Dirt

Last week my parents dropped off a truckload of good topsoil in my backyard. The soil already in my yard is really hard and clayish, and I want to expand my vegetable garden area, so I need this soil. But I didn't have time until last night to start spreading it around to where it needed to be. All day, I was planning on coming home from work and moving dirt. But when I got home, what had once been a tidy 3-foot pile in the corner of my yard was now a much thinner pile covering my driveway and part of the street, with little footprints throughout and a pair of socks lying in the middle of it. I wish I had taken a picture, but my initial thoughts were hardly centered on how funny it was. My first reaction was, in fact, somewhat un-neighborly. Something to the effect of "My yard is not the neighborhood playground! Keep your kids out!" I immediately changed my clothes and went out to start sweeping it up into a nice pile again so I could distribute it. Gradually, all of my neighbors came out and apologized in case their kids had been the culprits, and all the kids came out and blamed the mess on each other. And as I kept sweeping, I got to thinking- it was a big pile of dirt. Few things are as enticing to little kids on a clear summer day as a big pile of dirt. Of course they were going to play in it. And really, it only took about twenty minutes to gather the pile again. And once I was done with that, one of my neighbors came over and helped me shovel it to the garden area. As we got working, the kids all thought it looked fun. Eventually we had two grown-ups and five little kids helping shovel the dirt. Let's just say with that many (little) people, a lot of dirt ended up on the grass rather than the garden. But the lawn needed a dirt refreshment anyway, so no worries.

I'm Online!

Check it out! I'm at my house, and I'm online. I installed the internet myself! Without help! I actually did a computer thing right! Plus, in the last few days, I've figured out how to program my sprinklers, I reset my garage opener so it doesn't open randomly when I'm not home, and I hung curtains! I think I might just be ready to have a house after all. Next task: get a tv signal. I might need help on that one. Specially since the antenna I plan on using is at my parents' house.

The super big news!

I tried to post this yesterday, but the website was having problems. So instead I put in on Facebook, which means most of you already know this. But, for posterity's sake, I still have to blog about it. I have a house! And a much smaller bank account! But a house! After six weeks of the mortgage company asking for one piece of documentation at a time, always promising it would be the last thing they needed, and then one week of them realizing they wrote the loan wrong and had to start over, they finished on Monday. The girl from the title company came to my office yesterday and I spent my lunch time signing papers, and now I'm done! I spent today's lunch calling all the utilities companies and having the accounts switched to my name. It's a wonderful feeling to know I can stop emailing my banker and my realtor every few hours to find out the status of the paperwork. Yeah!! Now the real fun begins, right? I have my own yard to landscape however I want (within the HOA guidelines), I have my own walls to paint however I want, I can hang shelves and pictures wherever I want, etc., etc. This could be fun!