Just. Breathe.

Happy Earth Day! I don't have a cool Google doodle to celebrate, but I'm going to go sit outside later and soak up some sun. It's a Monday (when I started this post; now it's Tuesday), and my brain is feeling pretty Monday-ish. Here's just some stuff: 1. I love our yard with its new fence. We've been working on the plants and the pool, and I'm trying to decide if I want a garden (RDub insists on growing watermelon if we do) or a compost. I just can't decide if I want to spend the time learning what I need to learn to make it work, then spend the time making it work. We're still killing weeds, but so far, we've spent more evenings out there than usual. Even my basil is happy in the revamped yard! 2. I'm running again. The weather has been nice enough and my allergies have been mild enough that I've run out of excuses (see what I did there?). It helps that Bug wants to run, too, so we've gone in the morning a couple of times....

The home improvement virus continues to assault. In the last four days, we've gotten a new fence...   [Installed by professionals, thank God -- they finished the entire thing faster than we could have taken the old one down.] ...and created a big mess in the house: [Did I mention we're having guests this weekend? That's the deadline for getting my house put back together.] ...because I decided the pantry needed to be redone. Granted, it's a little worse than usual because it's about to get ripped out.   Best husband award goes to...   ...this guy, because he always gets stuck doing the manual labor.   Just a few hours later...   Look at all that space!   It's only taken me two days to put stuff in. I apparently have a canned tomato addiction.   I'm sure I'll make changes - probably after a trip to the grocery store. I've got some serving dishes in there now, which freed up cabinet space elsewher...

Something has come over this house, and I'm not sure if it's a virus or what. We seem completely incapable of reining in our need to rework/redecorate stuff. And it's not just me! [Okay, it's mostly my ideas , but then the others jump all over it, I swear.] It started here about 3 weeks ago: Clear-out started, walls taped off. But wasn't that an awesome paint job? Bug didn't want her dresser anymore - the drawers were kinda wonky, and several of them had turned into junk drawers instead of clothing drawers. It took up a lot of room and she really wanted/needed a larger desk. Of course, as we planned those changes, I had to ask about painting -- was she tired of the blue/green/pink yet? Guess the answer. KILZ is a wonderful invention. Spring Break 2013 turned into "please, Daddy, help me with this" and of course he did. Dear Homebuilders: Putting studs where they actually belong is a helpful thing. The dresser was replaced with the cube...