Usual Ramblings...

We got our gravel delivered this weekend and Rory and I spent a back-breaking Sunday spreading it into the areas he had tilled up the week before. But it was worth it, and I think we have the best looking yard on the street now! We also spread mulch into all of our flowerbeds in a desperate bid to get things to GROW. It was the first real hot weekend we've had, and I came away from the gardening experience with a back like a lobster's. Rory celebrated our finished (for now) landscaping by buying a birdbath. The neighbors have one, and birds treat it like a real Roman Bathhouse, flocking to it in droves. Unfortunately, those same birds have yet to discover ours... maybe the bird population on our street can only support one bathhouse? The bath is positioned so that we have a perfect view of it from our sitting room, so I'm hoping they come soon!! I've this idea in my head that its going to be fabulously peaceful to sit and watch these birds in the mornings. Keeping in mind that I can hardly drag myself out of bed in the mornings and tend to fall back to sleep if I sit down for any length of time, I don't know how often I will actually take advantage of this blissful peace. But I at least want the option to watch them, if I so choose! Do you notice Harry's haircut? He got his summer buzz last weekend and he feels fabulous. He might not look the greatest... as you can see, I'm not the best doggie hairdresser, and his buzz goes from very short to quite a bit longer in no particular pattern. He wouldn't let me get his tail, legs or very close to his head, and I decided not to push the matter too far... for a little dog, he's got a vicious streak that I don't particularly want to cross!! He looks fairly pissed off in his 'After' picture, below. Before: After: But, like I said, he feels a lot better. You could tell he was getting very hot underneath all his hair! Alfie also got a paddle pool in preparation for the summer heat, and he spends ages on end just standing stock still in the water. When Harry comes near it to have a drink Alfie sometimes paws at the water and splashes it everywhere, making Harry growl and sulk away. I'm not sure if Alfie does it out of protectiveness of his new toy or just to piss Harry off, but either way, its hilarious. Getting Alfie his paddle pool has also taken his interest away from the veggie patch, which is really beginning to thrive! The picture below is of our salad bar, which we should be able to start picking next week or so! Here are a couple of pictures of some of our other projects... The first is our gas heater, which was an ugly fake brown color that was driving me crazy. I painted it gray to match the rest of the house and it looks so much better! Its amazing what a coat of paint can do! And our bedroom. Rory did this for me when I was gone to Brisbane last week... it was an excellent surprise! Our bedroom was painted a light eggshell blue color that I really disliked... one of those looks-excellent-on-the-paint-chip-not-so-good-on-the-walls type of things. But I really, really like it now. Most of the walls are still the eggshell blue, but this 'focus wall' somehow makes them look much less blah. Very happy with it! And in totally unrelated news, I got my $500 Myer Gift Certificate!!!! I bought a fancy new ipod touch that doubles as a KINDLE, which is another thing I've been coveting. I took it with me to Brisbane and read Phillipa Gregory's The White Queen on the trip. I didn't finish it, actually... but the ipod's really not to blame for that, the book was just a bit crap. I was actually quite surprised how enjoyable it was to read the book on the ipod screen as I tend to dislike reading things on computer screens. It didn't strain your eyes, and it wasn't the least bit annoying to only get to read a bit of the book at a time. Plus, it means you can take several books with you on vacation-- on your ipod. No lugging around big, heavy bags. Technology, eh?