No Cupcakes for You!

Our temporary solution to the broken oven is to refrain from all baking/broiling activities.

I found the manual for the oven which dates back to 1999. It advises owners to contact a designated repair person to fix the oven. It also advises DIYers that improper repairs or improper attempts at repairs can result in explosion with possible injury or death. The foolhardy readers among you are now wagging your index finger at the screen, scoffing at me that the manuals just say that for liability reasons, and that you know just how to fix our gas oven that refuses to ignite. Thanks for your well-intended cheerleading, but we'll leave this one to the professionals.

Maybe I'll think about calling a repair person after Labor Day. Between the pest control guy, the nice arborist and tree trimmers, the excellent water heater plumbers and the over-scheduled city water heater installation inspector, Chad and I have been tethered to the 1952 house many days between the hours of 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM lately. We have things to do and places to go other than our own home: such as running to the bakery for stuff from their ovens.

Crud.

I broke the kitchen last night. I preheated the oven to make corn muffins to accompany vegetable plates. The oven did not get hot, but did stink-up the house something awful with the smell of natural gas. All pets evacuated to the backyard with me, but not before the front of the utensil drawer came off in my hand... again.

So I ask again (mostly rhetorically), why did we buy a house?

To Do Lists

Today:

• Vacuum
• Iron clothes from massive laundry attack this weekend
• Wash and chop veggies for dinner salad
• Moonlight kayak
• Walk Janie
• Water the wilting, sunburned plants

This week:

• Contact handyman about patching drywall in water heater closet
• Buy charcoal-grey paint for lower kitchen cabinets
• Paint kitchen walls and cabinets
• Go to IKEA. Be brave. Buy kitchen lights.
Seriously, do not get overwhelmed and leave IKEA without the kitchen lights.
• Maybe skip IKEA
• Paint water heater closet
• Install shelves in new linen closet/old water heater closet
• Read and recycle at least one magazine from growing stack of magazines

Someday:

• Get the one wonky pier and the one wonky beam under house repaired
• Have carport parking pad concrete either repaired or replaced with interlocking pavers
• When it's not 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside, weed the planting beds & remove dead plants
• When it's not 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside, dig out bad soil from planter and replace with excellent Ladybug soil
• When it's not 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside, plant some fall stuff
• When it's not 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside, clean out gravel/debris from the rain barrel

Idle Hands?

I'm back from five days visiting the five nieces and nephews on my side of the family, plus Mom and my sister and her husband. I'm just a wee bit tired after rollerskating, bowling, letting my seven-year-old niece drive me around the family farm in the Gator (she's an excellent driver, but the terrain was bumpy), back to homeschool supply shopping and general visiting.

While it was great to see my relatives, I'm happy to be back in Austin. I'm getting back into my daily routine of watering the plants, walking Janie, loving on the kitties, going to the gym, etc...

I'm getting back to volunteer activities with Austin Pets Alive: bottle-feeding tiny kittens and writing blog articles for cats available for adoption. I got an email last week that Austin Pets Alive finally has a building for a more permanent home; versus the series of trailers and pop-up tents that previously housed the veterinary clinic and some adoption facilities. The building needs lots of work including painting. I like to paint.

Do I paint my own kitchen this weekend? I have the supplies and it's been on my to-do list for a while. I can rest in the comfort of my own digs between coats of primer and paint. Or, do I volunteer to go paint the APA building where I can meet some new people and socialize a bit while painting? Hmmm...

Or, do I spurn my inner Puritan work ethic and take it easy and not paint anything this weekend? (Gasp!) There are lots of magazines in the living room that aren't going to read themselves between doing loads of laundry.

I'll ponder this further as I give Janie a bath. I love her, but she is super-stinky.

Good News!

We did pay a pretty many pennies for a new tankless water heater. The bill was the only bad news, but it could have been worse.

The good news:

We do not need new pipes. Hooray! (New pipes would have doubled today's bill.) We have good, sturdy, copper pipes.

Since the new tankless heater is mounted outside of the house, we have space for a linen closet where the old water heater tank lived. Add "patch drywall holes" and "build shelves" to the project list.

