Falling in love with my backyard....again.

My home has been quite overwhelming lately.

Floods, snakes, insurance issues, pool leaks, cupped flooring.....to name just a few.
Through all of this, I have allowed myself to lose sight of what I have always loved about my house.  I was letting the "negative energy" come in, visit, and stay for a while.....and, I didn't like it one bit.

But, today, I decided to attempt to do some yardwork in my backyard.  I planted a few new flowers, freshened up the beds a bit, cut away dead branches, and put down some fresh bark chips. It was exhausting and cathartic all at the same time...

During this process, I began to realize how really beautiful my yard is and how much I have missed appreciating my surroundings.

I love the memories that I have about this lovely outdoor space of mine.  It was really the reason that we originally bought the house.  We loved the backyard:  I remember my kids growing up enjoying the pool, having friends over, the annual Fourth of July get-together held back there, many quiet moments spent sitting outside with a glass of wine, dinners on the patio when the temperatures allowed it, making it a haven for birds and assorted critters that came to visit, sitting among nature and reading, and, so many more incredible moments. I loved seeing the little touches that made the yard uniquely mine.  With camera in hand, I decided to photograph some of my favorites.

So, today I fell in love with my backyard....again. 
And, I am so glad that I did.

: )

5 more days!!

...and I will be visiting these two precious faces!!!!

                                                                      Can't wait!

Life is an adventure, isn't it?

I haven't been posting lately...mostly because much of my time has been spent dealing with other "little" things that life has been bringing my way.

"What are these things?" you innocently ask.  : )

After the great "Snake in the Attic Adventure", I had gutter guards installed all around to totally seal off any spaces between the roof shingles and the gutter.  This will supposedly keep the critters from getting into my attic and inviting their friends over for toga parties, etc.!  Time will tell....

Another little non-venomous snake (most likely a friend of the attic snake!) found its way into one of my pool skimmers.  Luckily the pest control guy was here the day that I discovered it....and, it is now up in snake heaven.  So, the next step is to spread these "Snake Away" (clever name, eh?) granules all around the periphery of my yard to deter any other reptiles from entering my yard.  Will it work? Time will tell.....

(cooling off in my pool skimmer...)

(In my "brilliance" the other day, before going to the pool pump out in the back yard, I put on long sweat pants that I tucked in to my old hiking boots and then wrapped tin foil all around the area of my legs between my ankles and my knees. For some crazy reason I thought that the shiny foil might deter any critters from bothering me. [laugh here]  Did I mention that it was over 105 degrees that day? Am I getting overly cautious [nuts]?  Time will tell....)

So, the pool is still leaking.  At one point it was losing about 3 1/2 inches of water a day!  Now  for you lucky  non-pool owners, that is a lot of water. : ) After weeks of marking the walls and doing tests, it has now been decided that the leak is, unfortunately, somewhere under the concrete surrounding the pool.  They are bringing in the 'big guns' to try and find out exactly where this leak is...and, then the fun begins!  Concrete will be chunked up and new pipes will be installed.  It is over 40 years old after all.  I could use some new 'pipes' myself at this point in my life....Will they be able to find this !!%#$%^!! leak?  Time will tell.....

Inside the house, the buckled hardwood floor (residual damage from flood number two last year) had to be re-sanded and stained... so I moved over to Dave's house for a few days........then, my freezer became an "ice garden" the other day as the ice maker jammed and the water just froze all around the spaces below......strange objects that don't belong to me or anyone else who has visited my abode are being found around the house......etc. etc. etc.

In fact, so many things have been going on around my home that I have decided that I either have a ghost or just some negative energy floating around.  I decided that I needed to rid my house of this so I went online and looked for some solutions. From what I gather,  I just need to get a bunch of dried sage, set it on fire, and walk around each room with it chanting as I go.  Hopefully, this will make room for lots of positive energy to enter my home and bring me peace and sanity once again. ha ha?!
Well, time will tell.....

Stay tuned.