LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

Home 'Improvement'

The Holly and the Lloydy

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Brad planted a holly plant in our back yard years and years ago. It was nice, but pointy and  hurty when you touched it. Some years after that they dug up the pipe from our house to the city sewer line, and the holly was right in the path. We plopped it back down, but it was pretty damaged.

It was completely bare for the first two feet, then leaves started. Brad thought it looked cool, so we left it. Lately it’s just been an ever expanding bush, and needed to be trimmed back or dug up or something. But during this winter the old chiminea fell on it.

I thought that was a good look, so I decided to go with a new “ancient ruins” theme.

If you’ve had anything to do with Holly, you know how painful this was for both me and the plant.

But eventually I got the whole thing wired up just about right. In a few years this will look really cool or really dead. I think I’m okay with either outcome.

Have you noticed that as you get older, your event horizon gets longer? “This ought to look nice in half a decade” is not a thought that Lloyd of the past would have had.

Yard Day

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Warning: Picture-heavy post ahead.

Today was weird. The forecast said it was going to be hot, but that was difficult to believe as the day started out cold and extremely foggy. As I was going upstairs to take a shower I was surprised to see a large bird in the tree. It was a duck!

Aflack

I took a hundred photos of it, wishing I could go outside to get a better view, then I remembered that our windows actually open. That is right handy. In fact, there were two ducks!

Can you see the second one?

That was a nice way to start the day. I highly recommend watching ducks for a little bit in the morning.

Eventually it warmed up and Lloyd headed outside to mow up the leaves. I tagged along to document the process, and perhaps even help. Brad, this is for you – the Yard in April! (It’s the first video I’ve ever taken with my new camera and for some reason I sound like a robot. I’m going to guess that it’s because it has a stereo microphone. Oh, and it was really, really windy.)

So, after filming the crummy yard, we worked to make it better. It was hot work, since it got up in the mid-80’s! That was the crazy part. It reaffirmed my dislike of hot weather.

Leafsucker to the rescue.

Leaves were raked out and mulched, some dead foliage was cut back, and I found a hollow tomato from ConBloGar!

It looks so much better.

I didn't burn the zebra grass, it's in the compost pile.

It was so papery. I was fascinated.

Oh, and Lloyd found 20 bucks in the yard! Beth and Harold, are you missing some money?
I was in the bathroom.

The art of ‘meh’ cleaning.

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I’ve said this before – I’m big on having ideas, and terrible at follow-through. Here’s another harebrained idea I’m testing out, though.

I’ve talked about commercial cleaning before, and a few years ago I was all crazed for FlyLady.com (the ideas, not actually following the schedule), and of course watching Hoarders every so often has kept the house fairly non-disgusting, but when it comes down to it, I’m a slob. There are things around here that would make Clean People faint. It’s not that I care – we don’t have people over – but I do think about cleaning occasionally.

So here’s what it is: A weekly list of things to cross off, because I love crossing things off! I went ahead and put stuff on that we do every week anyway – like grocery shopping and the laundry – because of the automatic crossing-off satisfaction. The beauty of it is, if we don’t get to something this week, no big whoop – I haven’t dusted some rooms since I was in my thirties, so what’s another week going to hurt? (This is borrowed from Beth’s genius idea of shaving your legs every day. Swipe, swipe – miss a few spots? Big deal, you’ll get ’em tomorrow.)

I have also given myself permission to do a bad job on the new chores. For instance, I swept my bathroom tonight. I didn’t even do a good job, because you know why? I never sweep my bathroom, and as of now it looks 100% better than it has in months! I might even sweep in a corner next week!

Lloyd wants me to write 'sit on the sofa' for his own chore.

Who’s wrecking the house now, huh?

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So, here’s an update on Sick Boy. He’s been sleeping in his moist, open-window environment, and the humidity is condensing on the wall in front of the air conditioning vent that runs to the upstairs. That can’t be good, right?

He’s laughing because we have this house, which is a controlled environment that is different from the outside, and within that is a room, which is a controlled environment different from the house….. but just like the outside.

I should just go buy a tent.

Out-of-focus, as is my custom.

Decimated? Alphamated?

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Until very recently, there was a short quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that greeted us as we went up to bed:

Finish each day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day, begin it well.

It battled bravely, but ended up like all quotes do, with letters strewn bloody on the carpet.

Oh the carnage!

But the quote had the last laugh. It turns out that the actual quote is more like this:

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Dang.

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Brad, we got a new mattress for your room! (Brad has spent the past 14 years sleeping on a crummy full-size mattress in his room when he comes to visit. It was given to us – used – when we lived in Maryland.)

Unfortunately, the stairwell is very small in one little area. When Lloyd and I bought a queen-sized set, we had to order a split box spring because there was no way to get a regular queen box spring upstairs. When the delivery guys brought the mattress, they had to fold it like a taco to get it through the stairwell. (That was impressive, I tell you.)

Well, Lloyd and I aren’t nearly that strong, but we’re pretty stubborn. We squished and smooshed the new matress step by step through the opening, and I rigged up the Forearm Forklifts to be one long strap, looped it around the mattress and pulled from above like I was trying to stop a team of wild stallions, while Lloyd pushed from below.

We almost had it at the top, and with one more mighty heave – I put my behind through the window at the top of the stairs.

It was a good, clean break.

No damage was done to me, but I guess we’ll be getting new windows sooner than I thought.