We will now have plenty of hot water, even when I want to take a bath in the winter. No more boiling water on the stove and toting it to the tub in a manner reminiscent of Little House on the Prairie. (No offense, Laura Ingalls.)

While the plumbing guys were here, they fixed the toilet. For the record, the plumber said my fix-it job a few months ago was done correctly, but that a different part was also worn out. I guess this trouble-shooting ability is one of the many reasons plumbers get a license instead of just watch youtube videos to learn how to do plumbing.

We are eligible for a federal tax credit for upgrading to a more energy-efficient water heater. The amount will be equal to about 40% of today's bill.

While the budget won't allow for any kitchen upgrades past new paint, at least the hot water will last longer as we wash dishes by hand. Maybe we can have a long weekend away this fall if it doesn't involve paying airfare.

Why Did We Buy a House?

We do indeed need a new water heater. We may also need a new pipes throughout the house, or maybe the plumber service guy just has a sales quota to meet. Since Chad and I are not licensed plumbers, we will not be attempting to install our own water heater. It's one thing to fix the toilet (only to have a different part of the toilet break months later), but an entirely different thing to deal with gas lines and water lines running into the same thingy-ma-bob that could go kaboom!

In light of the very necessary new water heater and possibly necessary total re-pipe job on the 1952 house, there will be no kitchen remodel. There will be no automatic dishwasher. I hope for the sake of our budget that there won't be any new kitchen appliances anytime soon. There will also likely be no fall vacation.

Prepare yourself for dizzying logic (and lack thereof) as I try to figure out what we were thinking when we bought a house.

Anyone who tells you that owning a home is cheaper than renting is a real estate agent and/or sorely misinformed. When I add the interest we pay on our mortgage, and how much larger our monthly mortgage payment is than any of our previous rent rates (two to three times more, seriously, and in one case for less square footage), and our ever-rising property taxes, and the amount of money and time we spend maintaining the house inside and outside, and the fact that now we pay all our own utility and cable bills (whereas rental properties usually covered some or all of those bills), my head hurts.

Chad feels renting is an unsettled and unsure way to live, because your rent rate can go up at the end of your lease, or the property owner can decide not to renew your lease. I never agreed with him until we were bribed out of our two-year lease at the posh condo after only thirteen months by a new owner. The location of the posh rental condo proved a deal-breaker when we had the opportunity to buy it - nestled on a freakishly steep hillside of one of Austin's most notoriously dangerous and busy roads. We also gained a bit too much insight into the condo mismanagement when the condo's property management company (allegedly) embezzled the entire reserves fund from the condo association and then declared bankruptcy. Phew! Dodged a bullet there!

As mortgage-payers (I can't honestly say homeowners for another twenty-some years), we can decorate, upgrade and paint knowing that we keep the fruits of our labor, for better or worse. (When I say worse, I'm thinking of the radioactive green paint in our kitchen. Its days are numbered.)

We get federal tax breaks which are pretty much wiped out or usurped by the property taxes. Of course, property taxes pay for local services, but most of those local services are also enjoyed by renters. So I guess that logic makes for some moot financials. Especially when I admit that mortgage payments and home maintenance costs are much higher than rent rates.

We can have more fur-children in our own home than if we were renting or living in a condo.

We have more room for parties. We should throw another party soon...

We have a washer and dryer here that only we use. No more trips down to an overcrowded laundry room or to the dodgy laundromat. Although the washer and dryer are in the carport and get dirty out there. Also, I have to put on clothes to go out there. No streaking to the laundry room for a fresh towel right out of the dryer.

We have a big yard that falls into both the pro and con list.

We're paying a premium for a few freedoms and benefits.

If there's any wisdom I can impart here, it's this: don't buy a house or condo until you are ready. Don't let anyone pressure you into buying a home with the argument that it's cheaper in the long run than renting, because it isn't. Have lots and lots more money saved than you think you'll need. And as my dearly departed dad liked to quip, "you can live in a car, but you can't drive a house."

Hot Water Heater Erupts

The ancient hot water heater at the 1952 House has erupted. Authorities are unable to pinpoint the actual eruption time, but estimate the occurrence sometime during the past week. Casualties include a Swiffer broom and several floor boards in the hot water heater closet. Residents thought the hot water heater was dormant. They were stunned to discover the soggy mess today. A leading professional in the field of hot water heater research will soon investigate the matter.

