I finally took my new laptop to a computer place to have the information from the old laptop moved to the new laptop and I was really pleased with the service. For an additional fee they are basically my IT department for a year where I can have three more maintenance appointments for my laptop (what they did this past week was my first maintenance service of a total of four) and if any parts need to be replaced, I get them at half price.
This past week my good friends Barb and Jim came over to help with a couple of things. First was to put the plates on my car. I didn't think it would be too hard but since I had an issue with my weed eater I thought I'd see if Jim would help with the plates too. He looked at the screws on the car where the license goes and said he needed a Phillips screw driver. I just looked at him and then looked down at the screws to see they had an "X" in the top so I'd know what he was talking about :) He took the plates out of the plastic wrap and put my year sticker on it - I looked at him and said I could have done that part myself :) Then he helped with putting a new reel of string in my weed eater. Last week when I finished mowing and was weed eating in the backyard my weed eater tried to eat a large stick and got all messed up. I was too hot, tired and sweaty to mess with changing the reel right then and the way I was jerking on the weed eater didn't help either. The night Jim and Barb were here, when I wasn't hot, sweaty and tired, I realized I could have figured out changing the reel on my own but it was nice to have them here to help. Jim also tightened some of the screws on the gate of my privacy fence.
I have a cloth on my towel rack by the sink in my bathroom to wipe up splatters of water - something I learned from Mom. Actually if you are in a public restroom (or maybe more my work restroom) with me, you'll see me take paper towels and wipe the sink I used so it's not wet for the next person. Anyway...when I was my face I splash water on my face, lather up and then use my face wash cloth to rinse everything off. Evidently I wasn't too with it because the sink wiping cloth is a faded orange and my face wash cloth is white. I rinse my face twice after washing it and on the second rinse I realized my wash cloth wasn't white.........it was orangeish. Great I just washed my face with the cloth I use to wipe the sink........
A while back I mentioned I was giving my snake issue to God so I wouldn't have all the little "pets" in my yards like I had last year. Well God must have decided I need to learn something because I have them again in both yards. I saw one in my front yard and then a couple of weeks ago there was a dead snake on my front sidewalk. I texted my neighbor to the north (I had left early that Saturday morning) to see if he would get rid of the body for me. I told him he could put it in my trash can as long as he bagged it. I later found out the snake wasn't quite dead......... So I'm not sure if that was the snake I had seen earlier this season or if this was a second snake for the front yard.
Then the second time I mowed, after I had walked the mower by the sidewalk in the back yard a snake popped up on the sidewalk - that was the first snake sighting this season. I couldn't believe it - especially since I had just walked where it was - blick, blick, blick. I had read that wasp spray kills snakes so I bought some spray. I saw one and sprayed the poo out of it - no idea if it crawled off and died or what. Then the day I got the new car was the day I saw the "big" one - and I only saw half of it. I couldn't even bring myself close enough to spray it with wasp spray. When I went back outside later it was gone and another garter snake was in it's place - that one got sprayed from head to tail. Then last Sunday after church I saw the triplets - yep three at one time in my back yard. Two got sprayed like crazy and I saw where one crawled back under my cement porch. The third was over by my hibiscus plant and I didn't have the spray with me right then so it got away. The next day I saw part of a body in the back yard and that night asked my neighbor to dispose of the body. I gave him paper towels and the garbage bag and about had to go back into the house - he looked at me, and tried to hand the trash bag to me saying, "you want to use this in your kitchen can now don't you?" I just looked at him and then laughed.
So I called the pest place that had sprayed snake repellent three times last year to have a guy come out and see what was going on. He knew all the things Dad and I had done to discourage snakes and then walked all around my property to note any holes snakes may use - remember I learned last year that snakes can't make holes, they use existing holes. He gave me a quote to plug all the holes and cracks in the sidewalks and retaining walls.........$600. I about fell over when I read that email. And to quote Mike, "do I get a kiss with that?" If you have no idea what that means, that's probably good :)
So I bought some of the foaming spray to fill holes but couldn't bring myself to get close to the hole I had seen the snake go in to plug it with the spray because I would need to be really close to it and low to the ground. I hadn't seen any snakes (except for a really little one that slithered from under my butterfly bush when I mowed this week) so I thought tonight it would be safe to try to spray the foam in the hole. I approached the hole carefully, looked all around and started to spray. Now....if you have never used the foam spray, a little spray is needed because it expands on its own. Somehow I got some of the foam in my hair - no idea how that happened - and I'm trying to pull it out. I checked the foam a few minutes ago and it really expanded. It ain't pretty folks, but that hole is taken care of.
I realized I needed to lower the wheels of my mower so it would cut my grass lower - where the wheels were set, the grass grew pretty good in a week. But a week ago when I lowered the wheels I scalped the hill by my driveway - so the wheels had to go back up with some help from my neighbor two houses to the north. I think I finally know how to move the wheels back up without too much struggle - so the back yard and most of the front yard is mowed on one setting, then the wheels go up a notch to mow my two hills - such fun.
And thought I'd share another pic of my buddy Butler. I posted this on Facebook a few days ago - he's waiting for me to share my Pop Tarts with him :)
