Sunday, January 17, 2016

Progress on the To Do List

My sister took the kids for most of the day today, giving Mr. Snarky and me some time to ourselves. We had a lovely lunch at Stone Brewery in Liberty Station, followed by a stroll around the area. We discovered that there is landlocked  2/3 scale replica of a US Navy destroyer ship near Liberty Station. It is called the USS Recruit, and was used as a training ship. It has been there for a long time, but I was unaware of its existence until today. So that was cool.

We also decided to visit a furniture consignment store. We bought a lamp and a large wooden trunk for our living room. That was cool, too. It is unusual that we can agree on furniture so quickly.

I think we need a couple more sets of shelves and then we'll have our storage for our new room configuration sorted. The trunk allowed us to pull all of the toys out of the garage except one. A lot of those toys are still piled in the guest room, but they are in the location in which they will be stored, waiting for shelves to appear. They'll be waiting awhile, I think. The garage is our priority now.

Or at least I thought the garage was our priority. I learned today that actually, our priority is our front yard. The new roof configuration has water hitting in an awkward spot whenever it rains, and we want to put in some gravel/rocks to help make that less messy. Also, there is a bunch of weeding to do after the last rain storms, and Mr. Snarky wants to do a bit more trimming before we get our native plants guy back out to help us clean up the damage done during construction.

I, meanwhile, am contemplating some big planter pots for our new, enlarged patio. I want to grow spinach, arugula, and maybe some other lettuce-y things. I'd also like some herbs. I have bigger ideas for the bed we want to put in to separate the new room from the lawn, but that might have to wait until next year. We'll see. It isn't a priority right now, but that might change once the front yard is fixed up. One of the nice things about living in San Diego is that I can usually find something that it is OK to plant at any time of the year.

I am letting Mr. Snarky set the priorities now, because I set them for the first burst of activity. My initial top priority was to get everyone into their final rooms. That involved a lot of painting and furniture shuffling. Then my top priority was to get my office functional. After that, my top priority was to get the office nice. That is done. The office is mostly complete now. We just need some blinds. The sun only bothers me for about 10 minutes a day, though, so that can wait a bit.

Once the office was set up, my top priority was to get Petunia the fish I promised her last summer. She waited fairly patiently for her "fishy pet." She didn't forget about it, because she'd ask every so often, but she was mollified by my promise to get her a fish once we had a place to put it. Once the final set of bookhelves went in the office, there was a place. The shelves are short and long, and an aquarium fits perfectly on top of them.

Last weekend, we went and bought an aquarium, some plants for it, and the requisite fake bridge and plastic turtle. The kids also picked out a corny "No Fishing" sign to put in it. We set it up and waited, as instructed. Wednesday, we went and bought our pets. Petunia got a blue betta. Pumpkin got two snails. I'm rather enjoying having the aquarium in the office, which is a good thing, because it is clear that I'll be doing most of the aquarium care. The fish looks pretty swimming around, and it is fun watching the snails scoot around the aquarium. I'd take a picture, but the fish is asleep right now, and I'd hate to wake him up. Maybe I'll take some office pictures later and show you how the entire thing looks.

All in all, I'm feeling like I've made good progress on the home to do list lately. I wish I could say the same for the work to do list! Maybe I can catch up tomorrow....

Probably not. But I will make progress towards catching up, and that will have to satisfy me. I did write a Tungsten Hippo post today, as dictated by my new posting goals. It was prompted by Alan Rickman, specifically his performance as Colonel Brandon and a quote of his about the importance of stories. Go check it out if you're so inclined.

Next up on my posting goals: to get my personal goals list for 2016 posted here. I hope to get to that later this week!


1 comment:

  1. Yes, you will wind up doing much of the aquarium care. Same with any pet really, which is why we don't have a cat/dog. I think I am the only person who remembers to feed the fish.

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