After existing peacefully with the hot water heater for several years, residents were lulled into a sense of complacency about the hot water heater, but now fear for the safety of their budget after this eruption. One resident said, "I'm sorry you had to discover that mess today. I'm not excited about spending the money, but if the service guy says we need a new hot water heater, then we'll get one." Stay tuned as this exciting story unfolds.

Blech

That's the sound I made often today. Blech. Stomach bug or food poisoning? Who knows? So far, Chad doesn't have any symptoms. Hopefully he'll be spared from whatever it was.

The misery started at 7:00 AM, and was mostly over by 10:00 PM when I requested a Diet Coke with a slice of lime and five Melba Toast pieces. Despite earlier attempts to rehydrate and refuel, the DC and Melbas were the first things to stay down.

A pattern is emerging that I have a cranky wreck day immediately before exhibiting unmistakable illness signs of the stomach variety. It's like my body is saying, "What? I tried to warn you. You should have bought some Saltines yesterday."

Bad Day Meet Haunted Toilet

In my reckless, overachieving youth, I did not sleep much. I had too much to do! Too much studying, too much socializing, too many chores, too many work hours and too many school-sanctioned extracurricular activities left little time for mere biological imperatives such as sleep. I am now paying the piper, or maybe the sandman, for all that missed sleep. In my middle-age, if I don't get at least seven hours of quality shut-eye, I'm a cranky wreck the next day.

Today was one of those cranky wreck days. Every little minor chore and annoyance magnified to colossal proportions in my sleep-deprived psyche. I won't bore you with all the gory details. The main made-me-want-to-cry moments involved the toilet (yes, the toilet I thought I fixed months ago, the ONLY toilet in our 1952 house) hissing repeatedly and loudly as air pressure met water somewhere in the tank. When I removed the toilet tank lid to investigate, I watched to floater ball bouncing up and down rhythmically as the water in the toilet tank did its best impression of a wave pool.

Clearly the toilet is haunted. I'm not sure whether to call a plumber or an exorcist.

I eventually got the toilet to hush by adjusting the floater ball a bit and turning off the water supply to the toilet until it calmed down. Later I turned the water supply back on for the tank. We'll see how long that little tweak keeps to toilet tank ghost at bay.

Incidentally, my next house will be brand-spanking-new with two bathrooms and other modern conveniences!

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Our neighbors' house is for sale. The sign went up in their front yard yesterday. They have been cool neighbors, so we're sad to see them go. We hope more cool people buy the house and move into it. If you ever thought you'd like to live next door to us, here's your chance!

We're hoping that the future owner of the house next door occupies the house. We aren't terribly keen on the idea of the house being a rental or of the house being leveled for an oversized duplex to be built in its place. Wish us luck!

How Much Longer 'Til We Get There?

When Chad and I moved into the 1952 house a little over four years ago, we thought we would be here for five to ten years. We wanted to make the house livable according to our standards and taste. We vowed not to do anything with resale value in mind, but instead to think of what we wanted and/or needed to be comfortable here.

Since Chad left his fancy-pants job to start his own business, our budget became a bit more restricted. We won't be "movin' on up (movin' on up) to a DEE-luxe apartment in the sky-hy-hy-hy" anytime in the near future, and definitely not next year. No Brown Building or Nokonah loft for us just yet. We will be very comfortably housed here.

Okay, comfortable in many ways except for kitchen activities. We have no automatic dishwasher. We wash and dry our dishes the old-fashioned way: by hand. The cabinets and countertop in the kitchen are not tall enough to fit a standard dishwasher. There's no plumbing or electrical work for a dishwasher. Though some previous owner of the 1952 house put in new tiles and countertop, the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen are original to the 1952 house. These cabinets and drawers have a certain charm, until you realize that each time you open or close a drawer, sawdust rains down on everything in the cabinet below. Tonight, as Chad washed and I dried dishes, I opened a drawer to put away some clean kitchen gadgets, and the drawer-face came off in my hand. We nailed the drawer-face back into place after I quit laughing semi-hysterically. I need to get the construction adhesive out of the shed tomorrow and cement the drawer-face back into place since the nails will only hold it for one or two more openings. The appliances in our kitchen date back to 1989. Sure, they all work. They are all white, thus matching in color, but no two appliances matching in brand or vintage. The microwave has a big crack in the doorframe, which Chad insists is fine, because the inner seal on the microwave door is intact. Nonetheless, I try not to stand anywhere near the microwave when it's running. Safety first!

