Start Where You Are, Use What You Have, Do What You Can

 

Here's a picture of the new steps.  Let me share three things very quickly.  Sassy inserted herself in the photo quick as she could.  The facing boards on the end of the porch need to be painted and the porch is dirty.  The steps are straight and level.  It's the porch floor which is slightly higher at the house and slopes forward.  That is the proper way to build a porch, especially one that began as a deck off the back of the house.

I didn't take a better head on photo because frankly I was trying to hide how dirty, cluttered and in need of cleaning and fresh paint the porch itself is.  I just wanted to show you all these new steps while the concrete is fairly clean.  It's the only part of the porch that is!  

I do plan to get the porch straightened out and ready for enjoying come summer.  We often sit back here about lunch time as this end of the house generally gets a breeze and is shady at that time.  Then we'll sit on the front porch in the evening since it faces east and doesn't get the western sun the way the back porch does.

I love how broad the steps are and am envisioning flowers on the ends.  Maybe.  We will see.

I've been more than a bit frustrated this week with the way things have gone.  Namely, my plans have mostly gone kaplooey and everybody else's plans (some necessary, some a whim) have gone on.  Last night, John told me 'we' (always the communal 'we' when he makes plans) must go do something today.  Admittedly, this time it was necessary.   But we're supposed to be gone Friday as well and that means that my week of work, visiting Mama, etc. has been completely cancelled out. 

I confess I'm weary.  I overdid it all yesterday in an effort to salvage what I could out of the week in the one day I was sure I had to work.  I mean I did everything. Then John mentioned running this errand today and I felt I should go ahead and do all the bills (which I'd normally have done this morning) so that I could add mail and banking errands in with the other while we were in the area.  Well, it was all a bit too much.  I knew it was even though I did call myself resting here and there.  Last night I was in pain and unable to sleep as well as I might have so I woke up on the borderline of tears this morning.  I had a headache and nausea to boot.  Ugh.  

An electrolyte drink seemed to set the nausea and headache right and I went off with John to do the errands we needed to do.  Some were accomplished and they were necessary ones but the very one we went out to attend to couldn't be taken care of at all.  There is nothing we can do on our end.  It needs someone else to handle it.  Oh well.  We came home in time for me to make lunch here.  I was so done in that after lunch, I took a solid little 30 minute or so nap.  

That too seemed to help put things a little more right.  I was just contemplating having an afternoon iced coffee when Sam texted asking if John could cut his lawn between now and Friday afternoon.  He's got Katie and her friend coming over to pick blackberries and talk gardening and he wanted the paths along the blackberries to be free of long grass.  John immediately got up and off he went.

I confess I was a bit surprised.  I made it clear that anytime between now and Friday evening suited Sam but perhaps John's feeling a bit restless, too.  Or maybe it's because we both noted that our yard needs mowing and he knew Sam's really did need it as well.  Anyway, off he went, just like that and I sat here looking at the clock and said, "Surely I can do something in the next hour or so."   

I went out and blew dust and debris off the back porch and new steps.  I contemplated giving the siding and railings a good washing down, but I hesitated.  I'd need to do a load more work than I could do in an hour's time.  That back porch is loaded up with furniture, grill, shelving unit, tools, cat shelter, bicycle and scooter, etc.  However, I had a bottle of cleaner that had been recommended to me a couple of years ago, called Wet and Forget Outdoors.  Amazon Associate Affiliates Link

So, I got out the container and read the label.  It needed to be washed off any plants it got on.  The gardenia and hydrangea have both just begun to bloom, the Asian lilies are standing tall...I didn't feel I should spray it on the back porch railings with all the plants I have around there.  And to do just the walls meant I'd have to move a load of stuff away from the wall.  That was more than I felt I wanted to start today.

I went to the front porch which is practically empty and has no plants about it for various reasons and used the entire spray bottle on all the white woodwork there.  You really do just spray it on and walk away.  Mind you it took time.  There must be a hundred pickets on the railings and spraying them on all sides was tedious.  But before I'd made my way to the end of the porch, I could already see the product had gone to work.  It wasn't perfectly white once more, not in that half hour or so but it was certainly looking promising as a remedy to a perpetual problem.  I sprayed and then went back and sprayed again.  I didn't follow directions perfectly.  They suggest a cool, dry day.  It was warm and sunny and a wee bit breezy, so it didn't stay as saturated as instructed but it was working just the same.  I used the whole bottle out there.

When I was done with that task, I pulled all the poke weeds out of the flower bed about the faith tree.  I've got several small sunflowers coming up under that tree despite it being so shady there and one had bloomed.  The soapwort is looking pretty as well.  And of course, Rufus has dug a hole right in the midst of it all, sigh.   I do like dogs.  I do like dogs.  I do, I do.  But I do not like the holes they make!

I picked up a few branches that had blown out of the tree and then moved the pile of debris off the lawn and onto a corner of the patio, in case John takes a notion to mow our grass.  I don't like to leave a mess in his path and I'm never sure if I'm going to get right back to clear up once I leave it.  At least I moved it out of the way.  

Then I walked about and looked at the flowers.  The snapdragons did nothing.  NOTHING.  The mint, ditto.  I have one cosmos and two marigolds and some zinnias out of all the packets of seeds planted.  I've made up my mind that sometime this week (what's left of it) or possibly next, I'll go out and sow a new batch of zinnias, cosmos and whatever else I can lay my hands on and see how they do.  At worse, I'll have loads of zinnias which is fine.  I love zinnias.

And then I moved the wagonload of stuff I'd taken from the back porch and pulled it around to the patio.  I was going to unload it but suddenly I felt I'd done enough.  I wanted an iced coffee and to cool off.  When I wandered back indoors, I discovered that I'd worked exactly the hour I'd meant to work.  

I've been really enjoying a Dalgona coffee these warm afternoons.  I skip the sugar and sweetener of any sort.  I've found that a bit of hot water and the instant coffee will whip up just fine without any sweetener added.  I usually pour in about a cup of milk and top if off with ice.  This tastes as good as any coffee bar iced coffee I've gotten anywhere.  The big jar of Instant Decaf coffee cost me $10 which I felt was high at the time, but then I thought differently.  All I had to make was one or two coffees here at home and I've saved as much or more!  And it really is good.  I don't feel I'm settling for anything.  

I hope I can find more 'swaps' such as this that are both satisfying and allow me to feel I'm getting a treat.  

Now, John has long been home, we've had our supper (Cottage Pie, Pickled Beets, Apple Slices) and I've cleared up.  I made John some instant pudding.  Now we're going to watch our Wednesday evening church service.

I hope you all had a wonderful day!

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