One Delivery Down, Two to Go

About a year ago, we were feeling relieved to finally be done with all the renovations at the house next door, and we are looking forward to that feeling of relief once again, but right now things are decidedly hectic as we get to all the house projects here that we’ve been putting off thanks to being house-project-ed out last year.

As I sit here typing this on Tuesday morning, the first of today’s three deliveries has arrived, and we’re waiting on two more including one that should be here any minute and is a freight delivery which promises to be something of a challenge. This would be because the permanent home for the 300+ pound item is not yet complete, meaning it needs to be placed somewhere until it can be somehow or other maneuvered into place. In our defense, we thought the delivery would take longer to arrive. Also in our defense, it was looking like the permanent home was going to get completed last week. Then there was the matter of a sale too good to pass up. So, an order was placed, fingers were crossed and now it’s time to figure out the best temporary solution.

It’s bit like the boxes and miscellaneous items that keep getting moved from one corner of the basement to the other to accommodate various fixes and improvements. In our defense the vast majority of these boxes do not belong to us. Eventually we’ll get things sorted out, but in the meantime it’s all hectic chaos.

I’ve finally convinced Ron that Tires is one of the funniest shows on TV. (Or streaming or whatever I’m supposed to call Netflix.) So, we’ve been watching the show most nights. We had just finished watching an episode Thursday night that focused on the mechanics upselling customers on tires and necessary car repairs when a big thunderstorm rolled through and knocked out our power. It ended up not getting restored until late Friday afternoon.

Friday as we suffered through the heat and longed for showers while waiting for the power company to fix the broken pole down the road, we also had three separate deliveries showing up. Ron happened to be out in the driveway when the woman brought our Home Depot order. He glanced down at the tires on her car and noticed they were beyond bald with the cords showing through. He told her she needed new tires and warned her not to drive on the highway. So, life imitates art. Unfortunately he received no sales commission for upselling the woman tires.

Photo of arborvitae for sale at a store.

In order to make way for that 300+ item and also to fix some other issues, we had to have some very overgrown bushes removed. How overgrown were they? A stump grinder was needed. They will be replaced by (hopefully) more manageable shrubbery, but in the meantime we worry that we’ve upset and displaced the mockingbirds that liked hanging out in the out-of-control boxwood. This morning while watering the patio plants, I wondered if I heard the mockingbirds in the trees and bushes at the other side of the yard, but really I don’t know because it’s difficult to tell if a singing bird is a mockingbird or the bird that’s always getting mocked. It’s one case where the Merlin app is utterly useless.

I spent some time last week wandering around looking at potential replacement bushes, and even more time researching shrubs on the internet. Word to the wise, when looking up mature plantings on the interwebs, make sure when hunting for mature shrubs that you use the word “shrub” and not its synonym to avoid some search results that might not have anything to do with plants.

These projects and the other upcoming projects will keep us on our toes for a bit, but we’ve done this before. We’ll make it through, and before too long (hopefully) we’ll be enjoying that feeling of relief of knowing that we’re entirely caught up on house projects for the time being. Hope that life is treating you well, and things are not quite as hectic as they are here.

—Alissa