Well the last year-and-a-half have been complete upheavals and as much as I'd like to get some settling-down done it probably isn't going to happen. LOL. Initially our plans were to move back, settle in and improve our home. We've done mostly cosmetic improvements since July -new carpeting and painting in the basement, new floor in the upstairs bath as well as new sink/vanity and toilet. In the kitchen we put in a new stove and refrigerator. We're going to do some more work in the kitchen -new counters and floor and repainting cabinets. We were looking at an addition that would have added a new bedroom, master bath and enlarged the master bedroom. We also were going to upgrade and put in central air. Instead we have come to the realization that such an addition would completely price our home out of the surrounding neighborhood. We live on a street of very modest ranch homes that are the smallest and lowest-value homes in the entire division. It would make no sense to put so much money into our home when none of the neighbors are currently doing any similar improvements. In fact I've become even less enthused with the neighborhood. Some of the homes have recently sold and there has been some quality of life issues with some of the new neighbors. Two of the properties are currently vacant. One seems to be always up for sale and one is a vacant rental property that has been slowly deteriorating since the original owners sold it two years ago. Sooooooooo we may be doing fix-up with an eye to sell. If we don't decide to sell, I've got seeds I'm ordering and a garden to re-do after a year of neglect. BIG project. DS thinks only DD exists in our photo albums so a big project on my list is to get all our photos up to date in albums. I've been doing artwork (paintings and jewelry) that I'm looking to sell online. I plan to open a shop this month on Etsy. My grandfather did a lot of stained glass work and I inherited his glass. I want to take some classes and put these materials to good use. I want to make something special from the glass to give to each of my siblings. My descriptor has been 'flux'. Flux 2008.

The oleander is the variety they sell at WalMart on clearance when it has a touch of scale and is potbund. I realized today that technically I protected the oleander because I sprayed it with Wilt-Pruf late last month. I'd like to hit it again before it turns cold again. I killed a gloriosa last year with no protection or special siting. It was buried under snow and ice for upwards of 3 months. This one hasn't had snow on it for more than a day because all of the snow on the ground is melted around it. We only had 7" of snow in December, it will be gone tomorrow, but it's been consistently cold, 10 straight and then 12 straight days below freezing with a monthly low of 8. Could've been worse.

And a Happy New Year from the suburbs of the D to all of the Small Homers tonight! Health and good cheer to all.

And the same to you! I think that's about when we got our second computer and were able to get on line. Tami