dragonlady7

I'm currently still debating whether I should drive across the state solo in my push-start-only car. I *could* stop to stretch my legs or pee, if I left the car running. But I couldn't get gas. They make you turn your engine off to get gas.
And if I do make Dave come with me, should I have him drive separately, or should I let him nap on the way (trusting that my car will make it) and then both take the train back out here?
Much to ponder.

In the meantime, Dad's car also failed inspection-- rust in the frame where the steering gear is bolted on, making it structurally unsound, plus the brakes and the tires need replacing, plus the clutch cylinder is going. Additionally, Mom's car needs the rear suspension replaced.
He tells me he's thinking of getting a horse. Which, I must confess, is precisely what I was thinking, only in his case he already has a barn... he could get all Amish in his old age.

But. there is some good news to relieve all that. Mom ordered me bulbs from Burpee as a surprise (though she had to tell me, so I didn't order my own; she just hinted, though, so it was a surprise to open the package)! It's my very first garden of my own. So I have 25 snow crocuses (ultramarine), 20 assorted daffodils, and 20 mixed tulips (should be 40 but Burpee forgot a bag). As a bonus, when I went to dig in the front yard to put in the bulbs there, I found a bunch more crocus bulbs that I'd never suspected were there (I've never seen this house in the spring. Poor things had multiplied and were crowded, so I dug them up as I was turning over the earth, and am redoing my plans to accomodate them now. Funny thing is that when I went to turn over the earth in a spot where I thought crocuses should go but most gardeners wouldn't put them, lo and behold-- there were already bulbs there. So, one of the previous occupants of this house thought like I do. (I suspect Dave's sister Krista, as the bulbs had obviously been there a few years but not long enough for it to have been Matilda. Though it's feasible Jennie put them in over the last what, four years?)
I have never had a yard to landscape before. I need a lilac bush, because no house should be without one. I also think I need a forsythia, but that may be ambitious of me-- you don't generally see forsythias in this neighborhood and that might be because they don't do well. I also need a tree of some kind but can't decide what. (Deciduous, certainly. But should I buy a cute dwarf one-- a fruit tree of some sort, perhaps? or should I collect a specimen from my parents' tree farm-- Dad has a black walnut he needs to move, and i know he has a half-dozen chestnut seedlings going, and there are always the inevitable local sugar maples...) It's made more difficult by the fact that I don't know how long we'll be in this house, but I'm determined to leave it better than I found it at least. If only we could find jobs, we'd stay here...

I did some more puttering, and was all in all quite busy today. If I don't embark on a cross-state kamikaze mission tomorrow, I'll put the rest of the bulbs in, and then be ready for winter. One way or another, our skins will be ready for winter: i got all our sweaters down out of the attic, aired them all out, and retrieved a nice wooden trunk labeled Heinrichs Siefers (Matilda's late husband), washed it, and dried it in the sun to put all the sweaters in it. It's in the corner of my room opposite the trunk with all my trousers in it, which makes for a cozy nook with two seats, by the window so there's decent light. My room is almost put away now-- only took me a month and a half, right?-- and then the living room will somehow miraculously fall into place. I swear, my furniture is all so damn awkward, and doesn't fit anywhere. I just don't know how to organize the stupid room. And I have far, far more books than I do bookshelves, and don't know what to do about that either. I either need a new love-seat or a massive floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. The room is awkward without an entertainment center, but we've decided not to get a TV, and I like it that way. I wish I could think of a way to set the room up so that the entertainment center's conspicuous absence made a nice statement instead of just making the room impossible to organize. I wish I had some design sense.

So, OK, stupidity is universal but not unremitting. My house is nice; now if only I had wheels to leave the house once in a while...