Eggs, eggs everywhere

We had a weekend full of beautiful weather, plus this was my first weekend home on Saturday AND Sunday since working at the car dealership always required Saturday work. I was able to plant tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini, but we are still looking for yellow squash plants. Please note that Farmer Homer, the farmer who owns the property behind us, says that we are 2 weeks early on planting. He says the old timer farmers say that you shouldn't plant until the hedge row tree leaves are the size of squirrel ears. How big are squirrel ears? He also said that we also typically get a frost while the lilacs are blooming... we'll see if he is right.

I took advantage of the weather and did some work in the yard, planting a bunch of plants that one of Karen's coworkers gave us. I've also made some progress on the dry creek bed, here are some pictures of the progress:



Evidently, we aren't the only ones who like the lot that we picked in the subdivision. I was taking a hose to the hose bib near our air conditioner when I was buzzed by a duck who came flying out from behind the ac unit. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on, but she built a nest between the ac unit and the house wall. There are 9 eggs in the nest, I guess we will have ducklings this summer. In addition to that nest, we also have a bird's nest on the beam under our deck too. I haven't seen the bird, but there is one egg in the nest. All kinds of wildlife making their home here at our house, those of you who know Karen well enough know that she isn't thrilled with the animals being so close to the house...




And finally, we have had some great sunset views from our deck...

Quick (and sometimes not too quick) trip

We made a whirl wind trip to Virginia, DC, and (for me) Georgia over the last week and a half. We spent Easter weekend with her family, went to dc for an educators conference and then I flew to ga to visit the family and get the miata. What was supposed to be a short 4:30 to 6:30 flight ended up being a 19 hour adventure due to the bad weather in the south last Wednesday night. I was supposed to be in Atlanta Wednesday night at 6:30 pm and didn't actually arrive until 3:45 thursday morning. NOT FUN. after finding out that all the rental car places were all out of cars (I wasn't the only stranded traveller), I had to wait for the 7:00 am shuttle to Athens. What a long, restless trip.

After all of that, I was able to get the car road ready Friday and I met my friends at the Mitty historic car races at road Atlanta on saturday morning. My plans were to drive to Chattanooga Saturday night and the rest of the way on Sunday, but the threat of storms on Sunday pushed me to make the entire drive on Saturday afternoon and night. I really didn't want to drive through the storms in the small, light weight miata. Doing the full trip solo really wasn't that bad, but I don't want to do it again soon either. Saw some tornado damage in north ga and tried to snap some pictures while driving... It is amazing what those storms can do!

I started my new job today and we won at curling tonight. We came back from a five to one deficit to win seven to five. I like winning!

the yard work begins

with almost half an acre to play with, it was only a matter of time before I got out in the yard and started playing (once it warmed up a bit). There are a few houses up hill from our house, so we knew there would be some water coming down hill towards our yard. During construction, we had the contractor grade the lot so the water from up hill ran through a swale in the back of the property, instead of across our future lawn area. My thoughts were that I would do a dry creek bed if erosion was a problem. Over the winter, the force of the water created a channel through the yard... I was right, it is time for a dry creek bed.

I ordered a few cubic yards of rock and it arrived yesterday. My plan was for it to be dumped in the back yard, close to the project area. As my luck typically goes, the driver was worried he would get stuck in the vacant lot adjacent to our house, so the rock had to be dumped elsewhere. Unfortunately for me, the rock pile ended up in the driveway. Now I will be hauling tons (literally) of rock around the house... so much for planning ahead, at least I will get some exercise out of it.

Here is the rock pile after I had already hauled a few loads around back:




Here is the beginning of the creek bed construction:


Here is how far I have to go... this is going to take a while:


Yes, there is a huge mulch pile in the middle of my route, that is for covering the areas that didn't get mulched before the snow set in last fall. Before I mulch I am going to spread seeds for native grasses and a few select wild flowers. I'm shooting for a prairie look in the back section of the yard.

Continuing my typical luck, it is raining this morning so I can't continue working on this project. The good news is that, other than needing to be a little wider at the fence line, it looks like it is performing well.

Last Day!

Today is my last day at the car dealership! I have accepted a position at a local engineering firm to be the staff landscape architect. I start there at the beginning of may, so I have a little bit of a break before heading back into the old profession.

We're going to make a whirl wind VA tour to see Karen's family and then we are going up to DC for a conference that Karen was already scheduled to go to. I'm going to leave DC and head south to GA so that I can bring the miata to her new home. I picked up tags for the miata on Thursday, it is no longer a GA vehicle. I have a feeling this trip will be so busy that it won't quite feel like a vacation, but at least I won't be working 55 hours at the dealership!

As for curling, we finally gained a little momentum and won our last two games, ending this round at 2 and 2. A new round starts Monday night.

Sales person of the month!

That's right, I was the sales person of the month for March, as I lead our building in sales. I sold 16 cars last month, beating my previous personal best by 3 cars. I seem to have a good month and then a couple lack luster months and then another good month. Not knowing how much money you are going to bring in each month really sucks, I had no idea I would miss my salaried job so much!

On Monday nights, I'm on a team in the local curling league. The bad news: we are currently 0-2. We have our third match tomorrow night, hopefully we can win one. I know hat we're doing this for fun, but the competitive side of me is starting to kick in. What can I say, I just want to win!

The weather has been teasing us with glimpses of spring. It warms up for a day or two and then drops back down below freezing at night. It was in the mid 70's today (Sunday) with a strong wind from the south west. While Karen was napping, I decided to go for a bike ride. Unfortunately, I misjudged that wind when I left the house, I didn't totally realize that until I hit the 6 mile mark and decided to turn around. BAM! Major head wind for the ride back home. I need to better assess the wind direction next time, I'd prefer a tail wind on the ride home.

Not much else going on, work, work, work for both of us. Karen's semester will be winding up soon and she'll be off for a little while until teaching a summer class. No reason to say no to the extra $$$, right? We're both getting the itch to go on another cruise... man, wouldn't that be nice???

Our new home

What began as this hole in the ground:


Is now officially our house in Bloomington:


Some of you know that this has been a long process for us, the fact that we still have our house in Georgia was a bit of an issue. I guess we now have a "winter" house in GA and a summer house in the plains?

still slacking

Wow, it has been a while since I last posted. Sorry, not much going on other than Christmas, a blizzard and me turning 35. Ugh, 35?! Can I blame getting old on why I haven't posted in a while?

Here are a few pictures from the above events, other than my birthday... We decided against a true christmas tree this year and went with this ikea version instead:


We decided to move to Illinois before the snowiest (is that even a word?) winter on record for quite some time. Here is a drift in our yard from the big blizzard at the beginning of February. We're not in Georgia any more!