Small Successes

We actually accomplished more than I had anticipated today, so I guess this day has been a success.

Rick started the day by calling Mike, the tile guy, who said that Taurus was finishing a job this week and could probably get to us early next week.  Something told me that we would not get the shower repaired this week.  It had better be done by next Friday, or I will have words with Mike myself.  We have guests coming in five weeks, and I want a working shower long before that time.  At least we have made contact again.  We'll see if he follows through on the latest promise.

Once that was done, Rick started our tasks by getting up on the roof and trimming back the dead fronds and seed pods from our palm tree.  We have garbage, recycling, and yard waste pick up on Monday, so we wanted to get the debris out to the curb so it would be hauled away before it could harm our grass.

The palm looks better with the dead fronds gone.

I love the palm tree and plan on planting more in the future; sadly, this palm tree is probably on its last legs.  While he was trimming the dead fronds, we noticed that the tree has a crack in the trunk just above the roof line.  That is also the point at which it is leaning toward the house.  Not good.  We need to have Jeff Boen come in and check the tree. The city arborist, Art, had warned us earlier that the palm tree was old and weak, so removing it before it falls on the house in a storm this summer might be in our best interest. One more place to spend money.  With Gladys, that particular activity never seems to end.

The crack in the trunk of the palm makes us wonder
if we should consider taking it down before it falls.

After the palm tree was trimmed, we started working on the flower garden around the mailbox post.  We want to add a border and flowers so our lawn service man does not damage the post with his weed trimmer.  I had laid out the edger pattern last night, so this morning involved digging the perimeter, removing dirt, adding paver base, and putting in the edger stones.  This garden is a bit tricky because it slopes down at about a 20 degree angle from back to front.  We wanted to have the pavers high enough in the front to hold in the mulch when we get the downpours for which Florida is famous.

As we were working on the garden, our neighbor Frank drove by. "That's a big mistake," he said.  "The people with their dogs will come by, and the dogs will pee on it and kill all of the flowers."  He is probably right, but for now the flowers are pretty.  I do not understand why people have to be so inconsiderate.  I would never think of doing anything to harm my neighbors' properties, so why would they let their animals destroy mine?  A little courtesy would go a long way in this world. I hope that the flowers survive.

Near noon we were in the car to pick up paint for the bathroom ceiling, mulch for the garden, lunch at Arby's, and bread for our dinner this evening.

When we returned home, we added mulch to the garden in an attempt to hold some moisture in around the flowers.  Rick hates mulch because he thinks it will promote termites, but out at the curb, let them have at it.  If they can eat an aluminum and cement mailbox, so be it.  At that point, I am moving out of Florida!

Yellow daylilies and red salvia add a bit
of color to our landscape.

Rick's next task was to paint the bathroom ceiling.  The original paint we put on was not right, so he tried priming around the edge yesterday. That did not work since the primer was old and had turned to a pale yellow -- probably from the rust on the can.  A new coat of paint worked wonders today, though, so the bathroom ceiling is now all one shade of fresh white.

Tonight we are dining with Steve and Chris because their daughter, Theresa, is in town for a few days. We have not seen Theresa for quite a while, so the evening should be fun.  I hope that sometime soon she will be able to come over to view our house, too.

We finished a lot of little tasks today that all took time and money.  Our next choice will be where to expend our energies next, especially considering that we have little money left with which to do much more.  Perhaps skim-coating and painting the garage should come next.  We have the materials for that, and I would love to see the tubs of plaster disappear onto the walls.  Certainly, pouring a foundation for a shed is also in the running, although that will cost us money for the forms, the rebar, and the cement.  We would love to do pavers and cement on the north side of the house, and then there are the pavers that we should do in the front to finally finish the sidewalk.  But the sidewalk cannot be built until we remove the palm tree and regrade that area of the front yard... and so the list goes on.  As I said, with Gladys, the spending never ends.