It was a weird day yesterday. It was sunny, but at the same time, very, very windy all day long. So windy that I got something in each of my eyes during the course of the day. Pollen, dust? I’m not sure. Little branches with new maple leaves fell to the ground. A dead limb (not big or heavy, but long) fell into the hosta bed.
I went to Lowes to get some fencing for the garden as I discovered more damage from our neighbor groundhog – who, I am convinced is really Nigel and not Joe. Nigel was more than a tad destructive last year. Henry, who is/was a saint, never went into the garden bed.
While I was at Lowes, I picked up some lightbulbs. As I picked up a pack of 40 watt bulbs to put in my cart, a lightbulb fell out of the pack and smashed on the floor at my feet. I had to stand guard as someone went to get a broom to clean it up.
Then, as I was looking for some wire garden fencing, a startled bird flew out from the shelf just over my head (and I mean within an inch of my scalp) and scared the crap out of me.
I thought I’d get some inexpensive plants, but all of the stock that I saw was in bad shape, once again reminding me why I don’t buy my plants there.
By the time I looked for a smallish galvanized garbage can to hold my potting soil, which I knew they had in stock, and found it buried high up on a shelf, making it impossible to retrieve without some sort of machinery, I threw in the towel and went home.
Some days are just like that.
But today is a new day and it’s sunny, with NO wind. I’m going to putter around outside.
We were supposed to have our sofa delivered next Wednesday, but I just got a call from our local delivery service asking if we wanted to get it even earlier – this Friday. Ummm…yes!
I can’t wait!
Now, do we just take the old loveseat to the dump or do we put it out on the street for a day to see if anyone wants it? It isn’t in the greatest shape. Decisions, decisions.
Oh, and I saw lonesome dove on the birdbath last night – the first time I’ve seen her/him this year. Lovely.
Happy Wednesday.
Is there a local buy/sell/free group in your area (usually found on facebook). Perhaps post it for free = keep it out of the landfill if possible.
Oh I hate it when I have those days when nothing seems to go right. Glad you can have a day at home puttering. Mom has a Dr’s appt and then we will do a little shopping. Today my sweet Ashleigh turns 40! I can’t believe I have a daughter that old…means I’m getting old. She will be here Sat with Irenes and I can’t wait to see them. All my chicks home will make me a very happy Mom.
Soon, I should be able to putter…I can’t wait. Plant potting today, finish at future DIL’s house tomorrow…that should finish that project. Then one more project here…then I can relax and weed the summer away!
Exciting news about the early delivery of your sofa. I would think putting it out by the road with a ‘free’ sign should work. It works around here all the time. Anything to keep it out of the landfill. Good luck with that.
Hope your puttering goes well…it’s gotta beat yesterday’s fiasco. Enjoy your day! ;)
Yep, I agree. Don’t feed the landfill. I find that anything can be given away on CraigsList! Even if yours is in not great shape, someone else may need it!
I agree about putting the old sofa at the curb with a free sign! People will take practically anything! Or, post on a local FB group or OfferUp. Beats going in a landfill.
Ugh – some of these big box “home” stores. I’ve had the same problem myself in those places, many times I’m sorry to say. Every staffer is new & doesn’t know anything yet. Or no one’s around to help in the first place. Or everything I like/need is stored in the clouds & requires a portable staircase to fetch etc etc. I went grocery shopping yesterday & for the first time it dawned on me, MANY of the things I like & always buy are on the top shelves there too! Being just five four myself, it must be one of the Universe’s little jokes. PS – leave your old loveseat out on the curb. You never know – “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” You just might make someone’s day, someone who has the skills to transform that loveseat into something useful for someone else. Someone in need most likely. You never know. Have a great time puttering around in that glorious garden of yours. 🌸
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Windy, cold and rainy. It’s getting old. You DID have a day, didn’t you? You’re right about Lowe’s being no place to buy plants. Maybe early (very) in the season but not by now. I’m thinking of going to get plants today but it’s just no fun doing it in the crappy weather! Glad you have a good day today to putter!
The universe should have realigned by now, Claudia! Today should go splendidly…I hope! Getting rid of unwanted furniture is difficult. Even in my area, which is fraught with donation possibilities and second hand furniture shops, the proprietors and donation centers are getting picky. My friend has been trying to donate or consign an all wood bedroom set (two dressers, two twin head and foot boards, and a desk), but has been repeatedly told they are not of the vintage people want. She finally got the dressers donated but is calling some other places for the rest of the stuff. Hope you can get rid of the loveseat in an ecological way, and quickly.
I’m sorry about your poor plant selection at Lowes. We were at our Lowes yesterday also (AZ) and I was totally amazed at the beautiful plants. I wanted to buy one of everything. Bought nothing as we were just getting ideas for the herb garden we want to build.
