The World Surrounding Me

While we’re overall quite satisfied with our home, there are a few things about our house that Matt & I don’t love. Many of them, unfortunately, stem from bad style decisions of the former homeowners and the fact that the 1982-era builder-grade features aren’t exactly our favorite. These two sources of problems show themselves in [...]

I’ve been working through my massive to-do list around the house. It had everything on it from “change light bulb in bedroom ceiling fan” to “landscape the backyard.” After reaching the milestone of having more work done than left to do (grand total will be about 135 hours of work), I’m taking a few days [...]

Our front flower beds have made it to August! With 100-degree temps the past few days, I’m not sure how much longer things will last, so here’s a photo! The Lily Tuft wasn’t as deer-resistant as I hoped. Where it rubbed up against the rosemary or was tucked under the drip hose (and inaccessible), it [...]

I came home last night and had the annual realization that it’s about time to put up the Christmas lights. Want to know why? It was dark out. Yes, shock of all shocks, it actually got DARK after the sun went down! Christmas lights would help this problem immensely, since ours go on a timer [...]

We’ve returned home from Maui! I plan to post more about our trip, but I may need a few days. I go back to work tomorrow (first day since April 3rd), I’m 5-hours behind the time zone, and I’m also sleep-deprived from a red-eye flight. So, no good blogging in me today. Instead, check out [...]

Like a lot of geeky people my age, I played a fair share of Tetris when I was a kid. I was glad for those hours of fitting blocks onto a grid during what I did today – packing suitcases. See the long orange block in this image? In the realm of packing, that’s a [...]

We had baseball-sized hail tonight while while we were both driving home. I think the result may be that I’m looking for a new-used car sooner than previously planned. Yes, the Mazda 626 has served me well, right up until what I believe may be the end — it took the damage and kept me [...]

The electricians came today for our lighting re-do project. Here are some “in the middle” photos (you’ll see why I say that instead of “after” as you look below. This shows the kitchen ceiling after the old box was removed. This is the strangest bit of sheetrock/drywall work I’ve ever seen – it was dropped [...]

Here are additional photos from our kitchen. Read more about this in the previous post. This photo is from the breakfast/laundry area (back of the house) looking thru to the dining room. Notice more honey-oak cabinets. When Matt bought the house (about a decade ago), the walls had a faux-southwest-motif. He changed that to this [...]

I think Matt & I (both of us – but especially him, who’s lived here the longest) will celebrate tomorrow, providing the electrician we’re hired does something with this monstrosity: It’s a light fixture, built into our kitchen ceiling. The wood (we call it a cheesy ’80s honey oak finish) matches the cabinets. What we [...]