Using remodel boxes: 101

The tabs go outside the wall, dummy. This is even more annoying because I've used remodel electrical boxes many times before. I just wasn't paying attention.



On the other side of the hole there, you can see my sandstone basement walls. Let me tell you how much fun it is to stud them out for drywall. Not very.

Blast from the Past: Front Flower Beds

Here is what the front looked like in 2002, shortly after I moved in:



Here is what it looks like today (most of this work was actually done in 2003):



I ripped out the evergreen (which was not a dwarf variety and was growing into and killing the shrubs) and replaced it with a weeping cherry tree. Ripped out the rusty stakes and wire mesh that the PO had used as a fence and put in a basic surround of landscape blocks. These still need to be capped. You can see in the current picture that I'm working on a small bamboo fence, though this has kinda' been put on hold. I ripped out the lilac and replace it with, um, a lilac. In my defense, the old one was pretty ugly. It had been pruned into a misshapen wreck and didn't really bloom much anymore. The jungle looking area along the side of the house is a combination of Forsythia and Black-Eyed Susan. The yellow along the front is Coreopsis. Some other things that I have growing:

(Spring) Grape Hyacinth, Dwarf Iris, Hyacinth, Crocus, Daffodils, Tulips, some kind of white daffodil looking thing that I planted and then didn't save the tag for, Forget-Me-Not
(Summer) Gladiolus, Lavender, Spiderwort, Phlox, Day Lilly, Stargazer Lilly
(Fall) Ribbon Grass

One of the best looking flower right now is the Stargazer Lilly:



I've got a good bit of worked planned for this fall and next spring. The Coreopsis needs to be moved, because it ended up being too tall for a front row plant. Day Lillies (which are currently hidden behind one of the shrubs) need to get moved out to the front so they get more sun. Spiderwort needs to be moved or thrown away (I didn't actually plant the stuff, it just appeared there). And I still have a small section of flower bed in the alley that needs to be completely re-done.

Bad things happen to good people

Today, "Diane" was telling me that she and her husband just bought a boat. "Marv" is going to christen it this weekend by taking out three of his friends. Between the four of them, one is getting married, one is getting divorced, one is buying a house and one is turning 33. I suggested that she send a chaperon, because it sounded like some kind suicide pact to me.

Hopefully, the boat will come through it okay. I'd like to try water skiing again. This time, I am most certainly going to stand up straight and lean back, so that I don't end up with a sore back for two fucking months.

Happy Father's Day

I've had an itch to do some landscaping lately, but don't really have any appropriate projects here to work on. So, I ended up getting my dad some trees for Father''s Day. Here you see "The Orchard": three apple trees and three peach trees.



Down along the pond is a RedBud that my mom picked out. I have some vague plans to help them build some kind of sitting area along the pond; the RedBud is the start to that.

The Garden II

The garden is kicking butt. Much progress has been made in only three weeks. I've already got a few cucumbers, one of which should be ready very soon. Some cherry tomatoes should also be ready soon. And the ''Fourth of July'' just set a few tomatoes. Nothing set on the earliest flowers, which is annoying. The peppers got off to a rocky start, due to the birds, but are making a good effort.



I've also got some cherries which I think are about ready to harvest. I would have had more, but the tree really needed pruning and, unfortunately, the branches that needed pruned had most of the cherries on them. Next year I should have more cherries than any one person can eat, though.

Poorly designed rating system

I found the following at Target the other day:



First, it hardly seems necessary to rate something for "indoor use". Everything from prom dresses to tractors are rated for "indoor use", as long as you are talking about the right kind of indoors. Even things like jumbo jets and ICBM missiles are used indoors, if only temporarily. Off the top of my head, I can thing of very few examples of things that you would never conceivably use indoors. Things like the space shuttle or an ocean liner. Or a fucking rain gauge.

I'm a horrible uncle

Just so my mom isn't the only one with an embarrassing story on here...

While up at my parents' house last week, I used the bathroom in a particularly heinous way and, apparently, forgot to flush. A few minutes later, my sister comes running out screaming, "Oh my god, who pooped in the bathroom and didn't flush? I'm traumatized!"

I confessed, which for some reason made it even more horrifying to her. Just then, Faith walked in the front door. Now, kids are good for two things, as far as I can tell: being really cute and taking the blame for stuff they didn't do. So, I immediately tried to shift the blame.

"Faith, did you go potty in the toilet and forget to flush?"
"No."
"Faith, I think you are telling a fib. Did you forget to flush?"

At this point, she looks up at her mom with a really contrite look on her face, and says in her most pathetic voice, "I'm really sorry, mommy. I didn't mean to."

And then I felt like a big jerk. Err, but not so big of a jerk that I didn't continue blaming her for it.