Random 5 for June 28 – Timing, neighborhoods, eyesores, pizza, happy place

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Is it Murphy’s Law or is it just the way it is – Why do things break on Friday afternoon. Repairman can’t come (or even call) until Monday. Fortunately it’s a garage door opener so we can live without it but it’s still annoying. It’s just like the cats only getting sick on holidays and weekends!

Loving it – Since my regular walking place has been shut down, I’ve been walking (weather permitting) in my neighborhood. Gosh, it’s so dang gorgeous. Things are green and flowers are blooming. On every walk I try to take in as much in as possible because some day I may not live here.

Speaking of gorgeous – Every neighborhood has that one neighbor and the good news is that the one in our neighborhood is on the far other side. We can’t see his little slice of hillbilly heaven from our home. His yard is small yet he can pack in 8 cars. Most are ginormous pick-up trucks parked haphazardly on the lawn. Who does that? Since there is a portapotty in his driveway (chained up and ready to roll) I am fairly sure he is operating a construction company out of his home. There are all sorts of large equipment and piles of stuff. What I don’t understand is why his neighbors haven’t reported him. We have regulations about that.

My bright spot – I was finally able to get pizza from our usual place. It’s been a long three months but we enjoyed it. It was almost as much about seeing the people who run it as it is about the pizza. Everyone was good.

Working on my happy place – I blocked two more people from my Facebook this week. For me that’s a place for family sharing and not a bitch session or worse yet, a reposting of Russian bot posts. Out you damned spot.

So how was your week?

67 thoughts on “Random 5 for June 28 – Timing, neighborhoods, eyesores, pizza, happy place”

  2. Hahaha, cats falling sick on weekends and holidays! Reminds me of my birthday when we had a table booked for 2pm and Catorze chose 1:30pm to start limping. It was a Saturday and the vet was closed on a Sunday. Little sod had literally waited all year to do that to me.

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    • His happy birthday gift to you. A few years back, Hazel got sick over the weekend. I took her to the emergency vet on Monday morning. They found so much going on with her (that her vet had missed) that we had to put her down on New Year’s eve about 4 hours before meeting up with a group of friends. That was not a happy evening. In retrospect, I should have cancelled.

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  3. Your front entrance is beautiful! Yes, every neighborhood has that one neighbor for sure 🙂 Our neighborhood has a couple rental properties, and also has a lot of owner turnover, so our “that neighbor” changes pretty often. But there is always, always at least one. Yay for pizza from your favorite place!

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  4. I thought that was the front of your home – it is beautiful. Love the flowers and the wreath which are color coordinated and the door is just gorgeous too. I like walking around the neighborhood too, but I generally have to go away from the immediate ‘hood for the large houses and exquisite doors/abundance of flowers. There is Emmons Boulevard which are the beautiful houses and the nice landscaping. When I was a kid, a Sunday drive was going to the ritzy neighborhoods who had the professional landscaping for ideas. That was a regular routine in the Summer months. My garage door had the cable break on a Friday afternoon and that horrible noise I heard inside, couldn’t find anything wrong and then going out, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on a perfect Summer Saturday morn and could not get into the garage … only one way in and that’s through the garage door. Yes, things break down or spring a leak (hot water tank on a Saturday night) on a weekend!

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    • That is my front door but it’s a picture from about 2 years ago. The tree on the right has grown so big that it’s too shady for geraniums so I have angel wing begonias there now and I downsized to one planter because of the shade. I took some photos yesterday and will post the current door eventually.

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      • It is very nice Kate. I have a small house so the porch is small. I painted the front door to match the siding – both are colonial blue, but the white cross-buck storm door ruins the look somewhat. I’ll look forward to seeing the new photos. I took a lot of photos after all my hard work out in the yard the past few weekends. I did not work out there last year as I smashed my finger, so it was a little more work than usual to get it up to speed.

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          • I didn’t notice that the first time and just looked now. I see what you mean. I’ve seen many door without the storm; that’s why I thought that. My cross-buck storm door cuts the door in half so you miss the beauty of the door. That door is a steel door and it has the rosettes on the front (which is difficult for finding a wreath which does not wobble when resting on them, and so you can see out the peephole as well). I used a gel paint on the door which they mixed to match the siding and first/last time for using gel paint. It would not dry and I did both doors over 4th of July weekend and had to sleep in the kitchen all three nights as I couldn’t shut either the front/side door. Finally, I slipped wax paper in between and could shut the door with no paint sticking. The yards look much better than they did, and my Twist-and-Shout hydrangeas are going to bloom soon – that has not happened in several years. The shamrock bulbs a friend sent to plant have all been dug up and scattered by the squirrels.

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              • All I had was woody stalks and nothing more, so this looks promising. I don’t remember years ago losing anything in the garden and we had bad Winters before. It has to be climate change, and not just warmth wise. Maybe they are not growing plants according to zone or mislabeling them? They said on the news it was our sunniest and warmest June on record with temps to rival August … once again not normal in the least. Are you part of this huge heat wave Kate – we have 93 tomorrow and no end in sight for at least next Wednesday.

