I just spent the last minutes of my evening under a canopy of twinkle lights. We put them up over the front patio today. It took $26 for the pole and eyebolts at the top, 30 min to set the pole, and about an hour climbing up an down the ladder. It is blissful. Nathan just went in to start his dialysis treatment and I’m going to do my meditation before going in.
May you have peaceful and blissful experiences in/at your home. May you love your days mostly. May you have excellent meditation moments. May you find things to appreciate easily.
I tried to take my usual walk around the pond between shifts and trees were downed from last night’s storm.
I climbed over and around 3 of them to lose to the 4th because of too plentiful poison ivy. I’m already treating a large patch of poison oak on my arm from Katherine having brought me a leaf and smearing it on the inside of my elbow. I just didn’t want to risk another large patch of itchy rash.
Anyway, since I couldn’t do my normal laps of walking, I took a bunch of pictures, including a whole bunch of pictures of the Great Blue Heron which has returned to the pond for this season. There is also a Green Heron but I couldn’t get close enough to it for pictures, last week I managed a couple of blurry ones. I tried to catch fish in my pictures but the water has darkened and I don’t think I caught them very well. Last week I caught a few fish, so I’ll post both rounds of pictures. I was buzzed by a Vulture several times and caught it in one of the Heron pictures, it was really a good albeit exercise free lunch break.
Then I went to work early to sit on their pub patio which has a wonderful overhang for shade. I watched a mother Red House Finch feed her babies. There were 4 nests in view, but only one momma was brave enough to visit with me sitting watching. It was a good relaxing moment.
May you have good bird watching and time in nature. May you be blessed with awe and wonder of all the beautiful creatures around us. May you have good relaxing moments and enjoy the weather as much as possible. May you have good days mostly.
I may have a really messed up sense of enjoyment these days.
I spent my holiday finishing a project started last fall- the front patio. After pulling the few plants that managed to make it through the summer of 2020, we managed to not get back to it.
*Can’t figure out why (dripping in sarcasm)*
Anyway, I decided this final day of my 12 days off should be invested in finishing that, it was my last chance to get caught up for who knows how long. It could be a month or a year, so I took advantage of my chance.
My holiday celebration began at about 10:00am with a trip to my favorite hardware store: Menards. First trip was 16 bags of sand to level the area in question. After quickly dispersing the sand, I returned for second load: 83 pavers.
I ran home and with Nathan’s help quickly placed the pavers. He hoisted pavers until he over exerted reaching to try and pull 2 at once, he said it tugged too much at the lower incision. Then he became my photographer.
I needed just a few bricks or cobble stones to fill gaps too small for the 1 ft square pavers. So I returned to Menards one last time for those.
I have a bag of locking sand mix, but being that it was raining lightly all day, I couldn’t put that down yet. So, it’s essentially one easy step from being done.
I’m very happy. After moving pots closer to where their final spots will be (they’ll be on the charcoal pavers after being locked down). I then placed the boyscout plants we ordered 2 months ago, they came in 3 weeks ago, but I’m just getting to plant them now. The result is the final view pictures below, after the gaggle of progress shots (plus there’s a couple cute moments with kids from after hammock time at the end of the day).
I was super happy! I told Nathan I was really happy because I finally had a decent house, and now it has both a pretty front patio and a wonderfully comfortable back porch with all the fun stuff and practical gardens.
We’re going to put up a singular pole to remount our white led string for front patio mood lighting, it’ll be like a canopy of twinkle lights over the front patio.
Then when I get done dissecting the tree we’ll have a patio set with lots of character to go on the patio. I decided between our neighborhood having occasional theft concerns, and also because of needing to use up the tree, that a rough hewn set was the perfect idea. A few chainsaw cuts from the large end of the tree and a bunch of assembly is all that is needed. I’m kinda excited to do that project. It may be slated for next Sunday, weather permitting, we’ll see.
Anyway, I really was happy with my results and I have enjoyed the inspiration it stirred as well. It even kept my mind of of other concerns all day, in fact right up until I wrote this sentence I had completely put everything out of my mind. That is immensely comforting. It is relief through hard but creative labor.
Now as I write this post dinner is being made, and I’ve already had an hour out in the hammock. So, I layed a new patio in roughly 7 hours, mostly by my own hands and driving. That’s spectacular considering I’m not a professional and have no specialty equipment. I really appreciate that Nathan helped as much as he could and I look forward to days where he’s more back to his normal self. That will be a good day for certain.
This was a good day.
May you have good days full of inspiration, accomplishments, and loving support. May you have your health always and find that you easily push worries from your mind. May your productive moments also bring you great joy and satisfaction. May you find that you can relax knowing it all, is a symptom of improvement. May you know that the divine and your higher-self loves and supports you in all that you do.
