Since I've retired.......

It's been almost 9 months since I've retired.. Getting up before 8 ( and sometimes before 7) is the norm. I was never ever a morning person, but, damned if I'm not now! We make our morning run to TC Market (about 5 miles away) to see what's in the deli. If it's something good, it's our "brunch". After "brunch" settles in, a daily nap ensues. Maybe some cleaning or laundry happens after the nap....maybe. I've become a slug. If I'm not on the iPad or iPhone, I'm catching up on DVRd television. I'm just too busy to clean, let alone do laundry!

But, spring has sprung & summer is nearly upon us, and I woke up! We've given the front of the house some curb appeal! A clematis is the centerpiece of our little garden with succulents and dianthus scattered around. My beautiful dogwood croaked this past winter, so it had to come down.:-( And in its place, in order to continue to feed the hummingbirds that came every year to that tree, this is what we came up with! Finally, the part of the house under the bedroom window was pitiful, just plain pitiful..With the rest of the front of the house looking very cool, we had to fix that, too. This was harder to do. I had to actually paint!! I had several versions up, until I decided this was it! The Browns flamingos made it perfect!!

I forgot! Right after I got my retirement money, the first thing I wanted to do is have a deck built. My back yard is weird. You go UP into it! Then there's a gulley between the house & yard. So, we had the deck built to cover the gulley. In addition, we put a back door in to go from the kitchen onto the deck. I must admit, this is one of the best ideas I've ever had! I can let the dogs out from the house now and not have to go outside, open the gate, let them in the yard and wait for them to do their bidness, then back into the house. This back door is a Godsend!

Brunch has settled in...time for a nap.