Did it!

Done! I actually managed to get my garage completely cleaned out. Now I just have to put the remaining bags of trash out on the curb tomorrow for the trash collectors and I'll be officially done. I'm still amazed by all the junk I had in there.

I've started letting the cats come and go in there. I've always kept them out because of all the chemicals, like fertilizer, fire ant killers, rose sprays, etc, etc, etc. Now I've got those all cleaned up and the ones I'm keeping are put away on high shelves. Addy and Zoe have both checked out everything that's easily investigated. I want them to get used to the garage before I have to leave them in there while work is done on the house.

The house stuff is also progressing, so I should probably be starting to pack my life away in preparation for moving it all into the garage. The house has been measured and on Tuesday I meet with the folks at the store to confirm the specific carpet and tile and mortgage my soul.. ahem.. I mean find out how much and for how long this is going to put me in debt. And hopefully also find out some dates that it's going to occur. In the mean time I will start packing everything and moving smaller pieces of furniture into the garage. That should keep me out of trouble for the foreseeable future.

It's gorgeous and sunny this morning and cool, but everything is very wet from the rain for the last couple of days. Probably I won't be able to mow today so I'll do it next weekend over the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Also next weekend I'm going to do something I haven't done before. I have an appointment at Glamour Shots. I've been needing professional pictures for some time now. I could go to a professional photographer I suppose, but these guys should be able to not only get the photos for me, but also make me look fairly good. They asked me when the last time was that I had pictures made, and the answer to that is probably that I've never had professional photos made. I guess it's time. I need the photos because I plan to run for an office in my professional association and need a current picture to go with the bio. Also, I need one because I was selected as a Mentor of the Month by a group. Plus I'll be doing a professional blog starting in January and will need one for that. So my wanting to have a professional picture that looks decent has gone from just my own desire to a pretty serious need in the near future. I decided to go for it.

That will be on Saturday. Thursday and Friday I'll be in east Texas eating myself sick at my folks place. I love Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Luckily for me, my parents are willing to cook every year, so I'm seriously looking forward to spending some fat and happy time with them. I imagine this year it will just be me and the folks and my sister and brother-in-law who live out there near them. At Christmas time we may all be out there except maybe the Colorado gang. I have a married brother and he and his wife have four grown kids (one married). I also have three sisters, one in this area with a grown son, the one in east Texas with her husband, and the one in Colorado with her husband. Her son, his wife and their daughter are my relatives in Denver whose pictures you've seen in this blog.

Now that I've listed the family, you can see how long my Christmas shopping list is. I'm almost half way through it though. On-line shopping is great.

Guess I'd better get to my Sunday housework and turn robo vac loose.

Home again

My last post was pretty short, but I got side-tracked and then busy with some short trips.

I'm so glad to be home from my traveling. As much as I like to travel, it's always nice to be back. I've had two meeting trips in the last two weeks, the first to New Orleans and the second to Salt Lake City. Both meetings were really good, and the travel gods were looking out for me. No delays, cancellations, or other travel-related issues. In fact, I caught an earlier flight coming back from Salt Lake City on Friday night and got in earlier than I expected to. So all in all, routine travels with excellent, worthwhile meetings.

I'm glad not to be traveling for awhile for a couple of reasons, though. Besides just being glad to be home for awhile, I've been really pushing it to keep up with work and travel too, so it's nice to have only work facing me now. I have some deadlines to make, although I've managed to make a couple of them while traveling.

Besides work right now, I need to remember that Christmas is soon, and Christmas shopping shouldn't be put off. Especially because a lot of gifts will need to be shipped this year. I'll be going to east Texas rather than Colorado, so I need to get shopping done and stuff mailed to Colorado in time to arrive there during the holidays. Which makes the time between now and Christmas entirely too short.

Up-date on the house stuff: I chose a carpet color. Believe it or not. Someone is going to call me and arrange to come out and measure the house. And ever since I got home from the store, I've been looking at all my stuff that I will need to pack up and move. Can you say "despair"? It's going to take me months just to pack all this stuff and put it in the garage for the duration. I suppose I should start now, but I'm not going to start until I have a date that the work will start. Plus I didn't choose a counter top, and I'm told I should have those done before the floor. Plus I do need to finish cleaning out space in the garage. I worked on that yesterday again. Two more bags of trash. It really is getting close to being done, but I've got one serious area that I have to tackle. And I'll need to get used to parking outside so all my stuff and cats can have the garage. It's all becoming more real now that I've actually chosen a carpet color.

The color is darker than my current carpet, but not a dark color. My current carpet is some off-white shade, or was when the house was new. Now it's mostly 'stained and dingy', if I had to give it a color name. The new color is more of a light taupe. I did my best to see how it looks with a little carpet square in the house. Hopefully I'll like it when it's installed. *laughing* No. I WILL like it when it's installed. I would tell the name of the color but I've forgotten. They have too many colors with too many names.

