Eanna

Arizona summers are like northern winters: the plants die, most of the birds migrate elsewhere, and everyone stays indoors to escape the extreme weather. Main difference is, here we don't get a nice blanket of snow to cover up the mess that is the yard. All our sins, in the form of abandoned gardening tools, half-finished projects, and crispy hanging plants that we forgot to water one week in May, are naked for the eye to see. That's why I was out in the heat this weekend sweeping several inches of monsoon litter off the patio, ripping up dead tomatoes, and bailing swamp water out of the pond. I'm refinancing the house, which means an appraiser will be out here this week or next, and I don't want the place to look like a disaster area. Last time I did a re-fi the appraiser did a drive-by and valued my house based on another one in the neighborhood that supposedly looked similar. Bleh.

The re-fi is because I'm doing a remodel on the kitchen. The little galley kitchen I've got was fine when I moved in straight from my apartment, but it's gotten cramped over time and showing its age. What I originally proposed to the contractor was "well, I just want to replace the cabinets and countertop, maybe a larger sink.." And he's all "You need to get rid of this window and move the door so we can pull the breakfast bar out and put in corner cabinets with lazy susans..." And it was hard to argue with the guy because he was reading my mind.

I just hope the job doesn't take as long as the quote has. He's better now, but the guy developed kidney stones halfway through and was on interesting drugs for about a week. Holy cow.
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