I guess I haven't felt the need to write much lately. But in keeping with my propensity to forget the life that passes by like shooting rapids, I should jot down a few of the highlights (not too many lowlights) of the past coupla months.
On the weekend that I left the soccer field that night (or pitch, as we call it due to the need to provide the affectations of World Cup parlance once every 4 years), I started digging in the yard. Flattening a mound, shall we say. When we moved into this ever-changing house 11 (!) years ago, the interior was acceptably appointed but the exterior needed lots of work, and work we have done. The back patio has been a mosquito infested bog with backsloping concrete into an areaway that we never use anymore and tends to flood in heavy rains. A large raised garden surrounded by dry laid stone was smack in the middle of the concrete patio slab, someone's idea of bringing landscape and hardscape together in a most clumsy manner, as the negotiations required to get to the grill involved stumbling down 2 oddly placed steps and avoiding the stones. So that Sunday I started moving stones and dirt, making sense of the yard that had been a cluttered mess.
Six weeks later we had a party upon which many of our friends ate and drank merrily on or near six tons of bluestone dust, 400 square feet of flagstone, 2 glass block window panels, low voltage lighting, a buried areaway, and a revamped subgrade drainage system from the roof. We did it ourselves, and much credit needs to go to the patient family, who put up with the mess for a good chunk of the summer. Pictures in a future post, since I'm lazy right now. We worked morning and evening, weekend days and whenever we could squeeze it in. Throw in a family vacation to the Outer Banks, as is our routine, and various other things that I forgot since that's what I tend to do, and it was a great, no, actually a GREAT summer.
What else...turned the corner on playing the guitar, thanks to my partner/teacher/high school kid named Adam who happens to live in this house...got in some miles, but not a lot, due to the patio work, but definitely benefitted from the cross-training effect...went to another family reunion at Deep Creek Lake after a day and night at Lake Holiday with friends, in which my friend Mike LOST HIS WEDDING RING IN THE LAKE but then IN AN IMPROBABLE TURN OF EVENTS HE FOUND IT ON THE SANDY LAKE FLOOR because that's just the way life has been treating us...set up the 'cross rig with Campy 1 x 10 (sooooonice)...watched the cats slack off in the rodent killing department...participated in an impromptu IPA tasting session with our neighbors...figured out how else I'm going to tear apart the house this fall to "improve our quality of life"...lost about 5 lbs. per month since June in my effort to get down to a manageable weight so that I can stop getting dropped on hills slightly bigger than speed bumps...and changed the way I eat, what I eat, and how much I eat, which means that I will need to refresh the old wardrobe soon, which is money I'm happy to spend...and got to see lots of my friends at Susanna's Back to School Night tonight. Don't ask me what I learned about their curriculum. I think it was something along the lines of homework blah blah blah deadlines blah blah blah due dates blah blah blah [euphemisms endemic in school chatter] blah blah blah. It was all very nice to hear, but I was more jazzed by seeing all of MY friends, who(m?) I see every year at this function.
And of course, the patio isn't done yet, but it's SUBSTANTIALLY COMPLETE.
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