Oh

Okay, so I signed on to post pictures, but my little camera is downstairs (and I'm not even sure where its special USB cable is, which explains why I haven't posted pictures in so long, not to mention the just-realized fact that my new upstairs computer doesn't have Photoshop...)

*SIGH*

Maybe tomorrow. Or not -- I'm taking Mom to the airport (*sniff!!* We miss you, Granna!) and plan to kick up my heels a bit -- um, I mean, take care of some essential business and errands -- in Albuquerque, since I have to drive the 200 miles anyway. In Mom's wonderful new car. With the babes at home in Papa's loving care.

I got me some serious road-trip fever now.

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Garden update:

I haven't been able to work on my gardens (yes, I always use the plural; it sounds more impressive) nearly as much as I'd like, thanks to a busy workload (thank you!!), but I've managed to get in some vegetable seeds and tomato plants, and have the veggie garden drip irrigation system all set up except for two (out of six) beds' worth of emitters. (Emitters get the water from the black tubes snaking across the yard right to the plants, and I just got a sampling of fancy-schmancy ones that only a total gardening geek could appreciate...)

Tomorrow (in Albuquerque, where my choices go WAY BEYOND WALMART) I'm going to get four to six heirloom tomatoes (fancy term for really tasty older varieties that haven't had the taste hybridized right the heck out of them) to replace the Big Boy plants (from WALMART) that croaked seven minutes after I planted them. I also plan to take another stroll through Plants of the Southwest, where Mom and I had a lovely time last week looking at native and drought-tolerant trees, flowering shrubs and such. (Their Web site doesn't begin to do the place justice -- the place is just heavenly.)

I also want to take another look at the Imperial Honey Locust tree I've tentatively picked out for the back yard. That is, for that empty stretch of dust and rock between the house and the shed that currently doesn't even sport weeds because, well, it's an empty stretch of dust and rock that the dogs and the child (the mobile one, that is) and other assorted creatures trample endlessly. The plan: put the tree in once fall comes, then landscape around it, outward, to break up said empty space. So this summer (after I finish this big work project, and the veggie garden, and the drip system for that and the border gardens that currently sport nothing much because it's just about IMPOSSIBLE to grow stuff here) I'll start moving rocks and hauling manure back there to get the space ready.

I know, I'm such a glamour queen.
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House stuff:

I love my little house. It's way too small, but it'll do nicely for now, and with a $450 mortgage (yep, one zero, no numbers missing there) I won't complain. Just for perspective, I took a looksie through home prices in my old California neighborhood, where we bought a cosmetic-fixer for just under $170K in late 2000. Wow. A house behind our former home is listed for $355K -- as is, with "untold potential," in a bankruptcy sale. A full 100K over what we sold our house for just over two years ago. That's just insane. Which is what I thought when we sold the house for 90K more than we paid a mere two years after buying it. But this is more insane. The house wasn't that nice.

No, I do not regret leaving Southern California. I miss my (spacious) home there, but geez. My property taxes there would be more than my mortgage here.

Of course, our street there was paved, too.

;-)