A sea of sea lavender

I am in Lala land staying with a good college friend. Her lawn is  a xeriscape. I love the black sedum.

 The car rental people let me select my own car from a long row of them.  How to start it?  I looked and looked for a gearshift lever.  Turns out I had to turn a small dial to put it in reverse. I didn't think I needed a map because once I got on the main road, all I needed to do is make 2 turns. however a missing sign really complicated things

It is so much fun being with my friend who currently is at a meeting. I should run but here I sit watching her hummingbirds.  I am considering going in her hot tub but I am too lazy and tired to change 

back at home we will have 6 viewings but so far, no offers

California here I come

Here I sit in the airport waiting area all spritzed with various duty free perfumes. the California photo posted is in Northern California. no deserted beaches in LA.  As I am traveling only with a phone, postings will be infrequent

Lifting up the girls

Find the rainbow

chestnut blossoms look very pretty

columbine



Lots of irises

There's an app for that. When someone wants to see our house, my phone pings. So far, three viewings; two of which overlap. Back to the house today to make sure everything was clean enough for the first viewing.

So let's say you are a painter and want to wash your brushes out. Do you wash them in the brand new kitchen sink or do you trudge down 7 stairs to a beat-up utility sink? That would be extra work so you splatter paint all over the new sink of course. Cleaning this up was part of today's fun. Fortunately it is easy to remove paint from stainless steel but I was mad that I had to do it. Hate the painters. I assume it was the old geezer we fired but the 'professional' ones made messes too.

I am done for now with cleaning things up. I finally had time to get my nails done and I want them to look good for the wedding. I am sitting here in the fancy dress I got for the wedding. It has a halter top so none of my bras were going to work. After much going back and forth, I choose a halter bra versus a strapless one that I was afraid would get exhausted hoisting up my one big breast but I wasn't sure that the straps still wouldn't show so I kept all the tags. I have a small window of time tomorrow that I could go exchange it for the perilous strapless number. Steve has been out mowing the lawn for 6 hours and couldn't help zip the dress up. I got it half way up and closed the rest with clothes pins but I don't think I can get it off by myself. Soon he will have to come in.

The temperature dropped almost 30 degrees between yesterday morning and today. Very nice for running. I ran by a curled ball of fur assuming it was roadkill.  When it sensed me, it came towards me than away from me. Rule of thumb: if you see a raccoon in broad daylight, something is wrong. Fortunately it was slowly lumbering.

Steve is done. Yep we bit off way more than we can chew.

Git'er done

8 days ago, my lone robin nestling had no feathers. It has tripled in size. Maybe today it will fly away

Still had time to get Barn Sale art. With its greens and browns, master bedroom?

This was thrown in for free.  The flower looks amateurish but the matting might be useful.

Napoleon, a very feisty bantam rooster whose flock of hens are 3 times his size

Official real estate listing showing our repainted living room. Remember the orange and blue wall paper?

Kitchen's the same though paint is not peeling and new windows and sink (and faucets)

Dark bannister gone

No more yellowish paint but a pale almond. Lilac in bloom though quince hedge finished last week. Dogwood is in bloom in back (dogwood at new house might be dead)

lower level

Josh's old room with original wall paper though new paint

Using my vintage marbles to stabilize vase. I had them as a child (elaborate marble mazes were all the rage). I think the marbles belonged to my father

So busy. Right now I should be out buying stuff for my trip. Top on my list is a strapless bra. Hope I can find one that works. And with my probable one breast reduction and one breast enlargement in the fall, it won't get much use. But traffic is probably heavy right now so I'll go out later.

After a week of intensive cleaning and fix ups jobs (and 3 months of outside labor), we put the house on the market today though I want her to redo some of her photos (not the ones shown). With the lighting, our master bedroom looks bright yellow, not ecru and it looks like we have an orange counter top (not cocoa brown) in our bathroom. If I had time, I would have reviewed her photos while she was there. but I had a hair appointment so I was out of there. Still how hard is it to take a decent photo? And I had to rewrite her listing. Yep I am a pain in the neck. A huge downside is that she just doesn't understand Ann Arbor's market. Ann Arbor is special, doesn't she realize that?Steve personally visited 'the comps' and saw that our house, even before its cosmetic make over looked way better than most of these comps and if you know Steve, he really hates the house and is not the least attached. So we had an argument. She wanted a low price and we wanted a higher price. I left annoyed though ultimately, it was our choice.

I think maybe we should have waited for after Memorial Day to list as people are too busy planning the weekend. Plus the property person next door promised the pool would be clean by then.

As the week progressed, I did feel better because I kept thinking we are almost done. And Josh helped us yesterday for 4 hours with things we couldn't handle. How to install a new doorbell? How to put those light fixtures back up? And he sawed down a tree he always hated.