I bought a robot vacuum cleaner about a month ago. A Roomba iRobot. It's the most amazing thing. The little thing just wanders around the house, and cleans like crazy. It seems to clean better than my big upright vacuum, plus it goes under the bed. Of course, my cats are less than thrilled, especially about the fact that it goes under the beds. Addy stalked it all over the house the first couple of times I used it, while Zoe ran from it hissing and spitting as it seemed to follow her around the house. Now days, Addy stays up on the furniture and ignores it, and Zoe sits in the kitchen until it's done. The cat-kids are not exactly good about making adjustments to their routine. I got them one of those fountains that's always running because Addy especially likes to drink from running water. It took them about a week to come into the master bath again (where I'd put it), and about three weeks for both of them to drink from it. They like it now though. They just don't deal with changes well.

So why'd I buy the robot vacuum? No reason. It seemed like fun, and besides laughing at the cats, it's been really nice to just turn it on and go do whatever I was doing. My house is staying a lot more vacuumed, I can tell you. Now if they'd just invent a robot duster, I'd be set.

Repairs and Fall cleaning

I wrote this almost two weeks ago, but forgot to post it, so it's a little out-dated. Maa. I'll post it anyway.

This has been a fairly productive week. After last week's leak repair, I did manage to call someone about my foundation this week. And to my delight, I have a "remarkably level house". I don't need any foundation work! I wanted to get that checked because I have some cracks in my interior walls, but he said just to watch them. They're not caused by foundation problems. So I dodged that bullet. Now I feel comfortable spending money on making the house better without worrying about whether I'll need that money for repairs.


Then Saturday I took my car in for basic maintenance, oil and filter change, and did not dodge a bullet there. Around $800.00 worth of un-dodged bullet. Besides the oil and filter and tire rotation, I needed two drive belts and front brakes as well as basic maintenance that was due around 40,000 miles. I don't mind spending money on my car actually. I depend heavily on it and need it to be running perfectly. It's been making a random whistling sound. Really random. So much so that I can't pin it down to any specific driving or outside conditions. So maybe all that work they did Saturday will have fixed whatever was making the noise. [Apparently it did. I haven't heard it since they worked on the car.]


I went back to Lowe's on Saturday also and spent more time looking at carpet and tile. I brought more carpet pieces home, but I think I found the ceramic tile I want, both for the kitchen and the bathrooms. And I started looking at counter tops for the kitchen. And I think I want to paint the master bathroom. Slowly but surely I'm getting ready to have this work done on this house. I also worked some more on cleaning out the garage again. Three more bags of trash and I'm getting there. It won't be too much longer and I'll have it looking good.


So all in all a fairly productive week and it's also been a beautiful weekend. So I'm in a pretty good mood. It's sunny! Finally! I thought it would never stop raining, but we've had a almost a week of sun.

Fall is here

Although I'm a warm weather type of person, even I get tired of the Texas heat eventually. Days like yesterday and this morning are a beautiful, welcome change. Yesterday started out about 50, with a high around 75, gorgeous and sunny. Just a nearly perfect day. This morning it's about 60 and absolutely cloudless with the sun just beginning to come up. It's supposed to cloud up and rain again later, but we'll see. This is Texas after all. The ability of people to predict the weather drops pretty low out beyond about half a day.

One of the reasons I'm so delighted to see the sun is that it's been raining here. Day after day after day of rain, for weeks. We've had an occasional day of sunshine in about the last month and clouds and/or rain the rest of the time. I'm seriously over all that gloom and wet. And yes, we've been drought-like for a while so it's needed and good for us, etc, etc. I'm just really tired of it. I like Texas because of the sun. If I wanted unending rain I'd move to Seattle.

The trees have finally begun to change color. My peach tree has dropped about a third of it's leaves, but most of them are still green, probably because we haven't had any cool weather until recently. Yesterday was probably our lowest temp so far, around 50. Luckily the grass has slowed down so I won't be mowing much more this year.

Last week I broke down and called a plumber. I've had a swampy spot in my front yard near my foundation for a couple of months, and I've been spending some time in denial, convincing myself that it was due to all the rain we've had. But it was getting increasingly swampy and this month's water bill arrived. The usage was higher than in August when I was watering to keep the grass alive. So I called the plumber. I was really afraid that this was related to a foundation problem, because I've noticed some cracks that I've been keeping an eye on. So I was worried that they'd have to dig through my foundation to find the leak, and maybe repair the foundation. Luckily, they found a leak after only digging up under the shrubbery in front of my house. They replaced the leaking pipe/valve and left me with only a muddy patch in my front lawn where the swampy area was. I felt sorry for them because there was so much ground water there from the leak that they were digging though soupy mud and having to pump water out of the hole occasionally. Now I'm waiting for that area to dry up from all that water. Continuous rain isn't helping it dry up. I guess I'll be totally convinced that the problem is fixed when that area dries up. Who, me, a skeptic? Well maybe.

