jimsjournal

jimsjournal

A three day weekend -- 10/14/08

I really enjoy three day weekends.

Wouldn't it be nice if every weekend could be three days long? Ah, but then I suppose we'd be longing for four day weekends. (Hmmmmm...)

I wrote about the first half of the weekend in my previous entry -- our dinner party Saturday night and that we were spending most of Sunday at The Narragansett Towers.

What I didn't mention was that while I was making the lasagna, etc. (which does take a bit of time and effort because first I have to make my own tomato sauce to use in the lasagna...), Nancy was out front hacking down the two rhododendron plants that flanked our front steps. They just kept growing too big, and no matter how much Nancy trimmed them back, each year they seemed to grow larger. Last fall, as a result of taking that landscape design course at RISD, one of our decisions was that the rhododendrons had to go. (Yes, we did not actually implement any of our ideas or plans this summer -- I was busy with that tech conference in the beginning of May and then Nancy was busy with pressure of the final weeks of the school year and then we went to California and then Nancy had her foot surgery... and suddenly it's autumn... so now at least one part of our planning has become reality.)


Before		After

We tried to keep Monday as mostly a day of relaxation (it being a holiday for Nancy with the local schools closed for Columbus Day and being a vacation day for me). I did slip in a little bit of work in the sense of checking work e-mail a couple of times and phoning in to my work group's regular Monday conference call (but I dialed in late and left early). We did dash off together to accomplish some errands in mid-afternoon, buying glue for some peeling wallpaper, buying a new stepladder (to replace our old wobbly one that Nancy put out with the trash last week because she didn't want me to take the risk of using it), and picking out some hardwood flooring to replace the carpet upstairs (both kids' bedrooms and the upstairs hallway, our room will stay as it is for now).

		With autumn comes the need to put away the "gazebo" tent that we use to create a (relatively) bug-free outdoor room for comfortable shaded fresh air dining and relaxing. (When Nancy bought this thing about eight or nine years ago, I was a bit skeptical, but it didn't take me long to realize that it was a brilliant idea.)

		We did take down the canvas roof and the screen sides, but we have always left the metal framework in place. It only takes about fifteen minutes to take the roof and the sides down, fold them up, and put them in storage bags; putting them up in the spring probably takes twice as long. We did enjoy having lunch outside on Monday -- the last fresh air lunch until spring.

Lots of trees have yet to change, but here-and-there it really looks like autumn:

previous entry

next entry

To list of entries for 2008

To Home (Index) page