A Good Day

Today has been a good day -- and by good, I mean it's been quiet, peaceful, and relaxing.  I'll tell you more about that in a minute, but first, we had some excitement at work a couple of days ago.  

It would seem one of the temps had a bit of a disagreement with his group leader, and left.  On his way out the door, he had a few choice words -- including a particular racial slur -- for the aforementioned group leader,  none of which I will repeat here.   And he delivered those words ... over the loudspeaker. 

Later on, I overheard another group leader saying they knew who had done it, and if he showed up the next day, they'd turn him right around at the door.  But really, nobody expected him to come back, and as far as I know, he hasn't.  

Now, back to today...

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day.  Sunny, blue skies, and the temperature was just right.  I had some in-town errands to run, but the morning was so quiet and peaceful, it took me a while to get going.  You might say, I lingered over my morning coffee.  Buuut, I finally got my act in gear and got them done.  

By the way, the governor has let the state wide mask mandate expire, but we're still under a city ordinance until King Louis and the House of Lords -- as I like to refer to the city council -- decide to lift it.  One silver lining of having to wear masks is most of my face is covered, so I can skip the make up.  A down side is, I was hoping since most of my face would be covered, my stalker would stop staring so much.  Alas, it is not to be.  One of these days, he's going to stare so hard his eyeballs pop right out of his head, and I'm going to laugh my butt off. 

But I digress...

Where was I?  Oh yeah, running my errands, which mostly involved going to Wal-mart and picking up a few things.  I didn't really need anything, but last week, I was going to give my lawn some food before fall set in for good.  However, when I got out to my shed, I discovered what I thought was fertilizer was actually weed control.  Unfortunately, when I got to Walmart's garden center, they had like 6 pallets of charcoal up in front of all the fertilizer and stuff.  I decided not to fight it.  

If I can get my act together for two days in a row -- don't hold your breath on that one, though -- I might go up to Lowe's tomorrow and see what they have.  

While I was in the garden center, at Walmart, not Lowes, I picked up a couple of bags of cheap dirt to start filling in some of the chipmunk holes in my yard.  By the way, I caught and killed another one of the little buggers yesterday.  That makes 6 for the year.  I'm wondering how many of the stupid things there are.

I'm not sure if this hole is from a chipmunk nest or what.    

When I moved in, the top of that cleanout was level with the ground.  Over the years, the hole just keeps getting deeper and wider, and I don't really know why.  I'm kind of worried that the house will eventually fall in.  

Now, this hole is where the old septic tank used to be, from before they put this road on the municipal sewer system. 

When the plumber replaced all my sewer line, breaking up my back patio in the process,  he used some of the broken pieces of concrete to fill in the old tank, so it wouldn't collapse, but didn't fill in between the spaces with dirt or sand or anything.  I think this might be where the chipmunks have made their condo, as I keep finding fresh holes dug around the edges.  Anyway, the ground here keeps sinking down over time, and I keep adding dirt.  I'm hoping eventually it'll get full, and will stop cratering on me. 

Once I was done with that, I cut back my canna lilies.  

They were looking pretty bedraggled, and I hate cannas anyway.  One of these years, I'm going to dig them all up.  This, however, will not be that year.  

And the last thing I did -- besides giving the yard one final (I hope) mow for the year -- was to cut back my roses. 

I started by just cutting out all the dead stuff, but now I'm debating on cutting it all back and starting completely over.  Or cutting it all back and not starting completely over.  I eventually want to get a privacy fence around the back yard, and that would require cutting all the junk out from the fence anyway.  I'm going to leave the back open so I can still see the deer and the woods, but I want privacy along the front and down the sides.  I'd love to be able to enjoy my yard without having to feel I'm constantly looking over my shoulder.  

The alternative is to find a house where the neighbors aren't right on top of me.  That I can afford to buy...which is the tricky part...Oh, well, I can dream, can't I?

Kids, enjoy your childhood and don't be in a hurry to grow up.  You want to know why?  Because when you're grown, you get way too excited about buying a long handled duster. 

Then you open it up and get even more excited about dusting your ceilings and ceiling fan blades.  And you go all over your house, dusting things you couldn't reach before and squeeing at how clean your house now looks.  It's pretty sad, really...

And finally, Rylea is getting on up there.  She's 13 1/2, and has a stiff leg from when she got hit by a car as a puppy.  I've noticed lately she's have a harder and harder time getting up onto her love seat.  

Yes, my dog has her own love seat.  No, she's not spoiled at all.

So, I got her these pet steps.  

And the little brat won't use them.  

I'm not really worried about it.  I think she just needs to get used to them.  If she figures it out, it'll make it so much easier for her to get up and down.  Then, when she goes to that great kennel in the sky, I can put them by the bed for Jesse.  Who is also getting on up there...

This just in:  Tropical Storm Gamma has formed!

It's not expected to be a threat to the U.S. 

When they said it would be a busy season, they weren't kidding, were they?