It's another spectacularly gorgeous Sunday. I'm doing Sunday chores, but also kicking back a little since I mowed yesterday. Yes, I've now mowed my yard three times this year, and it's still March! The grass is still working to gain a foothold, while the weeds are going gangbusters.
My rose bush is a mutant creature, I've decided. When I planted it 10 years ago, it had the most gorgeous huge, deep red roses. A few years ago certain parts of the plant began to put out small clusters of paler red roses with fewer petals. Now it's definitely a plant with a split personality. The right side has long runner-type branches, with small pale green leaves and it puts out clusters of small pale red roses. The left side has mostly larger, deeper green-to-reddish leaves and it puts out the original, big, full, deep red roses. You can pretty well see it's split personality from this picture, and see also that my smaller yellow rose is still surviving after last summer.
Both sides of the red rose are covered with buds right now so the whole bush should be in bloom soon. In this picture below you can see the difference bud types with clusters of tiny buds on the right and single larger buds on the left. The runner-types are encroaching onto the left side also. I wonder if one day I'll lose the big deep red roses completely.
The trees are all leafing out so soon I'll have my privacy back. When the trees are bare my neighbors with 2 story houses can look down into my back yard. When the trees have leaves they can't. Needless to say, I like leaves.
I've started serious house hunting. I've looked at 11 houses in the last 3 weekends. I'm actually more seeing things I don't want rather than things I do want. I have figured out though that I want a big kitchen and an open floor plan so I can see from the kitchen out into the living areas. I don't have a preference for wood floors or carpet, although the carpets I've seen so far would all have to be replaced. I don't have a preference for 1 or 2 story, although you can get more square footage on current small lots if you do 2 story. I don't have a preference for a pool or no pool. Nice to have one, but lots of work to maintain. I'm leaning toward a split floor plan with the master bedroom separate from the others. Either the master downstairs with the others upstairs or vice verso, or the master on one end of the house and the other bedrooms on the other end. I don't mind Home Owners Association fees, within reason. (<300/year). I saw a house yesterday that had HOA fees of $900/year. No location or house is worth $900/year HOA fees. I'd prefer to have some yard. I don't think I've looked at anything that's been on more that 0.15 acre. My current house sits on 0.2 acres. Of course my current house is about 1480 square feet. The ones I've been looking at are 2200 - 3200 square feet. It's interesting to think my little house would fit twice into some of these I'm looking at. It's not really the square footage that I'm interested in. It's the floor plan. Some of the big ones waste so much space.
At any rate, it looks like I'm getting serious about buying a house. Then I'll have to decide whether to sell this one or rent it. I really hate the thought of moving, but I kind of like the thought of creating my space in a bigger place. As I'm looking at houses, I think about what I would put where if it were my house. Most of the places a lot of my current stuff just doesn't fit into. Looks like I'll also be buying furniture.
That's about it today. Gotta do some puttering.
I've been puttering today. Or at least I've been puttering this afternoon. This morning I was cleaning in case my sister and brother-in-law came by the house on their way to east Texas. Like everything that you leave until the last minute, the house cleaning didn't go smoothly. My vacuum cleaner wouldn't pick up!
The vacuum cleaner came on when I hit the switch and seemed to be pulling but the roller brush wouldn't turn, so it wouldn't sweep anything up into the cleaner. I've replaced the belt on that cleaner before so I was pretty sure that a broken belt was the problem, but this morning I didn't have time to mess with it. So I pulled a little canister vacuum cleaner out of the garage and use that. That little canister cleaner had 10 years of dust on it. It's been in the garage since I moved into the house so I wasn't sure it would even work, but it did. I have to tell you, that little cleaner probably was okay in an apartment with so-so carpet. In my house with thick carpeting, I worked myself to a frazzle just getting the house vacuumed. I now remember why I bought the heavy duty upright after I moved in here. It's been spoiling me big time.
Anyway, after going to lunch with my sister and bro-in-law I came home and my handy-woman gene kicked in. I happened to have another belt for the upright because they come in packages of 2. So I took the upright vacuum apart and replaced the belt. I think this will be the last time I'll be able to repair it though. There's a broken part that holds the roller brush in place and although I got the belt replaced and the parts back where they belong, I think it won't hold forever, and certainly won't hold if I take it apart again. Since the broken piece braces the brush, which is very taut with the belt in place, I don't think even epoxy would hold the piece in place if I tried gluing it. Currently it's mostly held in place by the rest of the vacuum cleaner structure, but I don't think it's a long term fix. Next time it breaks it'll be time for a new vacuum cleaner. Which is okay. It's 10 years old.
