Busy weekend. Saturday morning Michael went up on the roof, while I prepared the door trim and attempted to replace the light.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to try these projects, except as a reaffirmation of Murphy’s Law. As I worked with the light, I was reminded of several years ago and the first time I put together a computer.

Various friends had for years been showing me the ins and outs of tearing apart computers, and I had a pretty good grasp of how things went. So when my new case and motherboard arrived, I decided not to wait for Michael to come home, but to transfer everything myself. I pulled all the various parts and pieces out into the middle of the floor where there was plenty of open space, struggled but eventually managed to get the new motherboard into the new case, and then began moving parts from the old case into the new case. I got everything seated properly, and then got it all hooked back up without major incident. I plugged it in, hit the power button, and….

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

You can not imagine how disappointed I was. All that work and I’d obviously made some stupid mistake and hooked something up improperly. So I took the case back off, took everything out, and put it back together, checked to make sure I did it correctly. I plugged it back in. Still nothing.

I was convinced that I was a complete idiot who thought she knew what she was doing but was obviously totally clueless and should be kept away from anything more difficult than say, a manual toothbrush, and went off to sulk.

When Michael came home he quickly determined that the power supply was bad and had to be sent back to the company for a replacement.

Changing the light Saturday was a similar exercise in futility. The thing was obviously rusted together, so I liberally applied WD-40 before getting started. After about an hour and a half, multiple trips up the ladder to get suggestions from Michael, and finally completely dismantling the entire fixture, I got the horrid thing off the wall. I then pulled out the new lamp, and attempted to attach the brace to the box. The screws were too large.

No big deal, I could just use the screws from the old brace. Except that I could only find one screw. I went through the entire trash bag only to find that the second crew had completely disappeared. Off to the basement to find a replacement. Replacement found. I put up the new brace, attached the wires, and then went to the basement to turn the electricity back on (notice that I was smart enough not to screw the fixture to the wall. I do learn eventually.) Come upstairs, pull out the power sensor—nothing. Doesn’t work.

I climb the ladder to tell Michael this, and he tells me to try a bulb anyway. This, of course, fails to work. Back up the ladder. I suggest that perhaps when they replaced the outlet where the switch is with a GFCI outlet, they’d messed something up. Michael agreed that this was not only possible, but highly probably. Back downstairs to turn off the power.

Now I have to explain about this box. It contained three switches and one outlet, all jammed into the space where one normally has a double light switch. (You know the kind I mean—where you have two light switches in a single place, and the plate and whole thing is pretty much square.) So I unscrew the face plate, and then unscrew the switches and the plug. I go to pull out the two switches, when POP! there’s a spark that scares the crap out of me.

I climb back up the ladder to tell Michael that I’m okay, the yell was nothing, but that I’m an idiot. The third switch was for the overhead light, which I knew was on a different breaker. (I know this because we are slowly but thoroughly labeling all the breakers in the box, so when we go to replace something, we don’t always have to go through the Click. NO! Click. Click. NO! Click. Click. NO! Click. Click! Got It! game. (This is not a fun game, but when the breaker box has three switches all helpfully named “kitchen” there’s not much else to do.)

So back downstairs to see that yes, the breaker for overhead lights was tripped. I leave it off and finish pulling out the switches. To say that behind those switches was a mess of wires would be a complete understatement. It reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of garter snake mating season.

So, I gave the whole thing up as bad luck, and wandered off to do some more gardening.

The only thing that made me feel better, was that it took Michael a quite a long time to figure out what they’d done, the short answer of which was: lots, including messing up the three way switch for the overhead light. But of course he didn’t realize the wiring was messed up until we’d already gone back to Lowe’s to get a replacement switch, assuming that I’d toasted that switch when I’d forgotten to turn the power off. I hadn’t. Someone just royally messed up the wiring, but Michael wasn’t about to fix it, since a simple 30 minute project had already spiraled out of control.

I’m thinking that in the future, I may just stick to gardening.

At least I know why it’s been cold and rainy….

Friday we took the dangerous step of going to Lowe’s after work. We have a frightening ability to spend a disturbing amount of money there without even trying. Friday was, of course, no exception.

We went to look at plants to replace the ones that died over the winter. There were not a lot of plants that died, but then I need only the flimsiest excuse to buy living greenery.

We picked up a lilac that we put around the back of the house where the rental across the alley has a dusk to dawn light that shines in our windows. It should grow to a size that will, when it gets bigger, block out much of the light in the summer. At least that is the plan.

I also found two rhododendrons that I liked, which is unusual, because I’m not typically fond of the state plant. It’s an understory plant really, so it’s a bit leggy and sparse. In the right setting it looks very nice, but that setting is not my yard. But the plants I found look far more like what is generally categorized as “Azalea” with smaller, closely grouped leaves. The smaller of the two plants has very pretty dark leaves, which is why I liked it, the second plant has huge fuchsia flowers, which I quite liked. They remind me a bit of something that I can’t quite place. I’m hoping that they both flower this year, as both of the plants we chose had flower buds. The smaller plant went near the main walk, under the maple tree. I asked Michael if this would make it a pain for him to mow, and he said no, so that means that when he gripes I get to ignore him. The other went at the bottom of the hill, where the fence line will be extended in the coming month.

