Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Around the House Randoms

We moved into our home in March 2010. Last month, I uncovered this from the top shelf of our coat closet:
The brown paper = brown paper. I know, exciting stuff. I was hoping to uncover a secret treasure map by their two boys, Joe & Jacob. How do I know their names, you ask? Well...
They left their mark in our garage. We half wondered if we'd add to the madness and paint Andrew's name. Then he died. Now we just want to paint the whole darn thing.

Moving on. The large white scroll is a layout of our entire property and the landscaping. Thank goodness they invested in that because we have close to no creativity in that arena. I did, however, pull a grip of weeds today. Why doesn't anyone use "grip" anymore? Dang. Miss that word.

The notebook? It turns out that the two boys wrote a journal together on a family trip to India. They are an Indian family and they now live in Florida. They were the second owners of our house. The first owners also moved to Florida. I can assure you we will not be moving to Florida. I already have my sights set on retiring in the Pacific Northwest. You know. In 30+ years. Until then, we're staying put in the flat-as-a-pancake state.

My favorite entry: January 15, 2003

"Few minutes before landing at Ohare. I am ready for home, for my N64, for my toys and for my friends. But it is sad to leave behind my family. My favorite part of the vacation was climbing the mountain at (?). I am leaving behind in India crowded streets, sales people that never stop asking you to buy their product, bars on the windows of every single house, the kitchens that are too big (who complains about that?), driving on the opposite side of the road, the Indian food except for Dosa, the heat and the dirtiness and the way you wash your butt."

Doesn't that look like a woman's writing? Nope. A boy.
 My favorite is how he writes quite sophisticated and then switches over to crappy kid writing at the end as he writes about wiping his butt. In his defense, the context of his writing suggests that the plane might be landing. That could cause for anyone's writing to shift gears a bit.

And here I go shifting gears. This is the blueberry banana walnut oatmeal from...................................
McDonald's! Anyone else surprised? It was awesome and there were at least 25-30 fresh blueberries on top! The best part, it was free! McD's sent me a freebie promotional coupon for this new oatmeal and I tried it out. It was no steel cut as I'm normally used to eating, but it was pretty darn good.

Want more freebies? How about this! My friend Liz sent me an email yesterday telling me that if I were to drop off a bag at my local Goodwill store, I'd get a voucher for a pair of free Tim McGraw lawn tickets! I sent that bad boy in yesterday. We'll see if two tickets show up in my mailbox now.
We have a huge deck and animals love visiting us. We get raccoons all the time (ick), Orioles, Cardinals, Robins, squirrels, foxes, and bunnies! Here was a little guy I spotted yesterday. They enjoy living underneath the deck so we always have quite a few around to enjoy. True Wilson fact: we can't stand house pets but love wildlife.
Closeup with this baby bunny.

And finally... this almost needs its own post.

We have a plant that has died and has come back to life many times. We received it as a condolence gift after Andrew died. It's about 6 months old. Ugh. It's actually a Peace Lily but the main lily was looking pretty shabby so I chopped it. There's another small one, but it can't be seen in these photos. We treat it much like a houseplant and don't really like to associate the plant with Andrew. As a matter of fact, we held onto most plants we were sent for a couple days and then had a friend come pick them up and take them to the nursing home she works at. They likely enjoyed them more than we did.

Here's what I noticed at about 11:40 a.m. yesterday. Peace lily was looking quite dead.
This was about 3-4 hours later after I fed him water.
And an hour after that... around 5 p.m. yesterday, no joke.
It's somewhat nice because it always tells us when it's thirsty unlike most plants we attempt to keep that end up wilted, yellowed, and broken. Weird, huh?

That's all, folks.

10 comments:

Lj82 said... [Reply to comment]

RANDOM post! ahha

I love that you found an old journal. And the painting in the garage, while annoying, is super cute. There was a little girl in the family we bough our house from- Ava. She drew in crayon over the side of our exterior brick, writing her name over and over. It's STILL there, 5 years later. ha. whatever.

As for the Tim McGraw tickets, I will be sooooo jealous.

Also, I could give you this cat I know of. If I pinch her ears up all cute like, would you add her to your Wilson woodland creatures like the rabbit? :)

Molly said... [Reply to comment]

Oh dear.... i should've waited to send that last email til i read your post... now REALLY lmao!

Ok, what's up with people washing the boy's butt??? linda freaked out by that. and a little bit of dark hunmor laughing at the talk of andrew's name on the garage wall... just bc i know you wouldn't really do it

and laughing that ur such a veg, but you hate animals.... except wildlife..LJ and i eat them but help rescue pets. WTF is wrong w u??

Ahahahhahah luv ya!!! and loving me some wine! :)

Rebecca said... [Reply to comment]

I have the blackest thumb you can imagine, but I bought a peace lily when I graduated college 9 years ago and it's alive to this day. I can ignore it till it looks like it will never bounce back and then water it and within a day it's back! Best. Plant. Ever.

AshleaD said... [Reply to comment]

Brandon and I are totally going to that Tim McGraw concert! Lawn seats!
(and 4 other major country concerts this summer... I am trying my hardest to get that boy to like country music!)

Dianna said... [Reply to comment]

The plant pictures are hilarious! Glad it perked back up!

Team Clancy said... [Reply to comment]

Totally random - have you guys ever gone ot the French market in Wheaton on Saturdays? Seems like something you would like :-)

I have NEVER been able to keep a houseplant alive. Never.

Kelly said... [Reply to comment]

I love this random post. :)

I have a bunny in my yard that has been eating all my plants. I wish that bunny would disappear into a far away land.

I love that your plant keeps coming back to life. :) And such a wonderful idea that you gave all your condolence plants to the nursing home. I hated all ours, as they wilted away, reminding us of why we got them in the first place.

Keleen said... [Reply to comment]

I am all over you guys retiring to the PNW, I love it here and will never leave even though I am a meat eating animal rescue-er!

I hate plants...like really hate them. I've never been able to keep one alive (yet my animals all thrive so I'm not completely useless). And then that thing happened and the whole world sent us flowers and plants. I actually loved the plants because long after the flowers had died they were still around and so I learned to water them and now I have 6 month old plants too...well really one I love the rest could wither away. So now I have a damn plant to water, but I do because it's there and it "reminds' me that it's thirsty too!

Brooke said... [Reply to comment]

The journal is too funny. I also have a peace lily that I got when I left a job over five years ago. It has died and come back to life many a time. We got another one when Eliza died but I made my mom take it home. Ugh. Your house is so entertaining.

Tiffany said... [Reply to comment]

hilarious. lol. thanks for the laugh.