I am back!

 I got back from my son's house pretty late last night. There was A LOT of construction on 80, with one lane traffic. This created huge bottlenecks because people will wait until the last damn minute to merge. Traffic crawled for miles. Consider the fact that there were 5 or 6 of these construction zones, welp...I did not get home until almost 7. I was whupped. 

It was such a fun visit, as always. 

Today was a jump up and get on the road. We have a tenant that is particular. She did not like her apartment sized washer and dryer. It was replaced with an LG all in one. She didn't like that. It is something that Tim and I feel strongly about. Clean clothes are a basic human dignity, so everyone has a washer and dryer. I said to the tenant, "We have met our scope of responsibility. This is a new $1900 unit. If you are unhappy with it, we will pull it, but you can buy your own." 

This was the morning. She messaged me over the weekend.  I told her to call Tim, that I was not home. She didn't. That meant that the first Tim heard that we had to get an appliance moved was late last night.

So, we got up early and got going. Tim was cranky. We did not have any place to store this appliance. He snapped, 'I am hauling it to the scrap yard.'  

I told him he wasn't. The machine was installed on April 17th, 2025. I told him there were plenty of people who'd be glad for a new washer. I put an ad on a Helping Hands site, and then we wheeled it to the road to load on the truck. These things are heavy as heck, so it was a bit of huffing and puffing. 

A guy passing by in his truck stopped to give a hand and the job was done. Tim asked him if he wanted it.

"No," he said, and asked how much we wanted for it. Tim told him it was free. My husband was bound and determined that he was not moving that thing into the basement where we have a stock pile of appliances. Like I said, the thing is heavy.

Our helper took down our number and names and drove away. We went down the street and dug up a snowball bush from the old house that I wanted to take to the new. I also wanted some lamb's ear.

We were about to head out when my phone rang. It was an elderly man. He and his wife were raising their great-grandkids, if you can believe it. They had just had their washer repaired and had been told that it was on its last legs. A stepson had called to tell him about ours. 

We told him it was on our truck and that we would deliver it.

And we did. 

His wife was so pleased. A naked 3 year old came to the door with her. I laughed and said that if the rest of them dressed like this one, she might not need to do laundry at all. Great-grandma wearily said, "this week she doesn't want to wear clothes."

We got the washer off the truck with the ramps and wheeled up on their porch. Their son in law was coming after work to switch everything out. We left the dolly there. He will drop it at the old house tomorrow.

Tim's mood brightened considerably once he stopped worrying about that washer. We stopped to grab a late lunch. "What should we do now?"

I reminded him that there was a bush we needed to get in the ground. I did suggest stopping by a yard sale on the way out of town. I had seen a hummingbird feeder that was perfect for my bottle tree.

The proprieter was a talker. He and his wife had just moved in. I pointed to their fence behind the house and explained that on the other side of that was our backyard. One thing led to another, and somehow he wound up on the subject of guns.

"You may not agree with me but if they're going our guns away ('oh no...not one of those!') the only ones left with guns will be law enforcement, and those seem to be the people we have to worry about."

Could have knocked me over with a feather. 

The evening was spent planting a bush, hanging my new bird feeder and two solar lanterns on my bottle tree. 

I have my first zucchini from my own garden.