a week in review. March 30

today is shorty's birthday......my sweet daughter face is 30 today.  my very non short 5' 10 3/4" shortcake.  wished her a happy birthday via phone and card.....the party is next week.  her dad is getting bbq & veggies for everyone.  her mil is supplying cake, decorations and drinks.  i'm supposed to try to think of a good family friendly game or two.  i don't play a lot of games, so do y'all have some suggestions for games that are fun/uncomplicated/low expense?

i'm wide open to ideas!

i've been working on welcoming spring this week.  every day i try to do a little bit around here.  so far the garden hoses are back on the spigots, i removed leaves & washed the patio, porch and sidewalk.  i washed off the outdoor furniture, put the padded seats back out....put the garden signs in the little flower garden.  yes, definitely cute.  so far we have  yellow and deep pink tulips blooming, the rose buds are about to spring to life....can't wait for them to OPEN!  irises, hostas, my goodness, everything is coming up, poking their little green heads up out of the ground.....so sweet but still so early!

there are leaves everywhere, bruce has been promising to deal witah the leaves for some time now, but i know at some point he will take them on.  the leaves are no small thing here, there are massive massive oak trees on the front lawn.....which produce insane amounts of leafage.....yikes!  i  raked around the garden bed on the side yard.....it hurt.  there are muscles just below the waist on the right and left sides.....i have felt massive pain in them since my 40's whenever i do lifting, raking, vacuuming, bending, .....they never heal, they never give up on being wrecked.  why?  the other side issue?  well when my back is angry cause i overdo it it's extremely hard to wipe the tushy.  tmi?  yes, definitely.  but my heavens, there are times when you need to tell somebody the stuff that is rarely said even when it's embarrassing.  sorry for picking you to tell........

forgive me.

i put the butterfly & daisy pillows out.....watered the plants.  washed table tops off......but there are still LEAVES everywhere.....yesterday i got the bright idea to try to rake the leaves from beneath the boxwood hedge in front of the porch.  see i have chipmunks which are cute but we are at WAR!  I go out and sweep the sidewalk regularly.....I sweep the leaves back under the hedge and the chipmunks take EXCEPTION.  Apparently I am covering up the entrances to their Boxwood Condo Doorways......man!

So the day after I sweep, they push, dig and fuss until there are leaves everywhere again.  Like I said we are at WAR.  So I thought I need to change my tactics.  Get the leaves out of there and then water the area daily until they tire of the new daily flooding and move elsewhere.  I wonder whose yard they lived in before they moved in here.  This is the second year they reside out front.  They pay no rent, no utilities......sigh, they are cute.  Seriously adorable, especially the babies, but I don't want them here. 

I sat in the chair by the garage door and watched two squirrels race over my neighbor's rooftop.....watched one squirrel on the utility line heading for a pine tree.....saw a hugontious black ant.......a good solid inch long. 

I took a small baker's rack off the front porch, gave it a bath and moved it into the kitchen.  I filled it with photo albums.  I have this big photo project living in my kitchen and as much as I want it gone I keep procrastinating.  The rack eliminated two boxes of stuff.  This leaves two big boxes of empty albums and one giganto plastic container of photos. 

I moved the curio table top project into a stacked plastic basket unit.  It is ready to be reassembled now, but I need an extra pair of hands to do it.  Try to think of the progress I've made and not feel defeated that it's still in pieces. 

Bruce has been GREAT this week.  Truly wonderful!  He came over to troubleshoot the humming disposal.  In the end the motor had burned out.  I finally realized it was just shy of being 15.  It had a good run!  To reduce costs he got pipe & fittings, and turned it back into a regular sink.  Supplies were $22, he would only take a twenty.  Bruce is about to take a five week course in home repairs to advance his knowledge.  The plan is for him to come back with his increased knowledge base so he can either put on a new disposal or.....remove the broken one that is currently hardwired into a light switch.  One switch turns on the light over the kitchen sink.....and the other one is for the disposal.  He put a little piece of black electrical tape so I won't keep trying to turn it on.  So far so good!

The sink is working well, I am on a septic tank out here, so in truth they don't usually recommend that you have a disposal.  I suppose I always thought if I baby it, not put big gunk in there the disposal would serve to grind up the little stuff to bits and make the septic tank work more easily.  But that's just me......

The next day Bruce came by to replace the batteries in the security alarm motion sensor.  How kind is he?  VERY KIND!  The motion sensor is inches from the kitchen ceiling and it beeps when it's low.  The EMC security guy helped me block the area so the beeping would stop.  I wanted to kill it with a baseball bat but he said NO!  doggone it anyway, i never get to break anything on purpose.  i've gotten really good at accidental breakage......but nothing with intent.  man.

the AT&T guy is named Milton....he served in the Navy, he is tall dark and handsome.  made me wish i were young again......for a minute anyway.  a very nice man......he put a new router in.  all i needed was the power cord.....our little friend Rio thinks power cords are teething strings for kitties.  .......i wrapped the new power cord in electical cord to block his addiction to chewing.  the internet was working great when he left.....and i also got a replacement keyboard & mouse from walmart for $10 .......so appreciate this thrifty find!  but ....

i didn't realize that the roku would now be an issue.  it just didn't occur to me, so i was on the phone with netflix and then sharp tv reps to get it all fixed.  it was not happy time.......it took over an hour and a half.....and required moving stuff.....big stuff, I am proud of myself I didn't lose it, I didn't cry, but I was at the edge of losing it cry hard cliff ........then milton called this morning to see how things were going. like i said, he's a really nice guy......i told him about the roku issues.  and he was so sympathetic and apologetic.  it really helped.  not that setting up my rokus are his responsibility directly at all......but oh my goodness.  i had to disconnect the roku device on the bedroom tv (which is easy) but that led to unplugging the sharp roku tv, this means the tv cabinet has to be moved.  which means stuff on top of the cabinet has to also be removed.  and a flashlight is needed cause even with reading glasses i couldn't make out the small print to give the sharp guy the model number. 

then i had to take the decor off the top of the kitchen book shelf to pull it out in order to access the new router.  it had to be unplugged......then back to the tv's to put in the new wifi passwords.  the sharp tv would not accept the password.  so finally i tried adding the password to the bedroom tv, that worked.  SUCCESS.......back to the living room, this time the tv accepted the new password.  why?  i don't know, i was just so grateful........then i had to sit and recup before putting things back in order.

i slept hard last night.  like a rock.

all these details are crazy makers.  my body is angry from all the stuff i do every day.  today i took a two hour nap in between doing stuff......shoulders, neck and back are ANGRY. so angry.......wish i could drop them off at anger management day camp.

i listened to the song EVERYBODY HURTS, had a good cry ......the REM version.  and then I remembered, I still have one of REM's piano benches in my garage...........random and true.

love you, love spring, not overly fond of the bright yellow green pollen covering everything in thick dust everywhere.......hugs, ruthie