Yesterday I was at Lowe's for some stuff and ended up talking to a guy about new carpet and ceramic tile for my house. I've been wanting to do that since I moved in, but there's always something else that needs to be done first. And that's still true. I need to have the foundation checked before I have work done on the house. But since I broke down and called the plumber, maybe I can get into a groove and call someone about the foundation. Plus, I figure that if I have plans to replace carpet and tile, it'll force me to do the foundation first. So I started planning yesterday. The only question I have right now is: WHY ARE THERE SO DAMN MANY COLORS OF CARPET AND TILE?! Oatbran? Hacienda Tan? Goldwash? You're kidding, right?

This is going to take some time, figuring out what colors I want. Plus I want to replace the counter tops in the kitchen first, which means more color decisions. But if I don't start somewhere, I'll never start. So yesterday I started learning about carpet and tile. I figure if I can pick those colors it might help me decide on the counter tops. And given my lack of decisiveness for this type of thing, I'll have plenty of time to get the foundation checked and finish cleaning out the garage before any of the work will start.

The garage has to be cleaned out because I'll need it as a place for the cats to stay while the house is being worked on. I've been working on the garage slowly over weekends when I have time. So far I've taken 10 large bags of trash out of there, and I'm still working on it. Who knew I had so much junk in there? A convenient dropping place for stuff I guess. But it needs to be clean enough that the cats won't pull anything over on themselves or poison themselves with stuff that's in there.

Wow. They were right about the clouds. Even though it was completely clear at dawn this morning, it's now completely overcast. Too bad. I was hoping for another day of sunshine. I suppose I'll have to wait a while.

Anyway, that's all for today. I'll keep you posted on the renovations and repairs as they go.

The critters

So the week I started back to work from vacation I caught the flu, and was out pretty sick with it. Luckily, my immune system was up to the challenge, so except for some difficulty getting a voice back, I'm well again. I'd like to know here I picked it up, though. I knew I shouldn't have done that last round of mall shopping.

I did say that I would post pictures of some of the small animals I saw on my vacation, not just bird pictures. This post is for that . . . to post a few pictures which are mostly of squirrels.

This first picture is of one of the small rock squirrels that were up on the top of Angel's Landing. Usually there are LOTS of tiny chipmunks up here, but this year they were not around, just the small rock squirrels.

Small animals are not much better at holding still than birds or small children, but I seem to have a little better luck with them. Or maybe I just try more pictures of animals, so I have a better chance of getting a few decent ones. Most of the animal pictures I have this year turned out to be of squirrels and lizards. We didn't really see any of the big animals this year except the ever-present mule deer and their fawns. No bighorn sheep, although I always keep an eye out for them. We did see a really pretty red fox alongside the road at Wolf Creek Pass, and I saw the coyote and roadrunner, but I didn't get pictures of those encounters.

The rock squirrels around the campground in Zion were generally larger than the ones up on Angel's Landing. This picture on the left above is a really fat one that was hanging around the campsite, and the picture to the right is a young one. They're kind of pretty with their spotted fur which shows up best on the little guy.

The other type of squirrel I took pictures of on this trip were the black Abert's squirrel. People also call them Ebert's squirrels, or tassel-eared squirrels. They come in different colors, but the one's around my sister's place are solid black. As can be seen by this picture on the left below, they like sugar water! This one was drinking from this hummingbird feeder about 30 minutes after we got it refilled and rehung one afternoon. They have long tails and tasseled ears and spend as much time around the bird feeders and drinking from the birdbath as the birds do. I was surprised to see them drinking from the hummingbird feeder, though.

The last picture is of a whiptail lizard. These things were all over the Zion campground area this year, especially a whole slew of little tiny ones everywhere. They have long blue tails and are all female. They reproduce by parthenogenesis. They're also very fast, so pictures are tough, but this little one liked this small patch of grassy sunlight enough that she hung out long enough for a shot. Of course this is taken from a considerable distance, but you can see her pretty well.

Vacation birds

This post is a little bit in honor of my bird-fanatic friend. I've only relatively recently started taking (attempting to take) pictures of birds, and I blame her. Birds are really hard to take pictures of with a digital camera. Kind of like my grand-niece now that she's walking. You get the perfect shot and by the time the camera takes it, she's across the room. Birds are like that ...no concept of 'hold still for the camera, please'. I do have a few pictures of the birds I saw this year on vacation, so I thought I'd post them.


The first picture is looking down off the side of the trail at Angel's Landing at a pair of peregrine falcons. This picture was actually taken in 2003 when we were out there, but I saw the falcons this year too. I just didn't get close enough to take a picture this year. It's cool that they nest around Angel's Landing. Pretty much the only year we haven't seen them was last year when we saw the condors.