My bicycle riding program came to a halt. Just no time but I did run excepting the day I was busily cancelling credit cards and going crazy about the missing wallet that fortunately was found. Yesterday, I was out there before 7 in the fog (since we are in a low lying area, I figured the fog would be gone when I made the big climb out of here; wrong). But it was nice when I wasn't worrying about being roadkill (need some blinking lights). Cool and windless. The air redolent of cloves from all the honeysuckle. (isoeugenol for my chemistry fans). 25 miles in less than 2 hours.
Later, it was sunny, 86 and very humid. That's when I was working in the yard at the old house..so, so hot. But with our very early start, and extra help, I had a 2 hour period that I could just sit on my porch doing a puzzle (no time for those lately). Suddenly I hear a sound like a rusty door hinge amplified a hundred times over. I figured it was a bird nearby but couldn't see it. Later a friend came over and it started up with its loud call again. though still it could not be seen. My friend said she has one in her yard, a red bellied woodpecker. I did play a tape of it online and assuming its call is unique, that's what it is. And wrens are in my gourd, not gold finches. The female goldfinch sort of looks like one though the wren is smaller and less colorful. But it can sing better.

So  I had an hour today in which I was just sitting having my hair suck up pigment while my hair dresser multitasked. She operates way out in the country so it's an interesting drive. Hawks killed her bantam hens so she has 7 new potential egg layers living in her house giving off funky smells. Next week, she will introduce them to the existing flock.

Where oh where is Agoura Hills? I fumbled around our many shoeboxes looking for the maps that at one time I had organized. Why do we have a street map of Gloucester, MA? Finally I found a map of LA county. Leaving soon. Yippy!

 

We are made from stars...

wet azalea
 

big bug on my front door today



I think this is a chestnut blossom.

Warm enough for the hibiscus to be outside. Lots of blossoms forming

I love irises

Palindrome week has been hell (a week of palindromes: 5-15-15). Every day a trip to the Money Pit to face up to our many inadequacies as homeowners. The floor washing had to wait until all the workmen finished dragging dirt, dry wall mud, paint, what have you all over the floors but I should have started the heavy duty scrubbing earlier. Steve meanwhile wrestles with fixing little things, installing a new mailbox, new trim, painting things those painters missed. Some things he has no idea what to do about. Hopefully Josh can help tomorrow. We are in over our heads. The Realtor comes to take photos Monday and judge.... Did we do enough? We did a lot. New roof, new paint, new windows. The furnace and air conditioner are just a few years old. Appliances however are about 18 years old but they work. Newer and fancier washing machine than we have here. Yesterday we were there more than 8 hours. I was so sore later. We didn't spend as long today. I just have a little inside work left and lots of outside work and then it is, what it is.

And I need to do things to get ready for California. Time please stand still!!!!

The goldfinches are building a nest into one of my X-mas gourds. The thistle feeder is only 6 feet away so their commute time will be short. Each day, the orioles devour the orange slice I put out.

In the middle of the night, I listen to podcasts (downside: Amber alert blared into my sleeping ear at 5 am this morning). Interesting quote I heard about how all the atoms that make up our body came from stars:

“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson

forget-me-not

rock garden back at old house: forget-me-nots in foreground. Primroses, bugleweed and various creeping phlox in bloom. Spent time weeding out grass and excess snow in summer.

Too bright: sun went away later

My alternate bird watching site: new hummingbird feeder that the birds already found. Goldfinches have been using the seed sack for some time. Today, the chipmunk discovered it. I put foil on the bottom so he wouldn't eat a hole through it there.

 

I am up to 3 hummingbirds: yay! A female finally showed up.

Dealing with the old house is sucking lots of enjoyment from my life. So much to clean! I didn't know where to start. The kitchen is done, except for the floor. Living room done. I tackled the long neglected lower level, the worst being the laundry room which had a work bench. The area rarely was cleaned. I scrubbed and scrubbed for 6 hours. Most of the dirtiest areas are gone now. The realtor comes Monday so we have 3 days to make things right.

Steve stayed back and tried to make our yard comply with the absurd regulations. He said he was mowing for 6 hours.

And there was a frost last night despite no warning. Somehow my impatiens survived but they are close to the house. The hibiscus was already inside.

Panic!

