have a few more people lined up to come get what they want. There is still a LOT left.

Last night, we went to see Anna Grace in the Life School Musical at her church. She did a great job. The whole production was great. We really enjoyed it. Enjoyed the dinner at Longhorn's afterwards with family.

Dare I hope?

I went through what I *think* are the last two boxes of scrapbook stuff to be sorted! I kept more than I should have... oh well. My mom is planning to come "shopping" tomorrow after I get off of work.

Part 1 complete!

Success! I have the guest room completely cleaned out - all of Chris's stuff stored in the closet in that room. We hauled off another truckload of trash. (We'd taken 3 just from stuff in the garage). It's amazing how much you accumulate over the years. I just put it all in the guest room and shut the door.

But now - the room is completely empty!

I have all of my scrapbook stuff left to organize, a bunch of linens left to find a home for, and some kitchen gadgets. (next project will be the pantry - where I plan to put said kitchen gadgets).

I'm going to re-arrange the dining room.

Tomorrow we might go get Chris's bed from his cousin's house where he has been storing it. I'd really like to do that to get that room set up. It's ridiculous, we've been in the house for two years and I finally got down to business. I was not going to take 5 days off of work and not work on this project.

Chris and I went to have Mexican for supper, and I was telling him that to me all of the sudden, the house seems larger - he agreed. I mean, it's like we just built another room on the house.

I have a ridiculous amount of scrapbook stuff.

I'm really pleased with the progress I've made.

STILL cleaning out

I have sort of re-defined my garage cleaning plan. I decided that I needed a place to put the garage stuff that makes it through all of the cuts and winds up in the keep pile.

So... we never got the guest room set up, and it just morphed into storage space, but I'm determined to make it a usable room. So... I decided to start there.

I have gone through all of Chris's things and put all of his things in that closet. Let me tell ya, I can pack a closet!

So, I have started accumulating all of my scrapbooking stuff in one pile in the living room. Wow. When that is added to what is in the garage - double Wow. I am going to set up a workable scrapbook space and I am going to scrapbook!

I am throwing away a bunch of stuff! I'm so proud of myself.

I've got two more full days I can work on it, so my goal is to have it all cleaned out and organized by Monday night. Then, I can start incorporating the stuff from the garage.

Soon, I'll be able to park in the garage again.

Mission de-clutter is well underway.

More about our Sunday

After we got finished bird watching, we went to Dairy Queen for breakfast. First time we'd ever gone there for a sit down breakfast. They haven't been serving breakfast all that long, so we never thought about it. It was a pretty good meal.

So, it was back home to start on the garage. It was really a good day weather wise to work. It was overcast, and not too hot. About 6 pm, we decided we'd done enough for the day and were happy with our two days progress. I think we need another day, maybe two. It's slow going. If paper were magnetic, I'd be the magnet! I've got boxes and boxes of paper and other stuff I should have thrown away a long time ago. So, I'm sorting: Keep, trash or burn. Chris moved all of his stuff outside and sorted through it and brought it back in. It's an organizational project for him.

For me though, I had a walk down memory lane, I found myself coming across some unexpected memories of lost loved ones.

I found a picture of my grandfather "PaPa".

And from my grandmother "MayMay", I found so many cards and letters and coupons which she loved sending to us. It was one of her favorite things to do - send us coupons with a note buried somewhere inside, she'd ask you if you got the coupons, and you'd say yes, and she'd want to know if you found anything you could use, and of course the answer was yes... and she'd know if you had gone through them or not depending on whether you knew about the note -- I missed making her a doctor's appointment one time because I only thought I had gotten coupons, another time, I didn't see the note to bring her some of her favorite candy the next time I came to vist. I learned that I had better go through the coupons carefully.

And from my grandmother "Grandma", I found a Valentine she sent me when I was in elementary school.

I found a couple of notes from my friend Sandi who died in a car accident. I also found a few cards from her parents. I also found the thank you note they sent me for the scrapbook I had made of photos they'd never seen of Sandi.

I found photos from my friend Janet's rehearsal dinner. Janet died of an aneurysm at age 36. We were lifelong friends - our mother's met when we were babies. We grew up together. I was in the Czech Republic, we'd taken a lunch break from rafting down a beautiful river, the Vltava, I was standing outside looking at a castle on the side of the river when I learned of her death. We had one more day of rafting and camping planned, but we cut our trip short. The guys in the group hitch-hiked back to the cars and brought our rental to us. We had to drive 2 hours to our penzion, then we packed as fast as we could and drove 4 hours to Munich, Germany and caught the next flight out. We made it home in time for her funeral.

I found a photo of my friend Penny from nursing school. She died of an aneurysm in her late 20's. I recently saw her mom and she asked me if I had any photos of Penny. I told her I thought I did, but had no idea where they were. She asked me to please send her a copy if I ever ran across them.

I found a photo from my prom, my date was Jimmy. He died late last year in a motorcycle accident.

A bittersweet walk down memory lane today.

Spring Cleaning

So, Chris declared today was clean up the garage day. I was happy about it because it's been getting on my nerves for a long time. Last summer, I decided I was tired of paying $65 a month for a storage unit so I cleaned it out and brought everything home and it took root in my garage. Add Chris's tools and guy stuff... and our cars ended up outside.

We ended up getting a good bit done, but we have a long way to go. I worked some on the back porch - lots of pollen everywhere, and he removed some bird feeders and bird baths the former owner had put in the yard- they were getting really weathered. Chris also took down a dead tree in the front yard --- THEN we started working on the garage. My job is to sit still and go through boxes - keep it or trash it.

Tomorrow is another day....

So, this is what

So, this is what $5600.00 looks like.

$5600!!!

Well, the A/C unit is going to cost $5600!! It's a bigger, better, more efficient unit than we had priced at first. I'm still reeling from the sticker shock. It has a 10 year warranty, and there's a $1500 tax rebate because it is a 15 SEER unit. Thank goodness Chris did all of the research on it, and thank goodness for signature loans.

Ouch

A/C guy called, checked on prices - the new unit is going to cost between $4200 - $4500. He said he'd try to get us through the next couple of months by adding freon if we wanted to do that. The past few days have been pleasant, we've just had the fans going and the windows open. So, I hope we can ride it out a while so I can cushion my savings account for the blow.

New blooms

This is just a random shot of one of the new blooms in the yard. The previous owner of the house did some wonderful landscaping, so in the spring time, something new is always blooming.

The joys of home ownership

Oh the joys of home ownership. The other day, I walked into the guest room to find bits of ceiling plaster on the floor and furniture. I looked up and uh oh... a roof leak. So yesterday was the day to repair it. We had to put the ladder in the bed of the truck to get it high enough for Chris to even get onto the roof. The pitch of the roof is very steep. The repair didn't take that long once he got up there, and there was only one really scary moment when he started to slip. There's really nothing to catch onto. He managed to use the part of the roof of the porch to brace himself with and to stop the slipping.

I was SO glad when he was safely off of the roof. Thank you Chris for fixing the roof.

New curtain

My mom made this curtain for me and Chris. She gave it to us a few months ago, and we finally got it put up today. This is the door to the garage. I'm taking the photo from my bedroom, so it is nice to have a curtain up for a little extra privacy. We wanted something that would let some light in.

She and I went to Ohco (a fabric outlet) and found the fabric in a remnant bin. It was only a few dollars. Thanks Mama.