Forewarned is forearmed.

I have planted some bright red geraniums and little purple-flowered ground cover in the parking strip. (Do you know about the parking strip? It is apparently the bane of many gardeners' existences.) But we live in a skinny house, so with only 25 feet of property facing the street - including a driveway! - I have but a tiny bit of land to work with. The parking strip is the only place for me to show neighborhood pride!

But I'm warning myself - and you - now. The beautiful geraniums, they're tempting. They're a shiny, candy red and blooming away happily, with more buds already to be seen, and part of me wonders, "Are they begging to be picked?"

And if they are, how angry will I be to come outside and see them ruthlessly chopped down or ripped out of the ground? Well, we all know the answer to that: really, really, really angry.

And if all I can control in the world is my reaction to things, then perhaps I shouldn't have set my self up, shouldn't have planted such lovely flowers for all passerby to see...

Only time will tell. But I'll be sure to report back with updates!

Impact

Our new house is just that - new. There is no need to replace, update or install sinks, floors, doors, fixtures, handles, paint or cabinets. However, to make the rule there must be one exception, and ours is that one of the toilet seats is nicked and scratched and missing paint, and also is a mismatch for the toilet itself. This weekend, we replaced it. And I realized that of all the mounds of garbage I've seen or read about in the world's landfills - the refrigerators, the toilet seats, the old drywall, the scuffed floorboards - I have never directly put part of a house in that mound. And that's a good thing for 29 years of living with rental toilets (with wooden seats), rental showers (with lilac tiling), rental screen doors (complete with rips) and rental paint (always white)... but it's also the beginning of a new search for ways to recycle all manner of trash. The toilet seat, I fear, it headed for the landfill, but John balanced our environmental pro-con list and installed this:




Our new 55 gallon rain barrel! I have to figure out how to paint it or cover it in decals, because as water-saving as it may be, it still needs to earn it's aesthetic keep around here.

From the Annals of (New) Homeownership:

Things built or put together this weekend:
- 3 curtain rods (2 for curtains, 1 for displaying an antique quilt)
- industrial strength garage shelves; 3 shelves, roughly 6 feet high by 6 feet wide and the most glorious example of organization I have ever assisted in constructing
- 1 dimmer switch
- 1 bookshelf-from-a-box

Things gotten rid of this weekend:
- all the weird mish-mash of plants in the front yard (remaining? a great lavendar, a great rosemary and a mysterious but adorable shrub)
- all the boxes from moving
- spider webs from all around the eaves and front door

Things given to us for free by neighbors this weekend:
- 2 very large bottles of beer
- the salad greens for dinner, rinsed and sitting in the colander right now

And now the real accounting... things bought this weekend:
- 1 large living room rug
- 1 large rug pad
- 1 chocolate brown cozy living room chair
- 1 delicate pink throw that the guest room NEEDED
- all the parts needed for constructing the aforementioned garage shelves
- 2 throw pillows that will be returned (probably)
- 1 bookshelf-in-a-box
- 18 other necessary items, ahem, from Home Depot

Meals bought at a restaurant (take out) this weekend:
1 lunch, 1 dinner

Meals cooked at home this weekend:
1 dinner, 2 breakfasts

Meals eaten at someone else's house this weekend:
1 dinner

The best part of the weekend is that we put the boxes on Craiglist for free, and shoved 'em to the end of the driveway. Two minutes later, one of our very nice and friendly neighbors asked if he could have them... and took about 90%. Then he brought us two large beers as thanks! Quoth John, "He took away the boxes AND gave us beer? Now that's a win win."