We'll be living here a good while longer than we originally thought we would. I would really, really, really love to have a dishwasher, along with newer, safer, more energy efficient appliances all around. Accommodating a dishwasher would mean new cabinets and drawers, new countertop and backsplash too. In this case, it's necessary to throw the proverbial baby out with the proverbial bathwater, because you don't want to wash dishes in dirty bathwater.

If I had a crystal ball, and I could know for certain how much longer we will live in this sweet, old 1952 house, it would help me determine whether or not I want to invest the time, energy, inconvenience and money into remodeling and modernizing the kitchen here. Any closeted psychics out there, feel free to speak up!

I peruse the home project websites often, and came across this lovely kitchen designed by Erinn Valencich on the DIY Network's website. The tile backsplash matches the tiles in our bathroom too. I want to go to there.

Honk! Who Goes There?

Friend or foe? Or stranger? Or someone with a mild case of road rage? There are lots of motorists honking at, or near, the 1952 house, sometimes at the oddest hours.

Sometimes a brief "honk-honk" can be heard from the busy street adjacent to the 1952 house. Chad and I wonder if it might be friends giving a greeting to us or a neighbor. Sometimes a long "haaaaaawwwwwwnnnnkkkk" can be heard, likely expressing disapproval at a fellow motorist on the busy street, or perhaps to say, "woooo... it's 2:15 AM. I should NOT be driving!"

Sometimes when I'm out watering the plants at night, a motorist gives a short, sharp "honk!" Usually there are no other cars around when this happens. So I wonder if the motorist just wants to startle me as they barrel by me in the dark, breaking the speed limit, in a vehicle that outweighs me ten to twenty times over. Is it their way of saying, "I could run over you right now if I wanted to! Hahaha."?

Please feel free to wave at us as you drive by the house. Turn onto our street and say hello if you see us out in the yard, and you have a few minutes to chat. If you must honk at us or our house, we politely request that you give the approved brief "honk-honk" between the hours of 9:00 AM and 9:00 PM Central Standard Time. Failure to comply with these requests may result in a rotten tomato being lobbed at your vehicle or a one-fingered wave. (Obviously I'm kidding. I save the rotten tomatoes for the composter. Plus, I don't have the best pitching arm.)

Brunch for a Great Cause

Recently I signed up to volunteer for Austin Pets Alive! as a "bottle baby" feeder (feeding tiny kittens and monitoring their health). I have to attend some training before I get to cuddle and coddle the tiny kittens, but I'm so happy to be part of this nonprofit. Austin Pets Alive! does lots of fundraisers and materials donation drives. Here's a fun event you can attend this weekend. Who's with me?

Plain Ivey Jane and Sagra Fashion Brunch
The chic brunch menu will be served along with $1 mimosas and bellinis while models use the restaurant as a catwalk to showcase Plain Ivey Jane’s top picks for summer. Each guest can choose one of Chef Pellegrini’s mouth-watering brunch creations from Mushroom Risotto to Shrimp Marsala along with fresh fruit and homemade scones and muffins. The brunch will benefit Austin Pets Alive! Bring one item from the APA! Wish List (food, towels, bowls) to receive one free mimosa or bellini. The cost for the brunch is $20 a person plus drinks. Call Sagra at 512-535-5988 for reservations.

Wise Beyond Her (Almost Eight) Years

Saturday morning, I was in the children's section of Half Price Books trying to track down some out of print titles for my nephew's homeschool lesson plans. Fairly deep in concentration between the emailed list of books on my Blackberry and the not exactly alphabetized by author bookshelves, a little girl's face peered up at me and said, "hello," breaking into my vision and attention.

