Pleasing

We had a lovely evening celebrating The Tim's birthday. He enjoyed all of his gifts, and was truly thrilled to receive the second sock to complete his pair of house socks. I had wrapped them in a couple of layers, where the older sock was on top. So when he opened it, he said, "Are you giving this back because you can't find the yarn to make the other one?" and then was surprised and pleased when he dug down to the next layer. So it was a success.

There are a couple of other things that have been pleasing, and I thought I'd share. Do you remember that last spring, the city planted a honey locust tree (aka "Loco") where a previous tree in front of our house had been? Well, Loco has been thriving. And last Saturday, it was time for us to get another tree, at the other entrance to our house (which is technically the main entrance). This time it is an American Hornbeam ("Beamy), and we are so happy with it! 

(The Tim: Oh good, it's a dormant tree. I was wondering why they would plant a new tree when cold weather was coming.

Me (in my brain): Brilliant deduction, Holmes.)

I'm so glad to have a tree in that spot, because the street is so small, and having a tree there must makes it all seem cozier, you know?

On Monday, I headed to Anthropologie. I had seen something online that I thought would make a nice gift; it was out of stock online, but it said, "Check stores." Our store did have it in stock, but in person, I didn't like it as much. However, I found something else that I liked even better for less money. But even better was the gift box they provided:

I had noticed on my way into the store that they had some yarn trees decorating the windows along with shiny ornaments, etc., so I guess they have a whole yarn/knitting thing going on for the holiday season this year. It goes without saying that I think it's an excellent idea!😊

So there you have two small but good things that really pleased me over the past week or so. It's a good reminder to pay attention, because even when a lot of other things seem to be terrible, disheartening, etc., there are still some little, lovely, happy things happening around you if you just look.

Thursday Flora Update

I thought I'd show you some "flora" (as in fauna and flora) we are enjoying lately. First up, our clematis, which is blooming like crazy in the garden and giving us something so pretty and splashy to see out the window!

There's a lot of dead leaves on it that I didn't get to trim before it started blooming, and I didn't want to interrupt things then, so I'll wait until its season is over to trim them. But this year it had ten blossoms altogether, which is a record. One of them was even on the ground, in the middle of some ground cover.

Of course since it's been raining so much this week, a lot of the blooms are gone, but they were sure nice while they lasted. Especially considering that about three years ago, I thought I'd killed the plant altogether when I got a bit carried away trimming out the ground cover. It just makes me so happy that it survived and seems to be thriving.

You may recall in the post where I regaled you with tales of our new door - which we are still loving, btw - I mentioned that the day after we got our new door, that we got a new tree, and I promised a photo. 

Behold, our new tree:

It's a honey locust tree, and since I took this photo about two weeks ago, it's gotten even taller and fuller! We used to have a crabapple tree in the spot that became diseased and had to be removed. The City of Philadephia has a program where they will provide you with a free tree, but needless to say, you get added to a list, they check the location, and then you wait until your turn comes around. They check the location because sometimes in the past, people have planted trees in places that are not not optimum for either the tree or for foot/car traffic. So your space has to get approval before anything else moves forward. And then you wait. But the bonus is, you don't get charged for the tree and volunteers in the program do all of the planting (which would currently be completely exhausting for the two of us to attempt).

There's also a list of approved trees for city streets. This is important because not all kinds of trees will do well in this kind of environment. Also, years ago many many gingko trees were planted everywhere in the city, and though they are lovely to see, those that fruit then drop the fruit, which gets trampled or driven over, and the permeating vomit-like smell is really disgusting. Needless to say, gingko trees are not on the list of choices! We chose the honey locust because it the particular one listed is a smaller variety that would not split the sidewalk or cause other problems. And as I mentioned before, at least right now, it seems to be pretty darn happy and growing like crazy.

And you know what? When you walk out of our new front door, our new tree is about 2 feet to the left of it. So our new tree and our new door are so pretty together when you walk up towards the house!

We were feeling pretty good about things on this side of the house on this particular street, thinking the only thing that was the next project was replacement of the carport, which has been out of commission now for a few years. But lest we start to think we are ahead of things for once, we awoke last Friday to find that part of the brick planter in front had completely collapsed. Either someone tried to sit on it, or ran into it with a car or a bicycle. So now we have that to deal with as well. It's a good thing we budgeted a little bit more than we thought we would need for all of these repairs and projects. But you know - yet another thing. Ugh.

It will of course all be worth it in the end, but finding the right people, scheduling everything, and then making sure you can be here when they are doing the work has a lot of moving parts to consider. And then of course trying to get Alfie to understand that 99% of the time, he just cannot be involved is a whole 'nother story! 😊

"You don't understand - workers need to have me there to snoopervise and help with the work. But my TERRIBLE parents refuse to allow me to be included. Just wait until someone reports them to PETA, that'll teach them!"