Pond – ugh

Here is the before…

It actually doesn’t look that bad… but the pond has sunk about 5 inches – so the surrounding area is sitting higher – that’s why it was full of mud last year! The hosta is waaaay too big. There are weeds growing through the rocks. Shank dug in any place not covered by a rock…

During…. 

Oh good God, what did I get myself into? I now realize I have to create small retaining walls to prevent more erosion. I also have to scavenge for more field stones, I won’t have nearly enough for what I need to do.

I wish I could just skip ahead to the ‘after’ pictures… but I have to actually finish it first… might not be done until I get back from TN.

Places to go

I have a few minutes – William is making me breakfast, then we’re heading out to the golf course… So I thought I would take a few minutes to list some places I would like to see (US only)

- New Orleans LA – hopefully next summer. Kiki and I might run down there for a few days when we’re in Tennessee.

- Savannah GA – been there and want to go back – I think Kiki would love it.

- St. Augustine FL – I went there when I was like 11, but would like to see it as an adult. Love old cities!

- San Antonio TX – Looks like a cool place.

- Lambeau Field, Green Bay WS – Don’t know if that’s the right short for for Wisconsin… I have to go here one day!

- Portland OR – I have a cousin that lives there, it looks like a great city.

- San Francisco CA – I was there as a child, but would love to see it as an adult. A lot of my family lived in this area (some still do). I have pictures painted by my Great-Grandmother and step great grandfather of houses they lived in. I also had the addresses and were able to find them on Google Street view. Too cool. I would love to go there and wander around…

- San Diego CA – Been there, but I think William would like it there. I could meet Mr. Betz and Penny.

- Hawaii – Anywhere in Hawaii – We’ve been there, but would love to go back.

- New York City – Not because I have a burning desire to go there, but simply because it’s a must, right?

- Washington DC – I think I would like Washington more than NY.

- Boston – Been there, but not for long. It’s a cool weird city. I would like to see it again.

- St. George Utah – This place looks really beautiful and apparently the golf is great – so I’ll put it on the list.

There’s more, I’m sure. Any suggestions?

I’ve been busting my butt lately to get things done around here (as I’ve mentioned before). I worked all week-end and seriously, you can look around and see no visible improvements! Very frustrating indeed!

I still haven’t touched the pond, aside from actually emptying it (and it immediately filled, as we had 2 huge storms within 10 hours of each other). The flagstone patio near the pond is a hot mess – and it doesn’t make sense to work on that until the pond is done. Ugh.

So I might not get it done (or even started!) before I leave next Wednesday… Let’s look at my reasons…

- My sciatic nerve has been acting up. Sometimes it’s okay, and sometimes it’s really really bad. I’m starting to regularly see my chiropractor again, and I know this will help. In the meantime, I’m a little leery of hauling rocks around and spending hours on end bent over.

- Fun things going on. What a great reason not to do pond! We have a golf event Friday evening, a golf ‘date’ with William on Saturday afternoon, and possible a club event on Sunday morning.

- Dang dogs. The dogs need an hour walk a day, which I like to do in the morning. Often after working on the computer for hours, walking the dogs, doing normal household tasks, I’m too beat by early afternoon to think about hard physical labour.

Oh well – it’s my own issue. It’s not like I have a boss or a husband demanding that these things get done! I would just really feel better if I left for Tennessee with the pond area looking nice.

On a completely unrelated note, apparently Wendy’s is trying to make poutine our ‘national’ food. Can’t say I’ve ever had Wendy’s poutine – actually I haven’t even been to a Wendy’s in Canada in probably 25 years… but poutine is certainly yummy. So what symbols define us as Canadian? Clearly hockey. Maybe beer. Moose? (I’ve never seen a live moose) – Let’s combine the two into ‘Moosehead Beer’ – I have had a lot of those! Beaver? (again, never saw a live beaver before, but next week-end is ‘Beaver Fest’ in our nearby city) Touques? Poutine? I’ll go sign the ‘poutition’ right now!

Yeah, I’m here…

I’m really good at keeping up on reading blogs, just not so great on writing blogs… oh well.

So, William is gone to Indiana golfing this week-end (it’s Victoria Day Week-end!) and I just got back on the 9th, and during that week, we spent exactly one night hanging out together! Weird for us! Between my golf, his golf, a birthday outing and a meeting – we haven’t seen much of each other this month, as he came home from Tennessee the day before I left for Pennsylvannia! AND – He comes home on Monday night and I leave for Tennessee about a week later.

My time in PA was very good – hard to explain, but very good in several ways. Good for me. Good for job. Good for everyone. Good to see the place that my ‘boss’ disappears to at least once a month!

