What a great day. I woke up at 6 something, heard Ben making noise, went back to bed. Woke up again at 7, heard Ben making noise and realized I probably wouldn't be able to get back to sleep and so I ought to get up. I did, and then I went down to do my body test. I guess I wasn't really ready to get up yet because I sat on the couch and petted Cash for a long time. By the time I did finally get back upstairs to get Ben out of bed, it was nearly 8. He was just in there holding on to the edge of his crib and jumping up and down, happy as can be.
So, got him up and started on breakfast. Took me awhile to get to my own, but eventually did. Happy that we had maple oatmeal. Love that stuff. Eat it every single day at work, it was nice having it here. Waffles and cereal just didn't sound good. I did some chores and got some laundry started. That was a task that would ultimately take all day to get done, but we all have fresh towels and sheets on our beds which is awesome. I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but I still got some stuff done. It was a chore-filled day. Among other things, Lori cleaned all the bathrooms, too. And the weather was awesome so we had all the windows open. Fresh air, absolutely silent neighborhood, just fantastic.
For lunch, I had decided that I wanted nachos with kaluah pork. Lori had made it last night and it sounded really good. By waiting long enough, Lori ended up making it for me and we got to sit together for lunch and eat it. It took me several hours to get coffee finally made, so I had coffee and soda with lunch.
In the late afternoon, I went outside to mow the lawn. Three of the lawns weren't bad; I had mowed them recently. Not recently enough as they were starting to get really tall again. The lower back lawn did need some more work, though, because while I had mowed most of it, around the edges it was still pretty scary. So I had that all cleaned up and then was just about to start on the scary upper back lawn. I hadn't touched that lawn at all this season and it was probably 3 feet tall in most places. All of the sudden, my neighbor Chuck was standing there holding his gas-powered weed whacker. He had to have looked down from his deck into our yard, saw me working, walked to the front of his house, walked down the street, past our house, then alongside our house on the far side, found the gate open and just come on back. A little startling to find a stranger in my backyard when my daughter was playing back there, but I guess he wasn't a true stranger.
I also have to admit that I find him a little difficult to understand. English isn't his first language. But it was pretty clear he was hear to take a whack at my overgrown lawn, so I let him have at it. He went to quick work, and after a little while, he was far enough ahead, clearing grass and growth in the rock wall below our side of his fence and I was able to start in after him with the lawn mower. He worked forever on the lawn and trim-work and so I kept working as well. Eventually he ran out of things to do on the upper lawn and moved down to the lower lawn and kept going, doing trim work and cleaning up around the playset and stuff. I had to keep stopping because it looked like he was stopping and I wanted to make sure he didn't just wander off without a thanks. Eventually he did and I went down there and he was saying that he had run out of gas. I definitely need to get a gas-powered weedwhacker. I have an electric one and there was another electric one left with the house that I've never used, but I think neither could possibly as powerful or as versatile as a gasoline powered one.
I thanked him profusely, he helped me get far more done than I had intended to and the yard looked so much better that it possibly could have if I had just worked on my own. We talked a little bit about how much work I have in the front yard and my eventual plans for the back yard and how much rain we've gotten this year (preventing yardwork). As we talked, I could hear a lawnmower going in his yard. So I was wondering if maybe he was just bored while his wife mowed? Chuck is a great guy. I talked to him once a few months ago when his daughter was looking for a job and I think the time before that was over a year ago when I was removing a tree and he wandered over and all but thrust a reciprocating saw into my hands. Chuck has a lot more cool toys than me. I wonder if Chuck and Wye(sp?) on one side and Larry and Ellie on the other side are ever exasperated by us. They are both retired couples with nice looking yards. Ours isn't nearly so nice. It's getting there, but it's a lot of work for a family with young kids.
When we had nachos, I had posted online and Corey had immediately posted back that he wanted some. I had posted back suggesting he'd drop by and I'd make him some, or maybe he and Gilda should come over for dinner. And they did and we had a great evening, kaluah pig and rice, salad and macaroni salad, and then there was talk of dessert, so he ran off and got ice cream while Lori popped brownies in the oven. I got Ben ready for bed and then we had dessert and then sent Rachel off to bed.
Then we tried to do that Scrabble thing where they had their iPhones and we had the iPod they gave us and their iPad but it didn't work as cool as it sounds like it would. (You have the tiles on your handsets and you flick them onto the iPad where the board is.) But it kept disconnecting, so we started again using just the iPad. And while it wasn't her turn, Lori was in the kitchen icing the birthday cake for Ben's party tomorrow. (And she still stomped us.) When it wasn't our turns (it takes a long time when you have time to think about the words, versus when you're all sitting around a single board), we were watching funny videos online.
And so now a little bit of exercise before bed. What a terrific day. Oh, and a friend of ours had a squirrel get into their house. They were confused when we all simultaneously hit "like" on their post and wondered if we were really liking that the squirrel was in their house and terrifying (too strong a word?) them.
Yes, a really, really nice day. And now down here where the door's been open all evening, it smells like fresh cut grass.
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