It's been a busy time since moving into our new home and making it really work for us. All we have left to do is have the carpet on the stairs replaced, the shutters in the master bedroom installed, and some rooms upstairs painted - then there's nothing I need or want to do! I'm really pleased with the results - it's beautiful and a delight to live in.

Joey is a year old now. With the exception of his fear of the car and his dislike of going for a walk, he's a really good dog. We're still working on not jumping, but we're getting there.

I've made Easter baskets this year. They are a nice tradition and I'm glad I'm still able to do it.

 

Wow, since my last post when we were improving the backyard at Markham we have sold the house and moved to a townhouse!

Everything happened so fast - after the County came into the yard and cut back our willow without our knowledge, we realized we needed to go...the dog walkers pushed us over the edge. Of course, the five flights of stairs was a major factor too! Happily it turned out to be the right decision and this house will be perfect for us going forward. 

Joey is seven and a half months old and now weighs 6.2 pounds. He had a very bad experience with Vectra 3D on Tuesday and we thought we had lost him but he's slowly coming back to normal...he's scheduled to be neutered on September 11. He's a big boy now!

We got our awning project approved and it should be installed sometime in October. I've ordered the plantation shutters and they should hopefully be ready soon. The new refrigerator comes on September 12, Joel will be building us a new mantel to replace the puny existing one (he's already built us a bookcase shelf for the TV). Once these things are done, the house will be perfect!

Today I'm going to continue finding places for the remaining pictures and decorative objects - it's not as much as it has been! Richard put up the new kitchen fixture last night and Will is going to use the more modern one at his house. It's starting to look like home.

Hopefully I'll start having time to get back into Joomla again. It's been a couple of months and I probably have a lot to re-learn!

 

I've been really sick this week with a bad chest cold. I think I may have picked it up from Dr. O'Neill who had just gotten out of the hospital with pneumonia when he saw us. I've been very tired, sweaty, achy, feverish and have a very tight chest - at first I was constantly coughing but now it's thickened up and just makes breathing difficult. I feel like I'm on the "upside" but I'm still sick...hopefully it will move on soon.

I've finished building and setting up the new Server - it's now upstairs in my office. There's still a lot to learn (I'm reading a book) but I've copied all the old files from the Home Server over to it. I'm going to go through all the stuff and get rid of stuff I don't need and get the pictures and music organized in one place. I really don't need a Server but I'm really enjoying playing with it! It's time to get organized!

I still haven't received my updated debit card - everyone is emailing me to remind me that it's about to expire.

Joey is a challenge - I don't think he "gets" housebreaking yet and has a definite mind of his own. He goes from zero to 60 in a split second. I've begun to leave him behind the gate when I got out and he really doesn't like it. He really needs to learn that what Joey wants, Joey doesn't always get...

Colonial Williamsburg sent me some note cards this week and they're perfect for framing - I found some little frames on Amazon and they look great!

This weekend Richard is going to build a "fence" around the heat pump and hose on the bottom deck. 

I'm still stumped about how to get iframe into modules - something somewhere is blocking it...

Hopefully it will easier to breathe soon - I'll appreciate it once I get it back.

 

We had another productive weekend in our quest to make the backyard a sanctuary! Richard put in the last board for the new entrance deck and it looks great - we went to Lowes and got some flowers to put in three of the many pots from under the house and put them in the area. Richard also added the new shed at the top of the yard and cleaned the area and plans to put down pavers to make a patio area at the gate (it will make getting to the garbage can and lawnmower easier). He also put together the garden bench from Tidewater Workshop and it looks great in the yard. I think the only thing left to do (after making the patio) is to build a partition around the heat pump. It's really surprising how beautiful the backyard is looking now!

Joey was a terror - he went through the fence to Bob and Rita's yard and then under the gate to get out to us. We have vowed to take a very firm stand with him and stop the jumping and whining - Joey is taking over and, as of now, is winning.

I asked IXWebhosting to check on the security of the site and they did a bunch of things and rebooted the server. As of now everything seems good (and hopefully safer!) I also learned how to add all of my domains to my Cloud Account and am doing that. There is so much to learn about the hosting account and it's very slow going.

I've had a chest cold and it getting tiresome. It's better sometimes than others so I think it may be allergy related. I'm going to remember to be grateful when I don't have it anymore.

I've continued to work on the Server. I finally have all the hardware installed and am going to need to figure out a way to transfer the old stuff to the new machine. Hopefully soon I can move everything out of the kitchen. The unfortunate thing is that the PopUp doesn't work anymore with Identifone so I've set up Comcast connect and got a new phone with a very large display so I can tell who's calling. After decades of use, I'm going to miss that...

At least it didn't rain all weekend - it feels like we may have a storm now (but that will save me from having to water all the plants!)