What else… my golf game is doing pretty good – until 2 days ago when my nephew and I were hitting balls into the field, he crushed my driver and the head flew off. Rats. I don’t know if it’s repairable. It’s at least 6 years old – absolutely ancient according to some (I think William’s had 2 new drivers since I got that one…), so I could use a new one, but I like my old one… hm..

Golfing tomorrow with Kikipants and Jim. Should be fun.

Trying to get a million things done around here before I leave for TN on the 30th… Veggie garden, paint the wood frames of 3 doors (why are they wood?), stain the trellis that never got done last year, as I begged William to spare the plant growing on it for the hummingbirds’ sake (got that done), completely rebuild the pond (it’s only like a foot square, but still a TON of work) – ugh, and clean out and refill the spaces in between the flagstone on the patio… Once all these things are done I’ll be on easy maintenance street! Can’t wait!

Well, I’m positively beat. Been a really busy last few days. Time to watch a few DVR’d shows and turn off my brain.

Life’s good. Thanks for reading. 

Just so random

Yesterday I finally finished a small work project I was working on. No big deal really, but it bothered me all the time! When I wasn’t working on it, I was thinking about it. I finally sat down and got it done. I thought I would feel great having this thing done, but I don’t. Maybe it’s because William was away, the weather, who knows.

I feel so behind on everything (well, now actually I’m caught up on work). Each day I work on the computer, then take the dogs for at least an hour  walk (if it’s just Shank I walk for 2 hours). Sometimes I’m so beat when I get home I can’t function! It may have something to do with the dogs getting frisky around 5am – however, they sleep most afternoons!

Speaking of taking the dogs for a walk, yesterday we went to a crappy dog park, and I decided it wasn’t enough stimulation for them, so I went to a nearby beach. The dogs had a great time despite the swarms of flies (at least the flies weren’t biting!). Shank and even Halia (who doesn’t usually like to get any part of her body wet) ran through the low surf, having a grand time.

Then Shank saw a goose in the water.

Shank has never swam before.

He failed…

Poor guy – I hope he’s not scared of the water now. He came out and was like W-T-F! He coughed and shook a bit, and never went deep again!

So anyways, the weather has improved in the last couple of days and I feel like I should be outside working – but yesterday afternoon I was too tired, and I’m gone from Sunday until Wednesday this week – making me feel even further behind! Ack!

William is home from TN. He had a great time. Apparently when they were in Nashville the other day, John Rich jumped in with the band at Legends and played a few songs. Sweet. That’s pretty cool. I know he’s happy to be home, and I’m happy to have him home.

Tomorrow is our season opener at the club – it’s going to be great! Sunday I leave for PA for a work thing. It’s my first work road trip ever!

Life’s good.

Oh yeah – GOM, Shank likes your local prairie dogs!

What kind of crazy place do you live in? Missing women, crazy prairie dogs, near a dangerous town? Lol!

Blech

Busy. Crap – how did this happen? I planned so well last week to make this an easy week work-wise and NO! It’s not. Tons to do…

For now I’m walking the dogs and hope to clear my head. 

Bah. 

(I shouldn’t really complain – it’s not all that bad, so I’ll finish this quick post up by saying, ‘life’s good’)

This week

I’ve been meaning to blog about many exciting things for the last few days, but I haven’t. Maybe because nothing exciting has happened.

This is what’s going on:

- William is in Tennessee. The weather there is perfect for golf. I am here and the weather here is certainly not. Boo! Today was a balmy 45* with wind. Luckily I had the forethought to pick the asparagus in our garden before they froze. Whoopee! (that was kind of sarcastic btw)

- The local guy from our town who won the chance to play in a PGA event by winning the reality show The Big Break competed in New Orleans this week and didn’t make the cut. Boo. The good news is that after experiencing a tour event, he is now more determined than ever to play at that level. Awesome!

- Pretty happy with the NFL draft (which I did not watch 16 hours of like I did previous years). I was told their new RB will make me forget Hillis ever existed. That’s cool. Also with the schedule released, I’m pretty certain of the dates of the games we’re going to see – yeah! So that’s good, but trust me… I want from now until then to pass slooooow. It’s just the start of golf season silly!

Hm… what else… I’ve actually been quite productive in the last few days. I’ve done my taxes for the first quarter, normal work stuff, special work stuff, free stuff I don’t get paid for, (but hey, occasionally I’m nice like that) golf league stuff, house stuff, walking the pooches, and I’ve been out golfing with Kikipants a couple of times (of course it was windy!). I’ve also made some fabulous meals for myself (when William is gone I either eat great, like bagel and lox, asparagus risotto, broccoli and cheese stuffed chicken, or terribly boring like oatmeal and Lean Cuisines), and drank all our vodka. Boo.

I wonder what I meant to blog about this week? Hm… I guess that’s all for now. Life’s good. 

Shank and Halia think life is good too…