Yard report

The rain has pretty much stopped here. I was just telling Yvonne it was like having a vacation from watering the lawn because we had so much rain. I know people were injured and property was lost during the course of the wet spring and early summer, but I still enjoyed it for my own selfish reasons.

At this point, the only two areas where there is no grass include this patch of dirt is in the photo to the left (not the dog ...). The other patch is in a very shaded area and may not fill in until we (ever!) get the trees trimmed.

The wildflower seed filled a few bare patches up front. And I didn't mow a patch or two to let the flowers bloom. We're thinking we might try that again in the remaining areas, if we don't sod the back yard spot.

The one strong azalea in a side bed is struggling this year because the city cut some trees and placed it more in the sun. Although the rain has been great, I've had to water that one plant. I'm hoping he'll be OK because I've lost hope for all of the ones up front--about five or six, for those counting. But, other bushes are filling out nicely and taking more space, so I'm not sad about the azaleas. We got those when we didn't know what we were doing. We'll never buy them again.

I'm more interested in focusing on what else to plant. A banana plant in the back has gone ape. he he, sorry I had to. Seriously, it's as tall as I am and the leaves span three feet. We planted that this year, with another one in our "side yard." The second one is barely three feet tall because we think it doesn't get as much sun.

We planted corn and sunflowers, but they were rained out. Our squash seeds have sprouted into a large plant that had a flower last week. We're still waiting on the veggie. A couple sweet potato vines returned from last year, which is unusual. They normally don't survive the winter. But, I imagine they could fill the bed by summer's end. We are thinking we want more canna lillies.

Other than that, everything is going well. I'm not sure anyone is interested, but it just one of the things I deal with, so it's worth posting.

Two months and a range

Today is Zoe's two-month birthday. It seems like it was years ago she was born, but in a good way. I'm happy to report everyone is doing well and getting rest.



I reported a couple weeks ago about how I was waiting on the installer for our new cooktop range. I never followed up on that story.

We went to Best Buy on a Sunday to purchase the range you see to the left. We chose it mainly because it was about $600 cheaper than the other options and we wanted to continue to have a downdraft fan.

So, the delivery dude shows up at 5:59pm (window closed at 6pm) and got to work. He was a talker and got $50 out of me to get a part and make a few adjustments. It was close to dinner time and I just wanted the thing installed so I could start cooking some ground turkey. The clerk at the store didn't mention the downdraft fan needed the "transition" part and our old unit was so old, it had a different shaped vent. Long story short, the delivery guy ran to Home Depot to make it work.

He get the whole unit in and starts to tell me to go flip the breaker. But, he realized he hadn't put the burners in yet. He looked through the boxes, no burners. We call the store and confirm, they are separate.

It turns out, the unit we chose is modular and it's cheaper because it doesn't come with burners. After warranties, delivery and such, we were at an $850 cost with no burners. The clerk that Sunday didn't know. No one at the store, it turned out, had ever sold this cooktop and they had no idea they needed to make a special order. That is until the installer and I called around 8:30pm the following Thursday. There was nothing they could do that night and I was told to call the manager the next day.

The installer left with my $50 check and I rushed to Boston Market to feed the family.

The next day, the manager told me I needed two burner modules, $300 each. Do the math, that's as much as the other units that we were more interested in. But, the manager put an offer on the table because she knew (and admitted) they messed up. They bought one burner out and out and gave us the second one at cost. The other glitch, it'll take two weeks for them to arrive.

So, on Tuesday we got the burners. I made breakfast tacos at midnight, determined to cook something. The fan was great with the bacon and overall I think we're set. We had a sort of late night that night because Yvonne was playing poker on the 360 and I downloaded Full Tilt Poker. Yeah, we're nerds. Poor Zoe.

Animal Moment

This is funny to me because Walker is always very careful when he plays with Roscoe. But, he's a big loaf and tends to have a clumsy side, which comes out around second 40 in this clip.

More photos

I'm waiting for the delivery guy to arrive with our new cooktop. So far, he has 20 minutes. While I waited, I'm downloaded the flickr uploader tool. It's very easy and I added quite a few images. Enjoy!

Also, we bought a game table for $45 off craigslist.


And here is a patch of wildflowers in our front yard.

Hello

Popular request

Many folks have asked to see the most recent clip of me on TV. Here it is. The first minute is during a commercial break, and there's an audio glitch at the end. But here it is in all its glory. My only request is don't laugh too hard.

Around the house

Sorry for a lack of posting. Household things have been busy, including a new cooktop purchase, new cowboy boots for Yvonne and a brand new xbox 360 to replace my old one.