Along the bottom of the hill we also moved the forsythia and the small lilac, because I realized that we planted them too close to the other shrubs. So we’re back to looking barren for now, but ONE day, it will be a nice hedge. One day. Also along the bottom of the hill I planted a peony, with the second (the package came with two) along the side where there is just bulbs. And I added a second clematis along the fence. I’ve never had clematis before, and the other I planted late fall, so I’m curious to see how it will turn out. My hope is that it climbs and runs along the fence, but I just don’t know. I also planted some of the gladiolus bulbs I picked up last month for some reason that had a lot more to do with winter ending and wanting to plant things than any particular fascination with gladiolas. We’ll see how they turn out. If none of that works, then I’ll look into climbing roses, which will do two things. First, they’ll look nice on the fence, and second they’ll discourage people trying to climb over/sit on the fence.

And, I finally took the poop that my co-worker gave me, and spread it around the lower part of the yard where my oh-so-polite neighbors tore up our yard last spring and have yet to repair the damage. Spread the manure and then spread some grass seed. Hopefully this will make that portion of the yard look a little better. The top part, that luckily isn’t easily seen from the road, is still a tremendous mess. Not only did they not repair the yard, but when the put the soil back, all the topsoil went underneath, and we were left with nice, orange clay on top. I’m thinking that getting grass to come back is not going to be easy. I’d really like to plant something along that portion of the fence, but not only is the yard a mess (and lacking topsoil), part of me keeps hoping that our neighbors will repair the damage they did.

I know, fat chance.

And I suppose that’s about it for the garden update. Oh yeah, I’ve moved most of the plants outside. You would not believe how much space this opens up in the house. It’s kinda of nice to have so many plants inside when winter is it’s darkest, but come spring I need more space. So out on the porch they went. I’m still keeping an eye on temperatures, but there isn’t anything that can’t handle the chill we’ve been having. So I’ve got greenery outside, and new plants to watch all summer. Ah, the joy of spring!

We now have curtains and inside trim.

And that’s going to be it until the weekend at the earliest. It’s raining today. It’s supposed rain tomorrow. In fact, it’s supposed to rain the rest of the week. So perhaps this weekend we will take care of the outside stuff.

Or perhaps not.

Photos of replacing the kitchen doors. Plus comments.

Once I left the windowless room where I work, I realized that it was absolutely beautiful outside. Days like this make the lab a blessing and a curse, I don’t know how beautiful the weather is to enjoy it, but I also know how beautiful the weather is, so I don’t feel trapped inside.

Came home and opened the windows on the storm doors, and then grabbed my pruners and went to look at my plant life. Cut off a bunch of dead wood on a variety of plants, and closely inspected everything else.

It looks as if neither of the roses we planted at the end of the summer made it through the winter, and I’m not sure about the Wiegalia at the bottom of the hill, but almost everything else had buds. How exciting! Things are growing! There will soon be leaves!

Bulbs are coming up all over the place. I saw, besides the crocuses that are already blooming, daffodils that look as if they may flower soon, and the start of tulips and hyacinths. I also saw green growth where the bleeding heart comes up, as well as under the dead leaves of the mums, day lilies, and the hydrangea.

The only damper on the green ecstasy was that when I raked the last of the leaves from the front, it looks as if, despite the fact that we’ve seeded it for the past two years, anything other than spotty patches of grass are not going to happen.

It’s not that I care that much about grass, it’s just that I don’t know what else to attempt to grow there. It’s deep shade, and even deep shade grass didn’t seem to take, nor have any of the shade flowers and plants done well.

Ah well, I have another spring and summer to try and find something to grow there, so it’s not all bad.

Happy spring!

It would be perhaps a bit of a understatement to say that I was not ready to go back to work. Despite that, vacation is over, so back to work and back to school.

As far as house projects, the bedroom is done, and I think it looks quite nice, even if I do say so myself. Pictures to come. Michael also changed the switch and several of the outlets in that room, and then did the big electrical project in the basement–adding extra switches for the basement lights. Essentially, most of the lights in the basement can now be controlled from a group of switches at the bottom of the stairs. This is a huge improvement over things when we moved in. At that point there were few lights, and those lights were all on pull strings (you know what I mean) so now we have plenty of light, all those lights are on switches, and most of those lights have two switches, so they can be turned on and off from multiple places.

Pretty neat.

One of my other projects was to de-junk the house. Three bags of junk and a huge pile of books will all be leaving. I was thinking about listing the books I’m getting rid of to see if anyone wanted them. I already have almost $200 in credit for used books at the Bookshelf, so it’s not as if I’ll use that up any time soon to need even MORE credit for used books. Which reminds me, I also have pictures of the pile of books that were taken out of the bedroom I redid. Even I was somewhat stunned by the number of books we had just in that room.

My only other exciting project was that I planted flower seeds. I now have many containers of dirt, sitting in the basement, waiting for life to start. Not a huge variety this year: sweet pea, pansy, carnations, Chinese lantern (which I have NEVER been able to grow), catnip, purple cone flower, million bells, and several other things I can’t remember. I also wanted to plant silver dollars, but couldn’t find any seeds–I’ll keep looking.

We looked at the plants outside, and it looks like the Jasmine is dead. I’m not sure about the lavender, though I am hoping it made it through the winter. The heather, despite its brown spots, has some flowers already, so hopefully that will come back fully as well.

Crocuses are blooming, and daffodils shouldn’t be too far behind. The irises and day lilies are starting to come up, although slowly. It looks as if most everything made it through the winter, although for some of the shrubs I won’t know for certain until it gets warmer.

I didn’t even look at the roses, but I am hoping that all the plants, even the now ones, made it through the winter. Right now what I want is the weather to warm up and to stay warm, so that I can move my plants outside. The plants that were relegated to the basement (No room! No room!) are starting to look a little worse for wear, and I’ll be glad when I can get them outside and into the sun.

But mostly it’s nice to see flowers coming up, and to think about what I’m going to plant this summer, for after the death of winter comes the new life of spring.