Why again don't we live in a high-rise condo?

Oh, right. We couldn't afford one. Isn't it strange that we couldn't afford to buy a two-bedroom one-bath condo somewhere within city limits (or at least T-accessible), but we could afford to buy a house in the burbs with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a garage, a driveway, a whole mess of trees, and too many plants to keep track of? Why does one get all this responsibility for so much less money? I don't get it, though I spent a good part of Sunday trying to figure it out while I spent time doing work around the outside of the house. It was my once-every-6-weeks "oh yeah, I have to actually do yardwork while living here" project. This time I got rid of all the dead flowers in the planters and window boxes and either put the empty planters away for the season or filled them up with new plants (and I have hope that I'll remember to water these! I am resorting to Miracle Grow this time. I swore I'd never use it, because I wanted my thumb to be green enough to grow a garden without it, but I'm over that now.). Because really, who wants their window boxes to look like this: when they could look like this instead? (Note the pretty little kitty in the right window. Awww. She's so cute when she's on the other side of the glass...)

So the yard was cleaned up a bit. Doug trimmed some of our front bushes and we weeded a bit, not to mention swept the patio and driveway, tied the tomato plant to the fence so it is no longer growing horizontally, and tried to get rid of some of the spiders that live around the house. Perhaps we have so many of them because the summer has been relatively cool and damp, but there are spiders and webs everywhere. In every nook you'll see a web, at least one spider, and usually a sack indicating the impending birth of more. The spiders are particularly rampant in the back of the house (where these lights are located) and in the garage, where it's cool, shady and damp. I blame the trees. I want to cut some of the branches back so the house gets more sunlight, making it dryer around the yard. Doug likes the shade. But I feel that the trees and shade breed bugs, and I hate bugs.

After a while I couldn't stand being around the spiders anymore (I won't even get into the story about the giant, dark, fuzzy spider living INSIDE the growbox that the wrath of the hose wouldn't even kill) so I moved on to indoor chores. I joined Doug who was putting up a couple of new light fixtures (he's on a role). We replaced the ones in the small back porch, and the one in the vestibule near the kitchen. We now have two working lightbulbs in each light, and when I came into the house tonight I was amazed at how bright it was! Good lighting is very important, more important than I thought.

I also finally hung up the art we got at the Mystic Art Show. I had to move the nature scene down the wall a bit to make room for this guy:I don't know what he is, exactly, but I like him. A lot. He's eating a book! He's white and round and pudgy! I'm ignoring the spider web in it! But it adds something to the wall. For every two Victorian-era prints of some kind of bird or rodent we need at least one fun picture, so this works out nicely.

What also works out nicely is the new cabinet we got at Brimfield on Saturday for a steal. $50! It is no quality heirloom piece, but then again, at Brimfield what really is? This barrel chair?This giant cheeseburger? Actually, this boat that my mom, brother, and Doug are gathered around is an heirloom piece. It's an old rowboat lovingly and expertly restored. The finish on this boat is amazing.The restorer-guy also did old Old Town canoes, and those were masterpieces, too. Pieces you wouldn't put in the water but would instead hang on the wall in your chain restaurant, because a big corporation like T.G.I. Friday's would be the only one that could afford to buy such a boat. But man. They were impressive.

Impressive, too, was the selection of Pyrex at the show on Saturday. There was a complete set of Pyrex New Dots mixing bowls for only $55, but I just couldn't part with the money. I don't need more bowls, and I've seen Hoarders and in no way want to start a collection of anything, because oh the slippery slope! But I did get one Pyrex bowl. A squarish bowl from my mother's set. I've already used it. I like it. And I've told my mother to write me into her will for her set (and not to break them!).

Anyway, the cabinet was intended for our upstairs bathroom, but it was just not fitting in. Wasn't the right style, was a little too long... so we put it in the sun/cat room now that we have the space (thank you, fish, for unfortunately passing away, because now we don't have to have that giant fish tank in the house anymore!). What do you think? It's going to hold my bags so I don't have to drop them on the floor when I come home from work, but I think it's a much better cat holder, don't you? Meg agrees.