"Hi," I replied.

"Tomorrow is my birthday," she said.

"Oh, cool. Happy Birthday. How old will you be?"

"I'll be eight," she said with a certain amount of pride.

"Are you going to see fireworks tomorrow night?" I asked.

"No. We're going to the bowling alley for two hours with my sister and one of my friends."

"That sounds fun. Have a good time." She kept staring at me. I figured I should say something else. "One of my grownup friends has a birthday on the fourth of July too. When she was a little girl, she thought the fireworks were for her birthday. You know, before she learned about Independence Day on the fourth of July."

The little girl was unimpressed with this tidbit. "Do you have any children?" she asked.

"I have eight nieces and nephews, but I don't have any children of my own. I'm looking for some books for one of my nephews right now."

"Nephew... is that a boy or a girl?" she asked.

"A boy," I said.

"I go to Brentwood Elementary School. I had to change schools because I got into trouble, and the old school wasn't nice to my parents."

"Oh. I had to change schools a few times when I was a kid because my family moved to different places," I said.

"Did you like that?" she asked.

Honestly, I hated it every single time, but I fibbed a little in my response. "Sometimes I was excited to move to a new school and start over, but sometimes I didn't like it."

She thought for a second and said, "That must have been hard for you to make friends and then have to leave. Maybe sad."

Oh, little one, it made me so sad each and every time. I nodded at her. Then she reached down to a low bookshelf and plucked out a prize. "I have this book. I like it. Maybe your nephew would like it." She smiled up at me as she displayed the cover for Walter the Farting Dog.

I smiled, and fought the urge to pet the little girl's head.

Love List for Summer 2010

Chad and I had two friends in college who were cousins to each other, but who had shared verbal oddities and strange, secret rituals like many twin siblings do. These cousins were from the New Orleans area and introduced us to the lovely tradition of king cake parties during the pre-Lenten season. They taught us the official king cake song which sounded very silly and involved holding up your index fingers from closed fists on both hands and bending those index fingers up and down in time to the song. We later found out that the cousins made up the song and hand movements.

They also taught us how to play Mystery Card which was a nonsensical card game that involved holding up your index finger from a closed fist and saying the words "mystery card" in a high-pitched, sing-song voice before drawing a card. Each player took turns drawing cards until the deck was depleted. There were no winners or losers in Mystery Card.

My favorite thing that the cousins made up and taught to us was "love lists". Make a list of 25 things you love and 10 things you hate. Share it with the people present at the time. Seal the list in an envelope, writing the date on the outside of the envelope, and put the envelope away in a safe place. Open the envelope at some future date and bask in the memories.

Chad and I made love lists pretty regularly over the nearly seventeen years we've known each other, but have neglected to do so lately. I'm making a love list and sharing it here rather than sealing it in an envelope.

Love: (in no particular order)

1. Our 1952 house

2. Chad - and that he spends more time in Austin now with me

3. Janie - just about the best dog we could ever hope to find

4. Sonic - fourteen pounds of feline Mama's boy

5. Kenji - cuddle now, dangit!

6. Marigold - sweet old lady baby

7. Austin

8. Casey's New Orleans Snowballs on a hot day

9. June tomato crops from our yard

10. Basil from our yard

11. Mint from our yard

12. Mojitos! made from the mint from our yard

13. Our lovely planted areas outside

14. The lush, green not-exactly-grass that surrounds our house right now

15. Affordable Lawn Maintenance that mows and edges our yard every 2 weeks so Chad & I don't have to!

16. That Chad is going to let me repaint the kitchen! Bye-bye radioactive green walls!

17. Time with old friends and new acquaintances -- so great to see people last Friday at Lustre Pearl!

18. Paramount Summer Classic Film Series

19. Reading: magazines, classic literature, silly best-sellers, chick-lit, cereal boxes, blogs, etc...

20. Swimming at Deep Eddy Pool

21. Kayaking at Lady Bird Lake

22. Tacos del Jardin from Chango's

23. Cinnamon Rolls from Upper Crust Bakery

24. British mysteries on Masterpiece Mystery on PBS

25. Kittens

I'm too happy right now to dwell on thinking up ten things to hate, so no list. Maybe on a hot day in late August, I'll readily come up with those things, which will likely all center on the weather.