Two birds that were kind enough to hold still for the camera were this green-tailed towhee from the campsite at Bryce and this young western bluebird in the campsite at Zion. Both birds were foraging around the campsites so I had time to take pictures. I will say that I have 'several' pictures of both birds, and these are the ones that came out best. Neither bird really wanted to pose for me in full sunlight so the pictures are darker than I would like, but I think you can see them. The towhee has a red crest and green back and tail, and the little bluebird has a red breast with blue wing and tail feathers. This young one still had some speckling on the head and down into the back and breast.


The rest of my bird pictures are from my sister's place in Colorado. She has bird feeders and birdbaths which attract a fairly nice variety of birds, including this downy woodpecker on the right and this white-breasted nuthatch on the left. The woodpecker was interesting. It kept flying back and forth from the bird feeder to the tree. I've never seen a woodpecker interested in seeds in a bird feeder, but this little guy kept going back and forth and back and forth. I actually have a picture of him flying between the two, and multiple pictures of him on the tree trunk, but this bird feeder picture came out the best.

My sister also hangs out thistle sacks so she has quite a crowd of finches that aggregate. They jockey for position on the thistle sacks and then visit the birdbath, where they have a nice bobbing and drinking session. These four little guys looked like they were doing an alternating dance routine since their bobbing was nicely timed.



Anyway this is it for my bird post. I'll try to post some critter pictures next.

Vacation .... end *sigh*

Hard to imagine that this vacation is almost over. Three weeks goes so fast when you're playing. I'm incredibly glad to be able to take three weeks at a time, though. I really have time to decompress from work. I wish I could say I don't think about work at all, but I still randomly check and clear emails from work. At 20-50 emails a day there, three weeks worth would take me days to wade through if I didn't clear them at least a few times while I'm away.

It has been a great vacation. This is us at the top of Angel's Landing. The picture was taken with my camera perched on the ground, the timer set and us at the cliff edge a little lower down. The timer gives you 12 seconds to get into place. My sister was a tad nervous about me running for the cliff edge after pushing the button, so she's got a hand out to stop me if necessary. *laughing* The image of her actually trying to prevent me from going over is a little scary though. It was cool, windy and gorgeous up there.

We didn't do quite as much hiking as usual this year, but we were also a little more laid back than usual. We actually didn't get up before dawn every day. That's pretty much unheard of for me. I'm usually dragging everyone out to get our hikes started early or to break camp and move to the next place early. The weather was cool this year though. In past years it's been necessary to start hikes that early or we bake during the day. Temps in Zion and Arches can be brutal. This time though, instead of 103-107 degrees, the temps in Zion peaked out at about 86! Nice. We had a small amount of rain in both Zion and Bryce, but we have a canopy that works great as protection from both rain and sun.

Of course, since it was cooler in Zion, it was also cooler in Bryce, so I was COLD. Usually I am a little cold in Bryce anyway because it's always significantly cooler than Zion due to it's elevation. This year, especially coming from the Texas heat, I was cold. This picture is me bundled in more layers than I usually am at Bryce. It didn't hit freezing at night, but the night temps were in the high 30s, low 40s, which is colder than I like it. So we slept in until after daybreak (snug, warm sleeping bags!) and hiked later than usual. The Bryce hike is down into the canyon, so of course coming out you have to climb back out of the canyon. It's often brutally hot on the climb out, steep with little shade. Even starting later this year, the climb out wasn't bad. It was still steep of course, but the lack of shade didn't cause us to feel like we'd have heat stroke before we made the top. It's amazing how much difference that temperature can make.

I continued to see lots of wildlife on the trip. We didn't see condors this year in Zion like we did last year, but we saw the peregrine falcons that nest around Angel's Landing. This picture is a small rock squirrel that was hanging around the top of the trail at Angel's. Many large relatives of his were hanging out around our campsite. We also had the usual assortment of lizards, including a whole bunch of small whiptails and a large collared lizard hanging out on the trees around the campsite.

Due to time constraints, we only hiked the Delicate Arch trail in Arches, and we skipped Capital Reef park this year. Both parks are totally awesome (well, all four are awesome, actually), but we just had to decide what we had time to do. We had time do shopping at each place, which is a "must". I am an avowed shopaholic, so it had to fit into the schedule.

At the end of the trip we went back to Denver and took my grand-niece and her parents to the Denver Zoo. It was great fun, as was staying with them in their new house. I'm not sure if I've ever been to the Denver Zoo before, but I must have been small if I have. It's very impressive and really needs a lot of time in order to see everything. We saw quite a bit and most importantly, we got to spend time with my nephew, niece and grand-niece. Waaaaaay fun.