Sunday, December 6, 2009

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Sorry I haven't been doing projects lately.  I've really been distracted. Raking out leaves from the patio, pulling early winter weeds from the flowerbeds, doing the Thanksgiving Dinner thing, cleaning pots for next year, arguing with people on the Richard Dawkins website (WAY too much time spent doing that). 

Ayla (a cat) is in heat again.  It's really sad.  She has been spayed twice and neither operation worked.  She demands a lot of attention.

The rain gutters that I cleaned only a few months ago overflowed yesterday in a storm and the overflow gets into the basement.  I have screens covering the gutters and made sure the downspouts are clear, so I can't figure out the problem.  I was going to take another look at them today, but it started to snow unexpectedly.

I've been cleaning out my file cabinet.  That takes a lot of time and I'm not done yet.  And because of that, I am trying to re-write my Will.  Not an easy task.  And I am trying to search through old letters from my parents to find the information they have sent about their instructions about elder care and funerals.  I should have kept notes along the way, but I didn't.  Now I have to try to catch up.

A neighbor is having an addition put on the house.  The nailing starts at 8 AM every morning.  I normally don't go to bed until 2 or 3 AM, so I am not getting much sleep.

I've also been cleaning the basement.  Way too much stuff left out and to the point where I couldn't find anything.  Cleaning was needed.

And the car needed attention.  Not maintenance (I'm good about that), but cleaning.  I should have cleaned it when the weather was better, but I didn't.  I spent almost a whole day doing that.

And then there were the holiday cards to make.  I don't buy mine, I make them on the computer.  And it isn't easy.  The 2 programs I have to do that suck!  One only permits installed clip art and that got boring real fast.  The other allows imports but not "French-Fold" (twice-folded) cards.  So I figured out how to create French-folds in Excel.  It's not easy.  Half the text and pictures have to be rotated, I can't delete the boxes around the text half the time, and changing the text colors is nearly impossible.  I am a bit inept at that stuff.  Took my 2 days to create 1 birthday card, 25 Winter Holiday cat cards and 15 Winter Holiday people cards (my cats have more friends than I do).  But I did it and that's done with.

And there was a LOT of garden cleaning to do.  I cut down 90% of the tall perennial flower stalks last week, pulled up all the old tomato plants before that,

So, basically, I've been busy with stuff that was not "photo-interesting".

I'll try to get back at the boat canopy and other projects soon.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You sound busy busy busy - but snow? Isn't that early? Cold here and similarly busy but back in the action, it has been a long autumn. You are ahead of me on the tomato vines though....

Scott

Cavebear said...

Scott, yeah, the first snow was early this year. We have strange Winters here. I read once that Maryland is a transition zone. So we alternate between the Arctic Express and Bermuda Highs.

Some Winters have no snow and a lot of rain, we get a spectacular ice storm once in a while, and some times we get a foot of snow several times in one year. One year we had over a foot of snow November 10th!

Anonymous said...

We haven't even gotten a frost yet. I don't know the record, but it's got to be close to one.

We are 45+ days past the average date.

Been CRAZY rainy here. The dryest month of the yeat has seen floodings, and it is raings about 3-6 INCHES a week.

At least I don;t have to water.

da bear

Cavebear said...

Da Bear - The weather has been very threatening, but only that one small snow so far. But we have been getting days of 1-3' of rain at a time, at 33-35 degrees, so we could have had a foot or 2 of snow/ice with just a slight difference in temperature.

I will say that none of my shrubs or trees are going to suffer ground dehydration this Winter!

If rice grew in cold weather, I could have a fine crop in the front yard by February. LOL!

Anonymous said...

You had to say "only that one small snow" didn't you? I see that is changing today. Enjoy the white stuff - like da bear, we've barely had a frost here as well. We did get 27 days of rain in November - the whole winter's worth in a month. Hunker down cavebear - the kitties might not want to go out though - they'd get lost in the white stuff!

Scott

Cavebear said...

Well, Scott, like they say: "If you mention soething bad, it happens, and if you mention something good, it goes away".

I mentioned "little snow", an we are getting a near record snowfall. Drat!

What was originally 4-6" became 8-12", became 16-24". I think it will end up about 18" here, but if it keeps snowing like this, I'm not sure. And it isn't officially even Winter yet!

I'm too old to shovel 18" of snow from a 60' driveway. I may have to buy a snowblower!

Anonymous said...

If you took some pics, post them - snow like this doesn't often happen to you guys - we got the same last year - saw a pic of the White House covered - very pretty. Don't shovel, just let it melt in the driveway - you don't have to go anywhere, do you? 50F here, though a bit windy.

Scott

Cavebear said...

I don't think this will melt on its own until mid-January sometime. We seem to be in for a long cold spell. Driving the car on it would turn the tire tracks into ice and I have made made that mistake before. Never again. LOL!

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