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                • We started a run of 90’s yesterday. Tomorrow will be in the high 80’s but we’ll go back to 90 through most of next week. Our June wasn’t overly hot but our spring was cool. Some of the early crops were affected.

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                  • We had 94 today and a “real feel” of 100 and hot until Wednesday. It started “spitting” a little earlier, but not enough to do much good. They’ve been shooting off fireworks since mid-May. I’m going to water tomorrow, but even watering will not help the grass if it sparks – it is already turning yellow and soon will be crispy.

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  5. Now that you mention it, Kate, you are totally right. Appliances break down, people get seriously ill, as you say, also cats. What is going on with Fridays? Neighbours and regulations is a sore point. We have had the barking dog issues (sometimes non-stop, serious – 3 small dogs, used to be 5)with the neighbour right across from us. Many neighbours have tried everything neighbourly and legal routes. Slight improvement, yet a huge deal around here. I, too have done significant blocking/unfollowing. No need for increased, unnecessary negativity. I am a little curious, yet, not prying if too personal, your phrase “some day I may not live here.” Or, just in the overall scheme of life. 🙂

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  6. There’s nothing that speaks of normalcy more than your favorite pizza. Has he been closed? I think Pizza places were one of the few business that did fairly well during these difficult times.

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  7. Lovely, welcoming front door! I bet you do have some enjoyable walks in your neighborhood. The dappled shade is nice. We don’t see a lot of shade. I’m glad your pizza outing went well. It’s so true about the people we miss when we are used to eating some place that is special to us. Good Morning!

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    • Hey good morning to you! It’s good to see that people you know are ok. Technically we don’t know anyone who has/had the virus except for the husband of a former co-worker who died.

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  9. Is that your front porch? It’s beautiful!

    Walks are great for viewing the neighborhoods. I grade the houses I’ve lived in for quality of the walks I can take from them. My daughters also have lived in various places, so I look back (mostly fondly) on the places I could walk from their houses. Berkeley where my oldest lived for a while was fun. I liked the hills and the wide variety of houses and yards. Daughter #2 used to live on a golf course that we liked to walk around. The youngest lived in a gorgeous, leafy part of Nashville. She had the smallest house in a neighborhood full of mansions.

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  10. Yup, everything here breaks on a Friday as well. And worse, several key things broke here during COVID shutdown. On one glorious day, we had no working toilets in our home, and no shops or restaurants were open (or if they were, their toilets were not).
    I hope that your garage door is fixed soon. 😀

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    • My husband gave up on waiting for a repairman and bought another one. It is half installed today and he’ll finish tomorrow. I knew he would do that but he wanted to try a repairman first. No toilets? NNOOOOO!

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  12. Your porch looks really beautiful. We have a family in our condo development sort of like the house you describe. I know they must be testing the patience of both their immediate neighbors but also the condo board. I suspect at some point things will need to be addressed. I’m just glad it’s all on the other side of where we are. – Marty

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  13. When Timmy went missing I discovered that neighborhood walking is really quite pleasant. it turns out the people are quite nice. 🙂 Your portapotty neighbor sounds a bit much though. But I’m sure perfectly nice once you get to know him.

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  14. That first photo is so lovely. Makes you want to walk around and check out gardens and decor all about town. Facebook has evolved into a gigantic cesspool of negativity and vile. Other than our private family page and the blog’s page, I avoid it like the plague. Realizing I wasn’t all that keen on high school classmates from 50+ (egads!) years ago, and the passage of time really didn’t do much to change my old opinions of them made it easy to ‘cull the herd.. Frankly, catching up/staying in touch (by my way of thinking) isn’t about the sharing of stupid crazy political conspiracies and are the first to get chucked. I’ve become ruthless about nixing the negative.

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  17. Yes, all of it! Walking the neighborhood and soaking it in — so many beautiful yards (including yours, such a welcoming entrance!). A few Hillbilly Rodeos happening, but most are tidy and nice. I’ve snoozed a few ranting FB friends and declined a few invitations from FB Friends who I don’t want a relationship with. Nope, nada, no.

    And yeah, stuff always craps out on a Friday. So true!

    Happy almost July!
    MJ

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    • Our township usually acts on things like this. A neighbor installed an above the ground pool (which is forbidden in our development). They never used it nor did they keep it clean. Within weeks it was full of algae and a mosquito breeding ground. One complaint and they had to take it down. They let all the water out but kept the blue plastic on the ground for the rest of the season. Jerks.

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  20. Sounds like you had some good this week (pizza, neighborhood signs) . . . mixed in with a few hiccups (like the garage door and the hillbilly’s parking lot).

    Nothing much to report here. I watched an intriguing movie, Cloud Atlas ~ 6 separate story lines spanning 600 years. It starred Tom Hanks, Halle Barre, Jim Broadbent, etc. Fascinating enough that I watched it twice to see what I missed the first time. Oh, did I mention? It’s 3 hours long.

    And after sitting through it twice, I requested the book Cloud Atlas from the library . . . to see what the filmmakers had to omit. 😀

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