New Car Shopping, Part 2

First les­son learned: don’t try buy­ing a new car just days before Christ­mas while also prepar­ing for the Big Fam­ily Christ­mas Party and your daughter’s first trip home from col­lege. I can’t say that I regret our pur­chase or even that we made any mis­takes regard­ing the car cho­sen or the price paid but I’m [...] Read more »

Fall Planting Marathon

Quite incred­i­bly, we’ve been enjoy­ing a very extended sum­mer here in Sub­ur­bia.  Yes­ter­day was a record-breaking 92°.  This is one of the few sum­mers I can recall in which we did not get our first snow­fall of the sea­son in September. Don’t get me wrong — I am not com­plain­ing.  Ever since get­ting back from [...] Read more »

Buffalo Grass Sod, Day 10

The buf­falo grass sod has gone dor­mant, despite a grotesque quan­tity of water. But not com­pletely dor­mant and I’m see­ing hope­ful signs of new growth, root­ing, and return of the gor­geous blue-gray-green color the Legacy Buf­falo grass is sup­posed to be. Read more »

Paint Job: Instant Face Lift

I swear I must have tried at least twenty dif­fer­ent paint col­ors — every­thing from blue to green and back again!  If I never buy another pint of house paint again, it will be too soon for me. He (as in my hus­band) got his neu­tral, non-threatening, realtor-approved beige.  I got my red door. You can’t see [...] Read more »

Curb Appeal

We bought the house in 2003.  It was built in 1980.  It had been on the mar­ket, and sit­ting empty, for over a year.  I had to look at it three times before decid­ing it was the one.  Mom had always said I’d know but I didn’t.  Maybe I didn’t want to admit that this [...] Read more »