The Return

Without really planning it, I seemed to have taken the summer off from blogging.  It was part laziness and part taking time for other things (like say, mowing the yard).  I’m serious.  I have over 1/2 an acre and only have my pathetic push mower that I bought while in Texas.  There are parts of the yard that grow rather quickly (like the part toward the road, the most visible part) and some parts of the back yard near my detached garage.  Other parts of the yard are in the shade and devoted to clover and devoid of grass.  These parts hardly grow at all so I have developed a partial mowing method to protect my sanity (as when mowing these parts weekly I go crazy trying to determine where I have mowed and where I have yet to mow).  The wife is not too hip to this method but short of cranking up the push mower herself, she has to live with it.

Another thing I have kept myself busy with this summer is pruning back the dozens of trees on my property.  These trees have no sense of boundaries and just grow hodge-podge wherever and in whatever direction they like.  The vines on the trees are quite intrusive as well.  My trusty weed whacker and limb cutters though have kept them at bay.  It is incredible to me how fast a tree can sprout up and thicken up.  I am forever having a large pile of limbs and vines that go on my burn pile.  As I type this I have (3) large piles of limbs and brush that really need to be set a blaze soon.

We did finally get gutters put on the house.  That was close to the top of our list of things to do to the house should we have the money.  The wife took matters into her own hands and started working part time (again) at a local pet store.  She has worked off and on at this store during our marriage and actually worked there when we first met as well (14 years ago).  She takes her paycheck and cashes it and puts it back into the “fix the house” fund.  She paid for guttering and for replacement vents for the bathrooms (along with making sure they actually vented to the outside instead of just into the attic).  She is now working toward new gravel for the driveway and the destruction and hauling away of the (2) small sheds that are in the back yard.  Beyond that we need some (ill placed) insulation removed from under the house and a fresh sheet of plastic set down there and then maybe redoing the front bath / shower (since we have never used it since moving in here 18 months ago).  It is a long list but I am sure she will get it all done.  The gutters are nice and the first rain after their installation was a doozy but we enjoyed watching the rain pour out of the downspouts (we even videoed the event).

We did quite a few things over the summer including taking our first real family vacation, building a new home theater computer and installing a few ceiling fans.  Hopefully I take the time to devote some blogs to those events as they are truly blog worthy.  I will need to ease back into this blog thing though and I think this is enough for now.  Thanks, faithful reader, for your patience.

Jon