Did a lot this weekend:
We did our neighborhood street clean. We had a small crew but made a big find. There's an area behind a gas station where homeless people are living - have been for a long time. There was an "urban campsite" where a "tenant" living under a magnolia tree behind a gas station was squatting. There were clothes and a carboard bed, but hanging out from underneath the cardboard were all sorts of papers. Legal papers from a bunch of different people. So - we were trying to figure out if they were the homeless person's or if they were stolen. We asked a cop to check it out. I feel like our cops are so in-tune with what's going on. We described where the site was & he thought he knew who the guy was / he said he'd check it out. Don't know what happened, but I am curious!
After that, Todd worked on a project in the back yard - putting stone under the hammock to clean up the area. I went to a carnival. Another community service event, however, a fun one! I'm involved in a couple of different organizations... one at the city level & one at the community level, but both are affiliates of the Keep Georgia Beautiful program. Our county group held a carnival for the volunteers. There were all sorts of games (a water-gun shooting gallery, a cake walk, a dance contest, a pig run with wind-up pigs, putt putt, bowling, etc). I was in charge of face painting. It was fun.
Later that night, we went to dinner at a friend's house... the couple who we went to Italy with. They made us some marscapone pizza and some pear / gorgonzola pizza. It has been a year since we went to Italy with them. Afterwards, we went to an "intern house" party to see a couple of people off -- people who work at my office & who are moving on to new jobs.
Much of Saturday was play. Sunday was all work. It wasn't so bad, however. I started the day working on a couple of pages of our adoption website. I had tinkered around Saturday morning with it. (I got an "inspiring" email from Todd's friend, Bob, out in San Fran who we went to school with. He studied architecture, too, but has been in graphic design & computer stuff ever since school. I think he read my mind -- I was intimidated to start a website b/c of the media -- I'm unfamiliar with it. SO TRUE!) So, I just dove in and figured out a little bit of stuff. I encounted a glitch in the program / crashed / lost one page... but I have 2 so far. Now, I have to figure out how the heck to link them -- and to actually post it on the site. The website builder is an external program / it will have to be uploaded somehow. (Baby steps!)
After getting tired of tinkering on the computer, I put my efforts to use out doors. We had some of the stone left over from the hammock project (we brought a total of 1 1/2 tons of stone to the house on Saturday thanks to the use of a neighbor, Orie's, trailer!). This stone is a mini split pea gravel. In the pond, we had regular-sized pea gravel along the stream and in the bottom of the pond. I was never that fond of it b/c it didn't look too natural. So...... I placed several hundred pounds of mini pea gravel gently into the stream and pond handful by loving handful (as to not hurt the fish) . UGH. Admittedly, I didn't finish 100% of it before dark. I have about 50 lbs of stone left to do today. Both of us are really pleased with the results, though! It looks way more natural than it did before. (Wonder if the pond guys will be upset with us?)
Todd cleaned out the stream with a wet vac (sucking up all of the scum) last weekend. Sunday, he did the pond. There's so much icky brown water coming out of the bottom... but that stuff is oh-so-good for our plants! We're in a total watering ban right now - so we're saving all of the gray water (or in this case brown water) that we can. Barbara, our neighbor across the street (who is an avid gardner) didn't think we should NOT landscape this fall as originally planned; she encouraged us to use our shower water to keep the plants alive. Ok. I'm the "sustainability" consultant. How come we weren't doing this already?! Duh. Todd & I have been taking showers with a bucket in there so we can capture some of the water (especially that coming out of the spigot when waiting for the water to warm up). Barbara's going to give us a bunch of plants from around her pond later this month or next month, so this is a fabulous suggestion!!!
I should go. I wanted to report on the little bit of progress made on the adoption website. Also, we have an appointment today with an adoption consultant. I'm sure I'll have more to write about after that. -- c
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