Where I'm From

The June issue of Texas Monthly features essays by people who consider themselves to be from Texas, even if they weren't born in Texas or don't currently reside in Texas. The special issue's cover heralds the line "Where I'm From".

Where are you from?

I was born in Louisiana and lived there until age five. My mother proclaimed Louisiana to be the armpit of the south. She says we don't have to tell people we ever lived there. In recent years, I find myself fascinated with the rich culture of Cajun people and Creole people. I appreciate the French influence on art, music and architecture that abounds in Louisiana. While I'm no foodie, who doesn't love beignets from Cafe du Monde? I don't consider myself to be from either Shreveport or Alexandria - the two cities in which I lived. I do not feel a desire to live in Louisiana again, but I wish everyone there the best, especially those people still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

My kindergarten through sixth grade years were spent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our house was Mountain Brook adjacent. (Mountain Brook was, probably still is, THE most desirable real estate area in Birmingham.) My school bus went past all the mansions with their professionally manicured, sweeping southern landscapes. Even at a young age, I knew money and good taste when I saw it combined in such abundance. I thought I wanted that: the country club connections, the Ralph Lauren wardrobe, the refined (as I now see it, restrained) lifestyle. As an adult, I no longer wish for those trappings. It's not me. I have no desire to return to Birmingham. Again, I wish residents of Birmingham well.

Seventh and eighth grade were spent in Cross Lanes, West Virginia near the state's capital city of Charleston. Upon moving to West Virginia, everyone in my family had pretty lousy attitudes about the place, largely due to the Union Carbide plant that was a mere ten miles from our house. This was shortly after the Bhopal, India industrial tragedy at the Union Carbide plant that killed thousands of people, and left nearly half a million people with health problems. We also harbored prejudices about the quality of education and society out in Appalachia. We weren't prepared for the natural beauty of West Virginia or for the warm-hearted people, but we soon came to appreciate both immensely. We lived in the prettiest house in Cross Lanes which everyone in town called "The Castle". A local man designed and built the large Tudor style home on a high hill that backed up to nature preserve parkland. We enjoyed four distinct seasons there. I ranked first in my class. The day I won the student council election to be the president of my class for the next school year, and the same week I secured a spot on the cheerleading squad, my dad dropped the news that we would be moving to Dallas, Texas. WHAT?! We finally like it here and we're moving away... moving again? Just before my parents were set to fly to Dallas to look at houses, my dad suffered the first of many heart attacks. He was only thirty-eight-years-old. He had to be shocked back to life several times during the episode. We thought we'd stay put after that, but Dad, ever the stubborn over-achiever, was on a plane three weeks after his heart attack to start his new job in Texas. It was a charmed life while it lasted, despite the bumpy start. I loved living in West Virginia. It will always hold a special place in my soul.

Next stop: Plano, Texas. We were rewarded for the move to Texas with a pool in the backyard, but our house didn't have the luster of "The Castle". I worked my tail off to stay in the top ten percent of my graduating class of 2,000+ students in the highly competitive school system. I was not popular, but did have a few good friends along the way. I didn't dare run for student council or try out for cheerleading; instead finding my place among the drama geeks and the debate dorks. The material excesses and apparent lack of good taste evident in the parking lots and housing developments were not to my liking. While I was in high school, Plano was infamously dubbed the teen-suicide capital of America. One of the guys I ate lunch with everyday started a chain-reaction of suicides among some of my peers just before graduation. For those people who consider Plano to be home, I wish you well. I'm not from Plano. My family moved around to four, or was it five, different cities since I graduated from high school. I have no ties there.

I'm from Austin, Texas. I knew it the first time I visited. I'm not leaving. I've lived here far longer than I've lived anywhere else, over half my life now. I love this place.

Mid-Year Resolutions

Marching to the beat of a different drummer, I've decided to make my mid-year resolutions.

1. Spend more time sewing and doing crafty activities. Specifically, take another quilting class so I can finally finish the king-size quilt made from Chad's old shirts.

