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Saturday, November 28, 2015

Saturday in the Garden - Homeowner Triumphs and Failures

OUTSIDE

I had a plan this holiday weekend to do the final clean-up in the garden but the weather has seemed to have other ideas.  It was rainy/sleety/icy on Thursday and then bitterly cold since.  I still have hope to get out later this afternoon and at least pull the dead tomatoes plants and put the planters and the grill away in the garage.  The thing that really needs doing, however, is raking some leaves to mulch the beds and my two potted blueberry bushes so that the more delicate things don't die in despair at Iowa's harsh winter.  Since the leaves are either sodden or frozen and since usually once the cold temps and bad weather come, they don't leave, I'm afraid I may have really screwed up with my procrastination.  It has been such a weird Autumn.  C'est La Vie. Thus exhausts my knowledge of French.

LIFE

Here in the U.S. it was thanksgiving week.  I think the thing I am most thankful for this year, is being able to take a few days off of work around the holiday.  It came at just the right time for me to get my head on straight(ish) so I can dive back into what will be a very busy December.  I think at this point I can officially declare 2015 to have been a difficult and not particularly good year - nothing catastrophically life-changingly bad  - but enough to feel pretty emotionally worn down by now.  So a few days off for reflection and to fix my toilet was just what I needed!

Giving myself a gold star:)
Ah....home ownership.  I love it even though I am spectacularly incompetent at it.  The above picture of...yes...my toilet is not to complain that it broke but to show proudly that I fixed it myself!!!!!  I went to the hardware store, bought a new flapper doo-bobber thingamajig and installed it!!  I am a genius!  Basically, I can barely wield a hammer competently so I need to celebrate these small triumphs of self-sufficiency.   Despite this victory, I have definitely realized I desperately need to find a competent and reliable Handy-man/Jack of all trades who will happily bend to my will and do my bidding.  A husband you say?  WAY too expensive, ha ha.  I just need someone I can pay to help from time to time.  In preparation for finding someone, I spent part of my time off wandering around the house and writing down 4 pages of things that need doing on the inside and outside.  A very few are things I can do myself but most are terrifying to me.  I wouldn't even know where to start.  I really don't like to be this helpless but most times I try to fix something myself, it ends in near disaster with the situation being worse or with me having to bring someone in to expensively fix my mistake.

So how about you?  Any reformed incompetents out there that are now semi-professional DIYers?  What did you do to gain confidence around the house?


WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING

Watching 

I've been indulging in some time with dear, vain Hercule Poirot.  As I've watched, one question that has arisen in my mind is how prevalent blackmail is these days?  In Agatha Christie's day it appears absolutely everyone who appeared to have any money at all, was being blackmailed.  I guess we have fewer scandalous things these days? Is this good or bad? I mean it's undoubtedly good if blackmail has taken a bit of a dive but if it's because no one cares anymore that you're an adulterer?  Agatha Christie...revealing society's moral decay.

Reading

Finished Last Week: 

Currently Reading:

  • Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling:  *Sniff*  My re-read is coming to an end.
  • End of Days by Susan Ee:  This is the final book in the Penryn and The End of Days trilogy about evil angels and the start of the apocalypse.  I loved the first two books in this YA series and have been sucked in pretty immediately to this one.  I'm about halfway through and things are get INTENSE.
  • Heartless by Gail Carriger:  I'm was listening to this 4th book in the Parasol Protectorate series.  Carriger was having way too much fun with an 8 months pregnant Alexia.   ON HOLD because I was forced to return it to the library. Grr....
  • Still Life by Louise Penny:  This is the first book in a mystery series set in Quebec, Canada and featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache.  A friend of mine recommended this series to me and so far this book is fantastic.  Excellent writing, excellent characters, intriguing mystery and setting.  
  • Winter by Marissa Meyer:  The Conclusion to the Lunar Chronicles!!!!

Added to the TBR:

This is a list of books that I have added to my Goodreads TBR list this week.  It helps to burn the books I want to read a little more firmly into my mind, maybe get them on some other folks TBRs and gives me a chance to recognize a lot of the awesome bloggers that add stuff to my TBR!


Blogging 

On the BLOG LAST WEEK:



On the BLOG NEXT WEEK:

I'd like to post two reviews and some other kind of fun post.  Top Ten Tuesday this week is the top 2016 debuts I'm looking forward to and since I don't pay attention to stuff like that at all, I'm not sure I'll participate. I do think I discovered some cool books the last time I attempted this topic but I also haven't read a single one of those cool books, lol.  So maybe a list of my own devising and then a review of Cold Dish by Craig Johnson and Skin Game by Jim Butcher.

Have a Great Week Everyone!


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