Ms. Maya

Would you want to live next to this mosquito magnet. We didn't..will our buyers?

columbine

I don't do well under pressure. There's lots of things to be done before I leave and I am feeling overwhelmed so much so that I couldn't bring myself to do anything productive Monday.
Tuesday, I decide to tackle some of the things on my extensive to do list; first rent a car. Should be easy-peasy, right? Just need my Costco membership card...Where in the F is my wallet? Not in my purse..not anywhere that I looked. When did I see it last? Friday. Did I leave it at that church rummage sale? I rush to the church but no one would let me in..I was a crazed animal. While looking under my car seats, I badly bang my knee. I sat in the parking lot just screaming on the top of my lungs. No one could hear me. Why did we move? I WAS NOT READY.This new house is too much. We recently got a letter saying our lawn violates the neighborhood standards because one can see dried grass from our cuttings. We have no idea how to prevent that. I hate my new neighbors for sending that note.Then it occurred to me that I went to a nursery after the rummage sale. I waited impatiently for that to open. Meanwhile I used Steve's membership number to reserve my car. In a half hour, my rental increased $30. WTF. Back to the nursery. No wallet. I resigned myself that I was either pick-pocketed in the Plymouth town square or I dropped it while balancing a purse, big bags and the camera. There was an outside chance that it was at the restaurant but I never opened my purse. I went through the tedious process of cancelling credit cards, three. One I didn't know the number of. Steve had an on-line account he uses to pay the bills. When I tried to get into it, it asked me some security question: Who was my favorite manager? WTF!!!Steve doesn't remember answering that and wouldn't even try to give me a possible name. I hate security questions and hate even more when Steve answers for me because he is always wrong like who was my best friend in high school? Not who he thought it was (it was my friend I visited in Maryland last summer) I am so frantic and miserable. I wasn't even going to run that day as I planned to spend the whole day cleaning up the old house so we could put it on the market before I left. Instead I am on hold with credit card companies. Also I was going to have to get a new driver's license. Some rental car companies don't accept temporary licenses. Was I going to be able to rent a car? Do I have to cancel my trip? A friend was relying on me having a car. F@#$$! I decide to get the license some other day. No one used our credit cards that we could tell even though I hadn't seen my wallet in 4 days. Steve, bless him, never said anything about how stupid I was to lose my wallet. I hated myself for the both of us. Really bad timing. I have had my wallet stolen twice, once from a dorm room and once from a rental house (I didn't know I was living next to a halfway house). No credit cards in those days though I couldn't afford to lose the money that was in it. After a trip to the bank (my ATM card was missing), we go to the house to do our work, me scrubbing appliances; Steve trimming bushes. I assume the restaurant we ate at Saturday was finally opened and called. Yep they had my wallet before I even said who I was. Since I no longer had a landline, how could they contact me? Didn't I miss my wallet? I got it back. Steve asked, why didn't I call them first? I didn't even open my purse there, I didn't think it would be there, just hoping in desperation. So that makes life a little easier. Also making things easier, not having to watch Maya all night as I thought I had to so more time to scrub and scrub. Still a lot to be done but I was feeling optimistic finally until I happened to notice the house next door: a rental which has been a pain in our side from day one. A family had moved in the fall and the pool had been cleaned but now, no one was mowing the lawn and the pool was a brown disgusting cesspool. It doesn't matter how much money we throw at our house; no one will buy it with that mess. Back to depression. I could call the community standards police; I could send a letter to the owner at her place of business..what to do? Fortunately today, Steve ran into the property manager who promised the pool would be cleaned before Memorial Day, if not sooner. Steve didn't think to ask about the lawn or get his number so I could hound him..why doesn't he think of these things? So we have to wait for the pool to be cleaned. Bad timing all around. I had made my plans last summer when I had told myself, no more house hunting until this summer.

Not happy.

Today I did nothing with the old house. I weeded here while I watched Tessa. Steve did touch up paint work and reinstalled switchplates, work those painters should have done. He is tired of me asking, why did he OK the work and pay them when they left stuff unfinished? Why oh why? And which one peed all over the toilet seat, which I had to clean the other day though I am suspecting that disgusting old man we fired. So even if I finished cleaning in time (back for the next 4 days doing that) we really can't put the house on the market until the pool is cleaned. I will be so happy when this ordeal is done.


For Mother's Day, Josh had gotten me another bird feeder pole and a humming bird feeder which is now in front of my house. If I am on the porch, I can watch finches and once the hummingbird figures it out, hummingbirds. I have at least two now and they don't like to share. Mr and Mrs Oriole show up several times a day. They must be the prettiest birds of all. Still they bolt if I move even inside the house whereas hummingbirds don't care how close I am.

Before Tessa came, I got a run in very early. Temps in the 40, too cold for the hibiscus which will remain inside for another day. A turkey ran in front of me. I was so stiff and sore from injuring my knee and all the stooping getting up and down from the day before. Later today, I went to my cooking class. A member is not doing well and I should visit....

Somehow I need to relax. This too shall pass; this too shall pass. California should be fun....