Update August 22-23

I'm sitting here at my desk, typing away, and watching the rain come down and listening to the occasional low rumble of thunder. Have I mentioned that I love living here? It's the kind of day that you want to curl up with a good book and while away the hours . . .

On Sunday I realized I had had ENOUGH of the drywall. Rich got out the droplight and was holding it close to the drywall areas, looking for pockets of need. All I could think was "I don't want to sand and mud anymore." Rich kept at it in the kitchen. I went and found something else to do so that I didn't take a sledgehammer to the whole thing.

I can't remember why we signed up for such a large yard. I seem to remember thinking it was a great idea. I don't remember why, now. Right now, it takes about 1.5-2 hours to mow the entire thing. In the front yard we have almost no obstacles. It's like mowing a half of a football field. Back and forth, back and forth. The backyard is a mixture of trees, heavily fermenting apples and deep holes to China, so it's more of an obstacle course and sensory assault than a yard. Luckily, over the course of two evenings, Rich mowed and then tried to edge at the curb, but ran out of trimmer line.

I decided to play "Where's the ?" and go find the extra trimmer line. Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard a search and I was attacking the WeedEater with gusto farily quickly. Of course, its directions on how to replenish said line go something like this: "Insert line into hole and wind counterclockwise." (Do kids today even know what counterclockwise is, with everything digital?) So I try to follow the directions, like my Daddy taught me. Rich said that it wouldn't work that way, but my brain says WHY NOT? THE DIRECTIONS ARE IN GRAMMATICAL ENGLISH, so I try. Rich was right. It doesn't work that way. Instead, the super-secret correct way involves finding a semi-hidden trench below the hole and just shoving/feeding/forcing line into that trench in a counter-clockwise direction until no more fits. Or until the unspooled bright neon green line tangles. But that's not all. There's also an "O" ring with a little groove in it that needs to fit over the line, but that only makes sense if you "insert line into hole and wind counterclockwise", which I didn't. So after about 15 minutes of trial and error and overheating and sunburn, I finally got the @&#^! thing to work. But that's just the beginning of the misery.

I wore socks. I wore closed toe tennis shoes. I wore safety glasses. I should have worn jeans, long sleeved shirt, a welder's shield, and thick gloves. The yard has been so neglected over time that finding the edge of the sidewalk involves getting pelted in every direction with bits of earth, small green pieces of plastic as the trimmer line dissolves against concrete, and small shards of grass, pebbles, etc. I've never felt so injured just edging the lawn! And it will probably take us the rest of the summer to truly find the edges of the driveway. Who knows? We might actually have a driveway the width of two cars instead of one, but it's just covered in aggressive weeds and zoysia.

By the time I was "done", the edges of the sidewalk had what could have been, in more experienced and patient hands, that perfect "high and tight" look of edged zoysia next to sidewalk concrete. You know, the kind that when you see it, you say "wow, that yard looks good!" Instead, it looks more like a Flowbee attacked it (the fabulous invention of a pair of clippers attached to a vacuum cleaner that supposedly pulls the hair straight and cuts it all the same length resulting in a Chucky-inspired 'do). In this scenario, the Flowbee did not do even its normally horrible job. And then I discovered we didn't bring the gas for the blower to the house yet, so now the remains of the yard are all over the concrete driveway and sidewalk and I am NOT going to sweep it all. Have I mentioned how big our yard is?? Bless Rich, he came out, surveyed the carnage, and said "looks good". Have I mentioned that he's Superman?

Instead, I went around the edges of the house, knocking down all the weeds that had grown up against the foundation over the course of the summer. Last time I did that I found our plumbers' tape measure, so this time I was treating it more as a treasure hunt. No treasure, unless you count haphazardly growing wild tomato plants as treasure. I left those, mostly out of curiosity, to see what they do.

Weedeating the entire yard takes 1.5-2 hours. We have a big yard.

Rich got done with the walls in the kitchen (for now) and went to the shed to start cleaning it out so we can move a bunch of stuff in there, organized. He cleaned out nests, bugs, and who knows what else in there, and found more wood we could use in various projects around the house. He also found that we'll need to re-shingle part of the roof, as it's starting to have holes over the soffit areas (luckily, on the outside of the building instead of inside).

He's also been working on the yard in spurts, cleaning up the dead branches of the apple tree, trying to rake out what he can (our rake is somewhere in the depth of storage . . . ETA? who knows?). You can definitely see efforts of taming.

Then it rained, so we were both done for the day.

Yesterday, Monday, I had to work most of the day, and try to find my office at the house the rest of the day. I cannot locate a particular box (of course) that I really need. In it lies our 10% off coupons for Lowe's and Stormy, my Hurricanes mascot (not the actual person, just a stuffed toy), along with my Glen Wesley-signed hockey puck. They were all packed in a box that needed to be found early, so naturally, it's nowhere to be found. The items are all trapped somewhere in the master bedroom; I'm sure of it. I just hope they can hang on until I can find them!

We had company last night (had to blindfold them to shield their eyes from the carnage) and relaxed. Today, we're hoping to get back at it.