Category: Around the House

It was nice to have a long weekend with the Fourth of July on Monday. In between doing this and that, we got a swing set put up for MDF. CDF’s parents split the purchase price with us, and we picked it up on Saturday. I spent that afternoon with CDF putting it togther, and had the swings up by the evening. Sunday afternoon I put up the slide. I still have the glider to finish putting together, but the main stuff is done.

Helping Dad put up the new swing set.

MDF enjoying her new swing set.

Then among other things, CDF and I went to Moore Buick to see if we could find something to replace the Grand Am. It wasn’t holding up like I expect a car too, little things have started breaking and it’s past it’s 60,000-mile warranty period. So we went to the dealership with a firm resolve not to get anything if we couldn’t have the same monthly payment or lower. We didn’t find anything in our price range at first, but decided to look at a Mitsubishi Lancer and a Saturn Ion. Both were about the same size, but the Lancer felt and responded better, it had more room, and even though it was a manual transmission, it was the better car. So by the afternoon, we had traded the Grand Am for the Lancer and ended up with a payment ~40 less than before.

The new Lancer.

This weekend I was playing around with MDF and I had the camera handy. I don’t remember what I was going to take pictures of, but we all ended up in this informal portrait.

Pictures with the Dog

Yesterday evening Roy and Caroline came over to help trim the bushes and
trees one the edge of our yard to make way for the fence that will be
put up in June.

I didn’t have a clear idea of how much cutting I wanted to do, but we
worked out that it would be best to clean up to the edge of the ditch.
Someone had put up a bird house on a tree just on the other side of the
ditch — a place that would have been on the edge of the yard years ago.
So it seem appropriate to cut the brush back to that point.

There’s still more that can be cut, but we had more limbs than would fit
on the side of the road, and it was more than could be done in one
evening. But we got space cleared for the fence, and that was the most
important thing.

MDF was helping “direct” the work. She had a twig that she would
wave at someone walking by while she shouted, “Stop, stop.” Eventually
I got her to say, “Go, go,” too, so she wouldn’t be holding up work. 😉

We have much more yard on Campbell St than we did on Valor Drive. Now
it’s not as much as we had in the trailer on Brown Road, or maybe even
not as much as Richlands Hwy, but it’s more than I’ve been used to
mowing for the past few years.

So CDF and I have been thinking about getting a riding mower, but I
kept balking at the price — nine hundred dollars is a lot of money.
But I finally decided to get one, after realizing it was going to take
at least three hours just to push mow the yard (not including time for
trimming/weed-eating). So we got one on sale from Sears.

I mowed the lawn Tuesday night (in between showers). Of course, it took
less time and was a lot easier. On as side note, it has a great turning
radius (or what ever that’s called).

“Bunny, where are you?”

There have been two brown bunnies visiting our back yard (to eat the clover). We normally see them in the late afternoon or early evening. Some times they even come in the yard while we’re outside, and MDF loves to follow them back to the woods at the edge of our yard.

A few days ago (and again yesterday) we walked back to the trees to look for the bunny, but while we could hear it hopping around, we didn’t see anything.

A few weeks back CDF bought some flowers from a nursery near Wallace. We had great trouble planting them in the front flower bed — it appears that the previous owners decided to cover the beds in crushed brick, then when they were tired of that, pine bark, and then finally a layer of pine needles. Needless to say, it was tough to dig a hole in, much less find enough dirt to put the flower in. But we mananged and now we have some pretty gerber daisies, and other flowers out front.

Yesterday evening CDF, MDF, and I walked over to the public library. It’s about four blocks away from our house. It was a very nice walk, especially with all the azaleas and wisteria blooming. Burgaw also has a more country feel than Wilmington (especially Whitney Pines), with birds, squirrels, frogs, etc., all around.

We’ll we’re moved in… as much as one can be with boxes piled almost to the ceiling!

Really it’s not that bad, but we only had two days to move everything from one house to the other. Even with a 22-foot truck we still had to pack stuff in our van and my parents van (both Ford Windstars), and also use the back of my Roy’s red truck. I didn’t realize we had so much stuff. Part of what made the difference was that CDF always moved boxed stuff in the weeks ahead of moving the furniture and we couldn’t do that this time.

But we’re in, and by now — day 6 of owning the house — we’re starting to see the floor in places. Seriously, CDF is doing a great job getting everything organized, and I help when I can, after work and such.

Today we do the walk-through at the new house on Campbell street. The sellers are supposed to have done a number of repairs on the house and we’ll be taking a look at what they’ve done this afternoon.

CDF has almost gotten the whole house packed up. I’ve helped some, especially with my stuff, but my big effort is going to be moving all the furniture on Saturday. We’ll have a 25-foot truck to put everything in and, hopefully, only make one trip.

MDF also liked helping.

Christmas has come and gone again for another year. It can seem, even with it starting way before Thanksgiving, that I didn’t have a chance to stop and properly celebrate. I think CDF is feeling it too. It’s hard to know exactly what was missed, since it’s just a general feeling of “it didn’t feel like Christmas this year.”

I think some of the problem is that we expect Christmas to be celebrated for us, like it was when we were children, and we’d just go along for the ride. Now I don’t want to go overboard and fall into the grip of a manic compulsion to celebrate Christmas for MDF. But I do have a feeling that we should start celebrating our own traditions. We’re doing that with the tradition of driving around and looking at Christmas lights, but there needs to be more.

We also need to find traditions that will help us slow down and appreciate, as well as anticipate, the holiday. This year we might have just done things to do them. Such as decorating outside. Next year we should take our time to plan how we want to decorate, and then decorate for the enjoyment of it, not just because we feel we have to.

We could bake more. Not because we have to make a bunch of stuff to give away. But bake to celebrate the holiday. Bake things that are fun to mix up. Cookies that are fun to make and decorate.

Really, it’s spending time together doing things that make the Christmas holiday special. What we do is not as important, except that it needs to be things that we only do during Christmas time.

In spite of all the above, I still enjoyed this Christmas. It was MDF’s first Christmas being able to open and enjoy gifts, and that was a lot of fun to be a part of.