Still Boring But at Least the Weather is Nice!

These months of spring are the most liveable here in hot dry (and cold in the winter) Bakersfield. For a few months we can open up the windows and enjoy the yard before it gets too hot to step outside the air conditioning.

Millie is being trained to stay in the front yard with us, not running off after stray cats or kids on bikes and she is doing pretty well with it. She will still bark at someone walking down the street (how DARE they!) but after a few 'NOs' she is learning to not get quite so excited and protective. The afternoons have been so nice that I've spent quite a few hours sitting out there with her while enjoying some iced tea and a book.

We moved our metal glider out into the yard under the tree where it looks inviting but unfortunately is not all that comfortable to sit on for very long, so I get one of the plastic chairs instead.

As you can see our grass is already starting to get brown since we don't water it, not wanting to waste the water and also being too lazy to water. Our automatic sprinklers don't work so watering is kind of a chore and since we are supposed to be conserving anyway, a chore that doesn't have to get done!

The sunshine feels so good to a little dog!

Other than sitting in the yard and reading, we are our usual boring selves. We haven't done much of anything other than Keith going to work and me cleaning up after animals. The cats spend a lot of time in the backyard so they continually bring leaves and dirt back inside with them, Harri being the worst because she likes to lay in the dirt. We don't have grass in the back  yard, just weeds that we cut down with the weed whacker every once in awhile and lots of dirt and leaves from all the trees back there. Keith did buy a not so noisy battery operated leaf blower that works very well to keep the patio part of the yard a little cleaner, but you can't really use it on the weeds/dirt area. Sure is faster and much more efficient than trying to sweep up out there, though!

Even More Boring Than Usual

What have we been doing lately? Um...not a whole heck of a lot. Keith's turnaround time is getting a little longer where he has a bit more time at home but he does seem to spend a great deal of that time sleeping.

He made a list of a few things he wanted to get done and didn't make it all that far, but did get the filter for the air conditioner slash heater vent thing cleaned. We have one of those that is initially expensive but is washable so you don't have to keep buying filters. He also had bought new towel bars and a matching toilet paper hanger for the bathroom and had installed the towel bars since the only towel bar we had in the bathroom was on the glass doors that we took down and until we got new towel bars we were hanging our towels on the doorknobs, but the toilet paper hanger laid around for weeks and weeks. He did get that put up. Finally. It's one of the kind that is open on one end so you don't have to take the little springy part off to replace the toilet paper roll, you just slide it on. Most houses should have these since human beings tend to be so very lazy about changing the toilet paper roll.

He was going to clean the barbecue and cover it up for the winter, but...that's not done yet. He was also going to finish the last two bricks of the sidewalk from the back door to the patio, I think that has been waiting to be finished for maybe 2 years now. That's not done yet, either.

Someday I would really like to see our backyard done. We'd like to cement the rest of it in, but that entails hiring cement guys (and then PAYING them) so that is still a future project. It's nice to have yards around your house but sometimes the maintenance of said yards can be quite overwhelming. That is probably why so many people have crappy looking back yards, us included. Sometimes I really do wish we lived in an apartment instead. So much less work and if something breaks you  just call the landlord.

Keith was cleaning and organizing his travel backpack, we finally got him a new bigger and better lunchbox, the one he had was really tiny, like six pack size tiny, and really wasn't big enough for all he needs to take on the road. He carries quite a bit of food and snacks because when you are on a train you can't have the engineer stop at the travel plaza to get some eats. The lunchbox we found is like a 12 pack size and the top has an expanding pouch that is perfect for his toiletries instead of having a toiletry bag inside his backpack. The now empty toiletry bag was laying on his bed and while it does not look like a comfortable pillow to me, it did to Buddy.

 So, the new fall TV season finally started and I'm really kind of underwhelmed. I've tried watching a few of the new shows and a few are okay, but just kind of okay. I do like the new Madame Secretary show that comes on right before one of my favorites, The Good Wife. I tried watching the How To Get Away With Murder but found the whole flashback/flashforward thing really annoying and don't think I'll be watching that again. Most of the new (and old) comedies are just plain old stupid and not funny at all. I did watch the Gracepoint or Pointgrace or whatever it's called on Fox last night and that's a keeper, very well done and I can't wait to see what happens next week. I'd like to check out Gotham on Fox but it's on opposite Big Bang and Big Bang will always win out.

I'm still doing a lot of reading, too. And cat box cleaning.

Still Boring

I don't know exactly what we have been doing all week, but whatever it was the week sure went by fast. It's been hard finding time to blog since Keith is home all day and I don't want to talk about him too much in case he is listening.

He went to his appointment at Career Services Center and got some ideas and could have been put to work that day except he'd kind of like to get out of welding if possible. They do offer to pay a company partial wages during a training period if the employee is going into a new field of work. He is looking into a safety company down the road from us but they aren't going to be hiring until January if at all. He's also looking into a railcar repair service that took over one of Savage's contracts but again, no hiring until January. And then there is the issue of how much these companies pay. His caseworker asked him what his requirements were as far as pay, and he needs pretty close to what he was making before. So, despite him getting restless and out of sorts and ready to go back to work, he needs to wait just a little bit longer.

He has been working on cleaning out the garage and prepared the framing for the door he wants to put into the side of the garage so you can go in and out without having to go through the house. He has the door but will wait until spring to install it since it would be stupid to cut a hole in the side of the house this time of year. I've been nagging him to mow the yard since I'm sure our neighbors are starting to wonder if we went hillbilly on them and decided to let the weeds take over and stop watering so everything dies. It looks bad right now and I'm kind of embarrassed, especially since new people moved in next door (the lesbian animal hoarders house) and they seem kind of normal and kind of clean and they are probably wondering about us and hoping they didn't move in next door to bums.

Buddy has been extra mean to the other cats this week, he gets real cranky when the cat door into the garage is blocked off and he knows Keith is out there. It drives him nuts because there must be something REALLY FUN going on out there and he wasn't invited.

I've been working on shop stuff in between trying to keep the house clean while someone else is wandering around in it. But, I haven't gotten too annoyed at having him around all day, and except for the nagging part, it's been going okay. I am really glad I don't have to make his next day lunches each night, though.