I figure it never hurts to pull a broken item apart and see if you can fix it. For one thing, it's broken and I'm going to throw it away anyway. If I can't fix it, I haven't hurt it any more than it was before I started. And if I can fix it I feel very competent. I won't mention that I just happen to like taking things apart to see how they work. Mostly I limit myself to broken things and can keep from taking working things apart.
I mowed and weed whacked on Friday afternoon. The grass is seriously coming up now. Thursday evening I transplanted 4 more peach seedlings out of the yard into pots, so I now have a mini-orchard starting in pots on my patio. I suppose you could consider 7 peach tree seedlings a mini-orchard. I also officially moved the aloe vera from their rolling winter platform to the back and front patios.
Along with my other puttering today I sprayed some wasps who were starting nests in the bird boxes out front. I need to get up there before the birds start nesting with some Bounce sheets to keep the wasps away. I planned to do it later today, but I think I may have puttered myself out now. I'm feeling unmotivated after fixing the vacuum cleaner. Partly because my hands hurt from holding the broken roller brush brace in place while I worked to snap the rest of the vacuum cleaner back together. I think I'll take a break and go watch some TV. Plus Addy is demanding attention. Time to feed her or end up with scars.
I love Spring. I love when things begin to get leaves and green up. I'm not much into dead and barren looking, and in Texas we rarely even have colors in the Fall or snow in the Winter to make it pretty. Just dead and barren looking. Of course this last year with the drought and heat, most of the year from July on was pretty dead and barren looking. Except for areas that watered like crazy anyway. My water bill rivaled my electricity bill in August and September.
Because of the heat and drought last year I've become slightly less of a sun person, wanting sun all the time. Granted I'm still happier when it's bright and sunny outside, but lately I'm not at all unhappy when it rains. In fact it's been gloomy and overcast the last several days, but sadly, it's not dumping rain like I want it to. The forcast has been calling for rain all day today and yesterday, but there's only been some scattered misty rain yesterday and nothing yet today. Come on! Rain already! I think a lot of the rain by-passed us and dropped east of us.
Anyway, back to the Spring thing. I love it when things turn green. The Bradford pears have bloomed and are leafing. The redbud trees are blooming, and I expect the wildflowers will be coming out pretty soon. My little peach trees are putting on leaves as you can see from the picture above. I found another peach tree seedling coming up when I mowed the lawn and transplanted it into a pot. It's the same size as one of the two I transplanted last year. In the picture below, the new seedling is in the green pot. I'm not sure why the little from last year didn't really grow. Maybe it will decide to grow this year.
Yes, I've mowed my yard this year already. I mowed it last Sunday when I got back from my business trip. I'm not really ready to call it a 'lawn' because the grass is just beginning to think about growing. The weeds, on the other hand, are growing like gangbusters, so I mowed and weed-whacked last weekend. My roses never really went dormant this year since the winter was so mild, but I need to get out and trim them back. They're putting on new growth, but some of the old growth looks pretty ragged.
Tomorrow I begin house hunting for real. I'm meeting my realtor and we're going to go look at three houses. This first time out is really just for my realtor and I to meet and for both of us to get a better idea of what I'm looking for. There's so much to decide: older vs newer home, 2 story vs 1 story, split floor plan?, master bedroom upstairs or down?, open floor plan?, zero lot line? home owners association?, etc, etc, etc. We've been emailing back and forth and she's been sending me listings, but this will be our first meeting. Considering how much I like my little house and enjoy puttering around it, it's amazing that I'm looking for another house. Basically I'm looking for something with a little more friendly commute to work, either closer or nearer the light rail. Plus I want something a little larger than my current house. Yes, two cats and I have outgrown this house. Which is a nice way of saying I'm collecting too much junk. If I do find another house though, I'm going to have to have to decide whether to sell this one or rent it. We'll see.
So that's it for today. Nothing much to say, just thought I'd touch base and mention that I'm house hunting. I'm sure I'll post blogs about the search as I go along.
My rose bush is a mutant creature, I've decided. When I planted it 10 years ago, it had the most gorgeous huge, deep red roses. A few years ago certain parts of the plant began to put out small clusters of paler red roses with fewer petals. Now it's definitely a plant with a split personality. The right side has long runner-type branches, with small pale green leaves and it puts out clusters of small pale red roses. The left side has mostly larger, deeper green-to-reddish leaves and it puts out the original, big, full, deep red roses. You can pretty well see it's split personality from this picture, and see also that my smaller yellow rose is still surviving after last summer.
The trees are all leafing out so soon I'll have my privacy back. When the trees are bare my neighbors with 2 story houses can look down into my back yard. When the trees have leaves they can't. Needless to say, I like leaves.
