Story A Day

So many things that I could blog about today…Tim’s once per year clothes shopping trip (yes folks, my hubby doesn’t shop much), our 2nd trip to the MN State Fair this season, Tim’s initiation to Facebook (finally!), or landscaping progress. The latter wins since I have been promising photos for quite some time. The plants are still itty bitty in the photos, though assuming we win the rabbit & squirrel battles, they will be much bigger next year So far it’s going fairly well, with only a few minor casualties, I’m hoping for the best! You can see the new “stone” (wet cast flagstone) in one photo, next summer we’ll be adding a small bridge at the gap to go over the gutter. I also have yet to plant and mulch on the side of the rock path closest to the house…check it out!

Tim and I watched “Bucket List” tonight, a movie about two men dying of cancer who create a “Bucket List” of things they hope to do before they die, and proceed to cross many of them off the list. It was a good movie, it made me cry! Then again, that’s not such a hard task In addition to the inevitable question following the move, “What’s on your bucket list?,” there are also two other good questions posed in the middle of the movie…

1) Have you felt joy in your life?
2) Have your brought joy to others?

And so, let the reflection begin…

I did more planting this evening in the new front garden! I intended to take photos, but the evening got away from me and it was dark before I knew it! In addition, I got distracted from planting for a short while as we discussed a bid with a contractor for getting electrical wiring to our new garage. I hope to finish planting tomorrow, and then it will be picture time! They’re just baby plants right now, so there isn’t much to see, but I’ll post a picture soon anyway

I spent some time today at Prairie Restorations, a nursery that supplies native MN plants for gardening.  We recently dug out a  portion of our front yard for a native garden, and rain garden.  I wasn’t sure if it was still ok to plant this late in the season, though, as it turns out, it’s a good time to plant perennials.  It gives them a chance to get their roots established, and then hopefully grow flowers next spring and summer!  It was fun spending the evening figuring out how to lay it all out.  It is a bit tough when the plant says 1′-4′ in mature height.   Hmmmm… that’s a big difference.  So, there’s a bit of hoping for the best!  I’ll post some photos tomorrow! 

A rare sigh of relief tonight when a home repair ended up EASIER than expected. Rare, very rare As the owners of 3 rental units we’re bound to get a call once in a while with a problem. Yesterday, it was the broken bathtub faucet, the lever no longer worked to change from bath water flow to shower water flow. Hmmmm. My dad was kind enough to share a bit of advice on the topic, and we hoped for the best. We crossed our fingers that it would be relatively easy, and we wouldn’t have to call an expensive plumber. It turned out to be a pretty simple fix, as my dad predicted, though as Tim put it “he got lucky” when he took off the spigot because he probably narrowly missed breaking off a very important piece of pipe (since the fixture was so old and very tightly attached). Thank goodness it didn’t break – that would have been very bad! Luckily, he got the old one off and a new one back on with very little incident. Hooray! Crisis averted, and our tenants can shower again

First day back at work after a couple weeks off. The break was nice, but I am also excited to be back It was also the first day of school today at the building where I work, so there was a lot of excitement in the air! After spending the evening at my other job (real estate) and on the other (web design), I am sleepy. A lot of work today, tomorrow should be a bit less hectic Only one job on the schedule for tomorrow!

We had our second BBQ of the weekend this evening! Hey, we have lots of celebrating to do when it’s both of our birthdays AND we now have a gas grill to use! Today was Tim’s b-day – the big 3-0!! In celebration of both recent birthdays, we had a fun gathering of friends, many Bennies and Johnnies, as well as some friends from work and grad school. Great weather, yummy food, cute kids, lots of catching up…a good time. Tomorrow, back to work for me after a long time off!!

We will likely make two visits to the State Fair this year, so here’s the recap of Day 1!

• We walked there from our house, its just over a mile. Pretty sweet deal, no worries about parking or dealing with shuttles.
• The weather was PERFECT!! Mid-70’s and a nice breeze all day.
• I wore the pedometer. Over 13,000 steps throughout our afternoon.
• We began with a walk through the Education, 4-H, and EcoExperience buildings.
• Food stop #1 = Mini Donuts, of course! My fave.
• On to the animal barns where I learned about Pekin (pronounced “peek-in”) ducks. Tim used to raise this breed of duck and bring them to the fair with 4-H. Many cows, pigs, goats, horses, sheep, and rabbits later, we decided to depart from the oh-so-fragrant animal barns
• On to food stop #2 = Sweet Martha’s Cookies! Shortly followed by a stop at the $1 all-you-can-drink milk stand. Mmmmmmmmm…
• We ended this visit with a walk through the Miracle of Birth Center, with the intent to visit some of our other favorite places on the next trip!
• A good time…

I spent the evening celebrating with my mom, Lee, Kathy and James, plus Kathy’s friend Caroline, who is visiting from Germany! Christy and Jeff were here in spirit via the BBQ grill that they are lending us while in DC! The grill had its inaugural use in our backyard with a birthday BBQ. The weather was gorgeous this evening, despite threats of rain all day. We enjoyed yummy burgers, brats, hot dogs, broccoli and fruit salads, corn from my friend (Chris G) who runs a farm, and delicious angel food cake!! Tim and I ended the evening with a rousing game of mini golf in Como Park with my mom and Lee. Amazingly, my mom beat Tim!! By only one point. He’s hard to beat, so I was impressed with my mom’s performance. After walking home via moonlight, and enjoying the chorus of crickets, we called it a night. A happy birthday

In 20 minutes it will be my 28th birthday. In two days and 20 minutes it will be Tim’s 3oth birthday. You know you’re getting old when the mind can’t work after 11:30 to formulate a decent blog entry So, I’ll blog more tomorrow when my aging brain is more well rested