We went to Arvada on Sunday for Grandma’s 90th birthday party. It was an outside event, and simple… just family, time to visit, and a little cake and ice cream. Simple is good.
R got to hold the newest member of the family 3 (4?) week old Theo. That was the highlight of her day for sure…
Grandma seemed to love the babies too, and looked so happy just watching them.
I didn’t take many pictures, but like this one of the grandkids and great grandkids who were there (plus a couple of aunts).
Today was a big day….
Walter, the little caterpillar we’ve been raising inside (to keep the birds from eating him), emerged from his chrysalis today.
He stayed on the back porch for a just a little while before flying away.
It was such a treat to raise another caterpillar again…it’s been a few years but it never loses its magic.
We’ve seen a lot of wildlife in the 16+ years we’ve lived here… deer, coyotes, rabbits by the hundreds, skunks, raccoons, foxes, antelope, and we even had a mountain lion in the front yard, and a black bear just down the road… but today we saw the most amazing thing.
A bald eagle perched on our next door neighbor’s electrical pole.
He was huge, and amazingly regal. I was in awe.
Sadly, the only picture we got is terrible. We spent most of the few minutes he was there staring…unable to believe what we were seeing…or looking through the binoculars at him. We only got this one quick photo before he flew away.
I hope he comes back…
We had an unexpected hailstorm yesterday and a nice rain. We ended up with almost 1” of rain, and as far as I can tell the hail was too little to have damaged the cars, etc. It did make an impressive noise though, especially the pounding on the metal roofs and skylights.
Once again the barn seemed to be on a little island in the middle of the rushing water. I’m so glad Annie and Carl placed the barn carefully. Despite the water all around it, the barn (and the hay inside!) always stays dry.
I’ve never been a big consumer. I don’t like shopping, especially in brick and mortar stores (online is more fun!), but found I was getting a bit spend thrifty during the pandemic. Almost having a mindset of “since we’re dealing with the hardships and uncertainty of the pandemic I should just buy what we want and not worry about the cost”. Which I did… not to excess but more than usual.
I’m not comfortable being spend thrifty. I am a minimalist and having too many “things” stresses me out and leads to major cleaning episodes which leads to multiple trips to Goodwill to drop off donations.
So… my goal for the year starting August 1st is to avoid buying anything new…that includes books, household items, clothes, etc.
There are exceptions to my “nothing new” rules of course… I’m not going to get crazy with this.
Exceptions are…
Replacing an item that has broken and is not repairable or is completely worn out.
Gifts
Groceries and other consumables
DIY materials but only if absolutely necessary…I’ll use what I have here, modifying plans if need be before buying more supplies.
The bookcases for the loft redo that I’ve been trying to buy since mid-June but IKEA has been out of.
Did I say I’m planning on working on this for a year?
This isn’t just an exercise in frugality or will power. Each item I buy used, or don’t buy at all, is one less item that needs to be manufactured, saving the materials and energy that go into the manufacturing process. It’s a small gesture, yes, but it feels like the right thing to do.
We found our first monarch caterpillar on the milkweed plants we grew from seed last spring. It was so exciting!
We have since moved him inside into a protected habitat. I was worried the birds would eat him if I left him out in the garden area. 😱
We can’t wait for him to form his chrysalis and emerge a beautiful monarch!
Just another busy day on the rural DoCo roadways…
The local turkey family was holding up traffic again.
So way back on June 25th I saw that the wax ring on the upstairs (guest room) toilet was leaking and knew it needed to be replaced. I thought it would be a quick and fairly easy job.
Ha! I was so wrong.
I had the toilet out and was debating whether or not to replace the floor at the same time. The floor still looked good, but was getting older and it seemed to make sense to not put the toilet back in until I was sure the flooring was good for a few more years.
So I peaked underneath… (Yes, that is the original 1970’s linoleum under the vinyl plank flooring… that bathroom was a time capsule.)
…and found a mess of wet subfloor! (Thankfully it ended up being clean water from the valve, not dirty from the toilet!)
Which led, of course to tearing all the flooring up, letting the subfloor dry, adding another layer of 1/4” plywood on top to reinforce the damaged subfloor, and finally a new floor.
(Are we having fun yet?)
And while I was at it, we replaced the vanity too since that bathroom still had the original 1970’s era vanity, removed an old non-functioning baseboard heater, patched and repaired a bunch of drywall, and replaced the baseboards and door moulding. One thing definitely led to another with this job!
It took five weeks (about half of that was plumbing, Joe isn’t the quickest plumber 😂) but it’s done, and I’m happy with it. I repainted it with the same colors since I really liked this “blue sky” bathroom.
I’m so glad it’s done… unfortunately it’s the kid’s bathroom that really needs a redo…but I don’t have the energy for that just yet.
After missing last year’s poker party due to the pandemic, we took a little bit of a chance and let M have one this year.
It felt good to have a normal kind of event after more than a year of socially distancing.
We know the pandemic isn’t over yet, but we carefully minimized the risks (kept the guest count low, only inviting friends who were fully vaccinated, etc) and felt like… this time…the benefits were worth the risks.
I’m so glad M has such good friends,..
