Well, it has been a really busy couple of weeks. Two weeks ago we dug a new ditch to guide the water from our french drain system to go away from the garden. We were able to get the garden tilled up again and I got a very small amount of weeding done. Then it started to rain and get cold. We had to bring all the plants in and cover the flowers for about three days. It warmed up just a bit for a couple of days, then cover the flowers again. This last weekend, we didn't get anything done. It was very depressing to not be able to work out in the yard.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Chris Darden on Oprah and it rekindled my interest in the O.J. case. I tried to get his book from the library, but it was checked out. They did have Marcia Clark's book in though, so I got that and read it. I mentioned in one of my yahoo groups that I was reading it and one of the other ladies said she had read Chris' book. I decided to get Chris' book next. This week I found Chris' book in, and also found a book by Bugliosi about the O.J. trial, a book by Ron Goldman's family and one by Nicole's family. It is interesting to see how differently the different people looked at the same thing.

A couple of years ago, I found a really nice cross-stitch wizard that I wanted to do for Peggy. I worked on it for about 3 months and realized that I had really screwed up on parts of it. I put it up thinking I would try to fix it later. Well, I found it again when we moved and had pulled it out and tried to correct what I had done wrong, but it just wasn't fixable. Today I went to the store and bought some new cloth and some of the colors that I thought I would run out of. I am going to start it all over and make sure I pay better attention this time. It is a really complicated pattern, but very pretty. I also picked up some purple yarn to make some doilies with. The purple matches the purple in the blanket that I am using as my color pallet in the front room. It has a really deep purple, a really dark blue, a dark grey and a lighter grey. I am looking forward to working on some of these other things. I also am starting to work on the quilt that my grandmother had started for Peggy and see if I can finish it up for her.

It looks like this weather is going to continue to be wet and cold for at least another week, so I needed other things to do besides working on the site. I think I have plenty to keep me busy now.

We got alot of the seeds for the vegetable garden this week. I still can't find lima beans and peanuts yet. Those are the only two we are missing. I still need to get the grape vines and the berry vines that we want to grow. I found quite a few nice looking evergreen vines also that I want to use for our sitting and hammok areas. We haven't bought them yet though. We haven't decided yet what kind of fruit trees we are going to get, but I do know that I want a pecan tree.

I got a notebook and some dividers. Then I took the lesson from Jan and found a nice picture of a dragon and put it along with 'Dragon Weyr Gardens' on the front and side of the notebook. I have been looking up on the internet how to guides for everything we already have and everything we will have. The notebook is starting to shape up very well. I think it will be really nice to have it. I plan on continuing to add to it as we learn what does and doesn't work.

Well, it is almost bed time and I still have to clean the kitchen and write in the New Beginning journal for the week. Hope everyone has a nice week.

Friday, February 3, 2006

It's been awhile since I had some time and wasn't too tired to write. We have had a busy couple of weeks. We have done a bit more clearing of the little stuff in order to make paths. With the recent rains we got, the burn ban was lifted and we were able to burn a lot of the stuff we have been cutting down. We have realized a couple of problems with how the water flows when we have heavy rain. We need to redirect it in a couple of places. The compost pile is doing well and should be ready for the garden by the March planting.

The kitchen sink has been leaking every now and then since we moved in. This last week it started leaking badly every time we used it. Neither one of us really like the faucet that was on there to start with, so we bought a new one tonight and Charles got it all fixed up now. The new one looks really nice, and works very well. The only complaint I have is that Charles (being an idiot like most men can be at times) decided to use my good kitchen towels to help him do the job. There is a whole damn drawer of good for nothing rags right next to him. Does he bother to open the damn drawer and grab some of those?? Hell no!!! He has to use the brand new, good towels. Which now have rust and all kinds of other shit on them. I pray for his libido that they come clean. I tried not to bitch too much, since he worked so hard to change the faucet out, but if they don't come clean.... well, by the time I have another full load of whites to wash so I can see if the stains come out... the gratitude for the new sink will be long gone. It takes us about two weeks to build up a full load of whites.

We were finally able to go through all the boxes in the garage and got them sorted. All that is out there now is what will go in the garage sale. Now we just need to pick a weekend, get it all priced and have the sale.

I ordered the piece we were missing for the juicer and got it a couple of days later. We have been making orange and apple juice fresh almost every day now. I can't wait to grow our own veggies and fruit to have really fresh juice.

Tomorrow we are having friends over again. Dorothy makes really good pizza, so we decided to have a pizza party. We will make our own pizza's and just enjoy the day. Jan and Dorothy have been over before, but it has been a really long time since we have seen Cynthia and Patrice and Terry. I am really looking forward to tomorrow. It is supposed to be a beautiful day. Bud and Fay may be able to make it also. I wish I could just twinkle my nose like Samantha and instantly have everything we want to do ... just be done already. The sitting areas, the goldfish pond, the big fish pond, the garden growing nicely, the tool shed and well house built, the deck, the patio kitchen, the greenhouse built and producing, the barn and chicken coup built and already occupied, and yep, even the house painted .. inside and out.

We got a really bad surprise this week. When we bought the house, we saw in the contract where the sellers were paying the taxes for their portion of the year. We would only be responsible for our portion of the year. What we didn't look at close enough, was that they only credited us the money for the sellers portion of the taxes for the year. We have to pay the whole year. Not being used to paying property taxes, we didn't know exactly how it all works and didn't realize that we should have started questioning around last October when we didn't recieve a bill for the taxes. Charles just happened to hear on the radio that January 31st was the last day to pay the taxes and went out on the net to see if our taxes had been paid. They had not...:( We now have to come up with 3188.00 plus 275.00 penalty for paying late. With Charles due to get his bonus from work in March, we will be able to pay it. It is just disappointing becasue we had slotted that money for other things.

Well, MegaSite was down for a little while tonight, but it looks like it is back up now. I still need to put up a couple of things so I am off for now. Watch my 360 blog for another 'Here I Go Again'. I hope to get to that tonight while things are still fresh in my mind.