I love your yard…looks a very soothing place. Miss that sometimes with our desert landscaping but am learning to adjust. There are advantages…my sister planted a tomato plant in March and harvested two beautiful tomatoes yesterday. Astounding.
Claudia, save yourself time and trouble and put the old sofa by the road with a “FREE” sign on it………it will be gone in a flash!
by the way – thinking about going to see To Kill A Mockingbird on broadway, can I ask your opinion?
Our bed/mattress frame wasn’t working for us (under-bed storage/drawers; oak; hard on the back to lean over or crouch down so low to pull out), mostly because the elderly dog is now lame from arthritis and can’t jump up that high (yes, we share our bed with a dog; she sleeps atop blankets, not under; TMI!!!), so we put this hulking frame/contraption out for freecycle via craigslist last night and somebody picked it up this morning – – JUST before we got DELUGED with a lingering rain squall including thunder and lightning; sideways rain; very dramatic!
I was out in the thick of it and had to pull over; couldn’t drive with it coming down so hard. I watched water gushing down the hilly streets, overwhelming the drains. The garbage truck had just emptied all the cans on the street, so the gushing water just picked them up and sailed them down the hill like vertical boats on a big wave. SEVEN of them, all in a row. Was crazy; I felt like I was in a netherworld (or a washing machine, considering the WIND that came with these sheets of rain). Those big empty trash cans (some kind of ‘plastic’ not metal; City-authorized, standard cans) crashed one into the other and against cars, further damming up the rushing water going downhill. NOTHING that I could do but watch. If I’d have tried to do anything, they would have crashed against me at that speed; and that’s the kind of water if you were standing in it, it could knock you down. Can’t tell if they caused any damage or not but one might have ripped into a car’s sideview mirror.
This is SoCalif and we don’t usually get rain in later-May. My dog, alone in the house at home, must have gotten so frightened with the dark skies and loud thunder cracks that she did something she NEVER does, which was to ‘eliminate’ in two rooms of the house, so I came home to quite a mess. I felt badly for her; she’s old. I didn’t scold (never would anyway; she’s our treasure; her aim in life is to be a good girl). I had that happen once when I lived on the Gulf Coast with another dog; I was only gone for like 20 minutes down the street and, that quickly, she tore thru a hollow-core interior door of the home, hysterically scared with the thunder. My present dog gets this way with fireworks, as well. Today, I never would have left if I’d had a clue that rain was coming, but I’d neglected to check any weather reports and I’d walked out of my house in sunshine just a half hour before, so that was one WEIRD shift in weather in the space of an hour. I saw black clouds to the north but I thought it was a storm further up in the mountains.
An aside: I know what that is to be in a store and not be able to reach something. Last time it happened, I borrowed one of their rolling ladders left by a clerk but, wow, I wasn’t two steps up and another clerk came running over to indeed SCOLD that I was not allowed on the ladder in which case I looked right at him and said, “Well, how do you expect me to reach for that item I want to buy when there is absolutely NO ONE around to help?” (He’d been nowhere in sight; they must have seen me on a camera from elsewhere in the building.) So many times I’ve wanted something too high on a shelf and wind up just walking away. Nobody cares. Somebody will come with long arms and be the next buyer (I guess). (Your particular shopping trip you speak of today was just so, in total, ODD!)
Can’t wait to see what your new sofa looks like! Sounds like it’s being custom built for you; will enjoy details, details! I’ve waited far too long to do something about our own sofa in the house; my husband and I still go ’round & ’round about whether or not to reupholster or dump for brand-new and, in the meantime, it’s more uncomfortable to sit on as each day goes by, so I worry for our spines. It’s an ‘antique’ (from ‘the family’, 1940s-50s era, and hasn’t been rehabbed since the early ’80s; so, all it is at the moment, while we do endless home improvements/’remodeling’ [not ready for any ‘good stuff’ yet, while work is still going on], is an eyesore and bad for the back). The time is now; I can’t wait any longer to have the room ‘just right’; I want the sofa replaced or fixed sooner than later, and if I have to throw a cover over it til the painting and stuff is done in the room, so be it.
(The delays on whole-house improvements are because we’re DIYers and the semi-retired husband still just never has enough time at home to do the work because of taking the still-coming [and lucrative] freelance/consulting jobs, very necessary [for us] on a fixed income which, of course, you and Don completely understand! I have a friend whose husband is in his early 70s with no plan to quit his full-time job of decades and it’s this Catch-22 of wanting the free time to travel and experience ‘things of life’ as non-working and still-healthy seniors, yet finding it hard to turn his back on good income from a job he continues to enjoy and be needed!)
hope today’s been easier for you than yesterday was … oof!
i agree with trying to give the loveseat away (put by the curb and marked “free”) and hopefully keep it out of the landfill. another option to consider is donating it to a home-ec/college class to give students something to learn on … or maybe an upholsterer would want it? good luck!
and enjoy that new sofa (arriving two days early … yay)! very happy for you.
kathy in iowa