2. Read more. I think four books a month is reasonable.

3. Take a dance class. I start Bollywood Bhangra dance lessons June 16. I can't wait!

4. Expand my cooking repertoire. I'm more of a baker of sweet things than I am a cook. I'd like to bring more healthy meals into my cooking rotation.

5. Re-lose those six pounds (of thirty-two pounds previously lost) that have found their way back to my bootie.

Wish me luck!

Things I Must Stop Buying/Bringing Home

Chad has been watching the television show Hoarders lately. Like a hypochondriac with a medical handbook, I've decided that maybe I'm an extremely well organized, highly functional, hoarder. Well, okay, maybe not a hoarder exactly, but I have hoarder potential for sure! Especially in regards to the following items:

Scented Candles - I love scented candles. I have eleventy-hundred scented candles of all shapes, sizes and, uh, scents in a cabinet in the dining room. I keep buying them. People keep giving them to me. I can't burn them fast enough. Stop the (lovely-scented) madness!

Board Games - After our Xbox 360 and video games were stolen during the infamous house robbery of October 2009, we chose not to replace them. I bought several new board games to fill the void. I have not hosted a game night since.

Books - I have approximately thirty books in my possession right now that I have not read yet. In a good week I'll read two books. However, some weeks I am memorizing scripts, and can't read for pleasure. Other weeks, I simply don't have the attention span to look at a magazine, much less read a book. I must stop buying books from amazon.com, Target, HEB, Book People, Half-Price Books, etc... Books seem to be everywhere! I have great ambition when it comes to reading, but must acknowledge my limitations.

Clothes - After losing weight, I had to more-or-less replace my wardrobe. Done. I have lots of clothes for just about any occasion. In fact, friends need to start inviting me out more so I will actually have a reason to dress in something other than gym clothes or my jeans & t-shirt uniform.

Fashion Accessories - During the infamous house robbery of October 2009, I lost some of my favorite cheap jewelry. I wonder how the robbers felt when the pawn shop informed them that they didn't have any jewelry worth pawning? I love me some cheap, cute jewelry! Also, as an actress, I need costume jewelry for the dinner theater shows -- the gaudier, the better. Done. Got plenty of jewelry (none worth pawning). Restocked what was stolen and then some. Not to mention that I have many thoughtfully curated pairs of shoes and many bags, purses, clutches & totes.

Pets - Currently we have a pet hiring-freeze at the 1952 House with three cats and one forty-nine-pound dog. I love, love, love cats and dogs. I must respect the delicate balance of four pets and two people sharing the limited space here. Even if I would love to adopt all of the pitiful babies at the shelter...

Perhaps I should limit all near-future purchases/acquisitions to grocery items. I don't want anyone to find me buried under a small mountain of clutter in this house, or feeling that they need to stage an intervention, or submitting me to Clean House - though I do love that television show.

Yeah, I'm Thinking of Getting My Plumber's License

In a DIY-fit this week, I decided to fix our toilet. We only have one, so it's vital to keep it in good working order. The water in the toilet kept running after flushing despite lots of handle-jiggling, and despite cleaning the tank flapper. I watched an extremely helpful youtube video. I bought a new ballcock and new tank float ball at Lowe's. Ninety minutes and eleven dollars later, our toilet works! No more wasted water, no more annoying glug-glug drippy noises and no expensive plumber visit. I feel so empowered! Even if I did get a bit light-headed from hanging upside down under the toilet tank trouble-shooting the water line leak. (The trick was not to screw the water line into the tank too tightly.)

Spring-a-ding-ding!

Spring in Austin is joyfully colorful and aromatic. Mmm... lavender (middle right). I was delighted to discover silver ponyfoot (lower right corner) at the nursery this spring. I hope it will spread out.

Bumper crop of mint survived the winter freezes. Mojito time!

Tomatoes on the way!

Sonic chatters at the birds and squirrels to protect the crops.

Kenji is about to spring into bug-chasing action... any second now...

Janie models her new spring wardrobe while keeping an eye on her kitty-friends.

In August when I'm crying and proclaiming that it's hotter than Hades here, remind me of spring lest I put a "for sale" in the front yard and hightail to Seattle.