House stuff...

I will never claim to be a home-design expert, but I do think things are looking kind of good around here (at least on the outside) lately.

First: the siding got powerwashed. I can't believe what a difference it makes. Everything looks cleaner (duh!) and brighter. Money well spent! Because of the heat waves and  lack of rain, the flowers out front have been a bit slow to take off this year, but you can see them peeking through in front of the shrubs. (The flowers are a lot prettier out back--and there are more of them. Maybe I'll post some photos of those later.)

Special thanks to the sky for being a lovely shade of blue today.

Second: I paid some folks to tame the thorny shrubs that had threatened to take over the entire front yard. (Well, not quite, but it had gotten bad!) I don't have any "before" pictures to give you a sense of how crazy they were, but I do have some "afters."

Front view of the bushes. Still big, but much tamer!

This whole area that is now open/clear was covered by the bush. You couldn't even see that downspout before (or that cute little statue thing my mom got me for it.)

Finally: the trim got fixed. Yay!

Good as new. And again, check out that blue sky!

And then there's this...

Zoom zoom!

Yeah, that's not a house-repair exactly, but the trim and the shrubs got done within a couple of days of each other and I was so happy about it. That happiness was quickly tempered by the surprise of a flat tire and an eventual $330 charge for two new front tires.

The expensive summer continues...