More pictures...beautiful day out

Today was I'd say the most perfect weather wise this year so far!
It was sunny, got up to the low 80's, no wind, no humidity.  Just perfect!

We got more of the stone for the back.  We get it in bags so that we can carry them
out back (from the UPS delivery- free shipping) at our leisure and spread it around.
Although it would be cheaper to get a truck load and have it dumped, we don't have
the wheel barrow or man power to keep hauling it out to the back, so we're happy
enough doing it this way.  One side is done, the other has been started.

I also snapped a few photos of our Molly.  The vet is pretty certain she has cancer on her upper gum in her mouth.  We're just waiting for the biopsy results.  We are going to try a homeopatic treatment given her age.   But anyway...here's a few pictures of her enjoying this wonderful weather today too.

Near the end of April already?

I could have sworn I wrote a blog post last weekend but I don't see it.  Argh!

Okay quick catch up.  My sister from Ohio was out to visit last week and I took Thursday and Friday off to spend some time with her. I also went down to my other sister's house last Wednesday evening for a neighborhood eat out they had so that I could see my sister and her son.  It was nice seeing them and I got to catch up with my sister's life.  Kyle is autistic and the trip was too long for him as he was starting to complain, loudly at times about wanting to leave Texas.  But there was no way he was going to get home any sooner.  He is very used to his home and routine and I think anything outside of that is really stressful for him.

I had to admire my younger sister for playing hostess all week long on top of what she already normally does.  Thursday we visited our parents grave site up in the military cemetery in Killeen.  It is a fairly large place and sort of our there in the middle of no where.  It is tranquil but also creeps me out a little at the same time.

Friday hubby and I met them at the antique mall where we rent a booth.  There are a lot of booths to look at and we spent a few hours going around to all of them. My sister even bought a paper weight from hubby's booth.  That was really nice of her. 

She left Saturday morning and got back to Ohio around midnight Sunday night.  I bet she was glad to be back, although not glad to have to get back to work.

I didn't post any pictures of the stone we got for the back. We don't have it all filled in yet but here's a few pictures.  And still no cactus yet.

More yard art

Hubby got more yard art yesterday for the back. 
I know it is only metal and will rust after a year or two, but I like how it spruces it up and gives that area more purpose.  Here's a few pictures.

Hummingbird drinking

Hubby captured a hummingbird at the feeders outside my office window.  They always fly away whenever I grab the camera.

More goodies for our back yard

This week my sister is visiting from Ohio with one of her sons. I've only talked to her on the phone so far as she is staying at the other sister's house (less dogs). But I plan to see her tomorrow and have off Thursday and Friday from work for more visiting. One of those days we plan to go up and visit the graves of our folks.  I honestly have not seen them since they passed away. 

But here are some more pictures of some goodies we got today.

We already had all but the 2nd from the top which we got today

Sunday already?

I wish I hadn't mentioned the electricity in my last blog as I think I jinxed us. One evening hubby turned on the light that is upstairs at the top of the stairs to light the way.  After a few minutes I heard him saying something. He was asking why the lights were flickering.  I glanced over and saw all the lights were flickering a lot !  So I went over to the light switch and heard it crackling behind the switch plate.. Oye!  I turned it off and hubby was worried we'd get a fire behind the wall, but the crackling did stop as soon as I flipped the switch. Here's a picture of it.  It was okay (no sparks/fire), thankfully!

So we called an electrician the next day and scheduled someone to come out and change out the switch. That was on Wednesday so when he came out we asked about upgrading the electrical (as to the need, etc.).  He has a good reputation and has serviced the area for over 20 years. Anyway he said we already were at the limit of the capacity for the size house/usage before having the addition added on for mom's additional 400 sq ft. We definitely need it.  We are getting it done next month and I have to take the day off work as the power has to be shut off for several hours while they work.  We're going to have them check all the rest of the switches/plugs as well.

We got some things for the back today.  We are getting some more metal things too, like a cactus, and getting plants/cactus to put in the pots. This is just the pots placement. We added back in a few of the large stones that were in there before the project started.  We also are getting some Lagoon Blue landscaping gravel from home depot which I ordered. We went over there today but they didn't have anything like that on their pallets. 

Molly likes to be our guide :)

Back work done ..but not without drawbacks

Well the back yard cement work was completed and paid for. While it looks pretty nice and complete...we had of course an incident today... because no job ever done around here goes without a hitch (see below pics)

I had not run the sprinklers since this work was done.  We didn't really need them on as we got a pretty good thunderstorm two nights ago that gave us some rain. The thunder at times was really loud (I could hardly finish saying 'one thousand' in my mind before it was noisy).  Just when I thought it was all over there was a sound like someone ripping sheets in my ear...and then a loud continuous roar from there. I don't know that I've ever heard thunder THAT eerie and weird.

So anyway this morning I remembered to turn the sprinklers back on. They came on around 9AM and I forgot about it. Later in the afternoon, hubby went out front to check something and saw the rear side were STILL ON!  This was around 1:30 PM !!  I went out back and turned the system off.  It didn't stop.  Eventually I opened the inside and turned an extra switch OFF.  Still nothing. Hub turned off the water to the house , water kept coming.  Turns out, the sprinkler system is on a different system.  I ended up calling the sprinkler company we use in a panic.  They were kind enough to send someone out at 2:30PM. I don't know how much water was wasted but they located the outdoor shut off valves which were covered in mud (which is why we didn't see them under a certain plastic cover that we were told they were under).  

We searched for the sprinkler heads near the back porch area where the guy just put a cement border up and sure enough one was buried under some dirt and has some cement right up to it which prevent it from popping up. We don't know how many other heads are covered but that likely caused a back up in the system and the other sprinklers just stayed on.  Hubby had shown him where all the sprinklers were but we should have flagged them because once he took out the old railroad ties off and the dirt fell those sprinklers on that side had basically gotten covered.  We think that is was caused the problem.

We've just had back luck with just about every project we've had done. I don't know who we're going to have upgrade our electric if it is still needed after we have the city come out and see if we have enough 'juice' to the house.  We found out AFTER the addition for my mom was built that we do not have the typical 200 amp service I assumed we had for this size house, but rather 120 amps.  I cannot turn on the hot water in that spare room without the lights in the bathroom flickering.  "Sigh".  Guess that will be another story to blog about when the time comes. I just haven't used the hot water at all out there since mom passed.  

More backyard work

We haven't gotten any pots/plants for the back yet but there is one other thing we are getting done in the back. When we first moved here there was a flagstone area in the back that was in the shape of a circle (somewhat). But they sort of never finished the circle. Here are some pictures below showing what I'm talking about:

Then below are some after today's work.. they're not done yet though.  They did install a few small pipes for water drainage too. Glad they thought about that!

Back of porch progress

Here's some pictures of today's work that was done. They laid some solid tarp like material to help prevent any weeds from coming up.  The stones they used look sort of like dirt because it is layers of wet stones. They should lighten up and look prettier when they dry.  We still have to get some pots/catcus too.