Mutant Roses

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.