Progress on the shade garden

Since the end of May when the last pics of this garden were taken, the patio is now finished, along with the walkway.
I've got plants (yep-a few more!), I've got a pond (yep-got that too!), although it's considerably smaller than our last one. And before any one asks,
No Thanks, we do not need any fish for it.
The old metal chairs were painted dark green-by Mandy & Tom, of course.
Tom & Stan are going to build a privacy fence to obscure the neighbor's boat & yard. That will be a welcome addition. We're getting there!

Bright Blue Welcome

Well I have finally gotten my Blue door for the front of the house. I've always loved the look of a blue door & since our front door at the old house was oak, there was no way Tom was going to let me paint that! It looks really sharp with the pewter accents & the blue in the roof shingles really brings it together. (I can hear my brother Rick now...oh-puleeze, enough already!)

We're in the Pink

Stone that is..........Just before my birthday, Tom & I were out running some errands & had planned to stop and order the yellow stone for the walkway (the one I whined about back in May). We stopped at a new landscape store, I went in with him to order it and Suprise....they had my pink stone! Well it's not actually pink, it's white with shades of pink & purple, but it's called Dixie pink. It's going to look great next to the purple stone that's in the flower beds. I can't wait to have it delivered!

In addition to this wonderful gift of stone, we got a new grill for my Birthday! Our old one was on it's last legs so we went to " just look" and see what's new out there. While we were at Target, a very helpful customer tells Tom that there's a great grill at Sam's and if he's looking he should really check it out. It has an infrared burner, etc,etc,etc. Grill discussions with guys run along the same lines as car & garage discussions.
Off to Sam's we go, the grill this guy told him about was really nice, but Tom sees there's even another one, bigger & better. It has a searing burner & a split lid so you can cook two things at once! "But it's also more expensive" I am compelled to say......back & forth between the two he goes, then we're going home to think about it. The grill came home the next day, of course it was the bigger, better model, but hey-I'm not complaining. If that's what he needs to cook me dinner (which, by the way, was a lobster tail on the new grill) then by all means he should get it!

Hmmmm, I wonder who's going to clean the shiny new gas grill???

Bat House/Grateful Dead House

Man you know your life is content when you start asking for things to be done for your Birthday rather than wanting "things". Tom asked me what I wanted for my Birthday this year & I told him I really wanted my Bat house & Grateful Dead house hung. They had to be taken down when we moved & couldn't be installed in the trees until the house was built. But it's time. So between him & Mandy (& who do you think got the ladder detail?) the Bat house was hauled & installed. The naturist in me is hoping for hot weather to heat up their attic & get them to move in ( the one we just had was too soon), the menopausal woman in me is screaming at the naturist. Must have something to do with me being a Gemini.
You definitely want to click on this set of pics for a blow-up! That girl was up there easily 25 feet! Don't look Colleen! Then there's the Grateful Dead house.....my brother Anthony went to a Grateful Dead concert back in June 1995 & bought this birdhouse for me, probably from a street vendor. Pretty funky,and definitely one of a kind........& home to many a bird family over the years!
So Mandy hung that for Tom (I mean me) for my Birthday.

First Mow

Guess it needed it......what a beautiful color!

Cross Draft

I have to tell you in all honesty, this saved Tom's butt & he didn't even know it! Tom & Mandy installed the storm door on the front of the house. As with everything they had a couple of glitches...nothing is straight or square even with a new house. But they got the door installed & OOPS, Mandy closed it before the door handle was installed. They had to drill a hole to pull the door open. Handle is now on...door works great, in fact you can see a mirror reflection of the front yard & it looks like the grass needs a mow! But back to Tom's butt or the saving of it...the installation of the storm door with the drop down screen, not only allows us to now have the morning sun shining in, but with that screen down & the sliding glass door open in the kitchen there's an awesome cross draft(since there's no A/C)! Fresh breezes for the witchy lady!

Tom's In Really Big Trouble!

We are having a heat wave....record high temperatures......92, 90, 88,95,89.......you get the picture. Last fall one of the two air conditioning units was installed on the roof, when the HVAC man came, he couldn't hook it up because it wasn't quite level. "It will be taken care of" I was told. Now it's June 10th & we've had a brutal heat wave. Normal temps are in the mid 70's. We have a small a/c unit in our bedroom we bought last summer since we knew the a/c would take a while to hook up, & Tom knew I'd need at least somewhere to go if I needed to chill out. "No the house air conditioner is not hooked up, but Thank you for asking". In fact it hasn't even been leveled yet. A premenopausal/menopausal woman does not do well in the heat. They have a tendency to be a tad witchy. They seem to harp on the same little things over & over...for example...when will the A/C be hooked up? Tom has purchased a 2nd room air conditioner for the room we are using as the family room right now. He finally got the guys over to level the unit (9 months later, but who's counting?) they have to get up on the roof & it's only 89 today, it's going to be worse up there. Then it starts to sprinkle & they tell me if it rains much harder they have to get down or they'll be sliding right off the stainless steel platform the unit is setting on. Cripes-what are the odds????
Well the rain held off long enough to level the unit, now we wait for Tom to call the HVAC guy back. I'll keep you posted.......

Window Washing

We've had some issues with the windows, not quite sure exactly what the problem is but I noticed after washing a few that there seemed to be spots on the film installed in between the panes to help cut down on the suns rays coming into the house. The company's customer service is excellent, (as we can attest to after all the issues with the peak windows in the family room) but before we called them, my mission now was to wash every window in the house; then make notes of those with issues and we can deal with them all at once.
Makes sense......but ladder climbing isn't one of my favorite things to do, in fact it's not even in the top 500! But I shall persevere! I stuffed everything into my window washing bag, there was no way I was going to be able to carry my window washing bucket, supplies & hold onto the ladder! My window washing bag is a Peppermint Patty lunch bag; into which my already wet rags went, along with my squeegee, a razor for scraping bug poop, my trusty note pad with pen & my washable red marker to circle all the flaws with. If you come over before the customer service guys you'll see some of our windows look like they have a case of the hives! Tom did volunteer Mandy to do it ( without her knowledge), then Mandy graciously offered on her own, & as much as I would have loved to take her up on the offer, I won't have a Mandy forever right?
So up I climb....about 14ft then have to stretch to reach the tops, poor Tom has to hold the ladder (well hey, who do you think was taking the pictures?) at least until I develop a comfort level with climbing this thing, then move it for me each time.
I'm sure eventually (in about 10 yrs) we'll have it down pat.
So with most of the windows washed (just over 70 so far), now is the time to clean all the screens. Makes sense right, then we can put them on the clean windows? These would be the screens that have been in the attic & are covered with sawdust, drywall dust & just plain old dust. So I'm washing screens, all 41 of them! What the &*#$ were we thinking??? At least the view out every window is beautiful!
And if you have a helper like Eva washing the outside of the windows too, it makes the job a little more enjoyable...............
Now here is one proud window washer....

The Corner Stone is In!

Tom & Mandy have decided they are ready to start stoning the side & front of the house. What will surely be a time consuming & dirty process started with the placement of the corner stone! All along the way Mandy made sure the stones were straight & level............

They were rockin'! I can't believe how much they got up on the first day!

And the second day!
Tom is holding up what will be the cap stone we'll use to finish the wall off.
By day 3 they were rounding the corner &
starting the front of the house!

1 Week later....................

We have the beginnings of a beautiful new lawn!

We also have an abundant crop of Maple tree helicopters!
They are sprouting everywhere!