Flyin solo

While Jonathan gallivanted about Boston with some Rutgers teammates I stayed home in Phoenix and worked about the house. No complaints here, honestly, I got quite a bit done!  The projects I had in mind to start and or finish were, 1. finishing the walk way, 2. finding a better organizational method for the tiny space that is our laundry closet and 3. start cleaning the walls and priming the hall bath. Oh, and of course some back rides for Toby.

 

Saturday, after Jackson and I made a trip to the dog park, we headed to Lowes to pick up 12 bags of white rock.  Decorative landscaping rock to be precise.  Back home I unloaded the bags, setting them along the walkway and realized I was short, but no worries, it was a good starting point.  After cutting into and spreading a few bags I realized the white rock wasn't going as far as I'd like so I started transporting wheelbarrow loads of spare gravel from the back yard to the walkway to serve as bottom fill, thus enabling the contents of the bags of white rock to spread further.  I got about 3/4 of the way down the walk but had to call it a day since I was out of rock and had a few other projects I wanted to start.  On a side note, this was about the time I noticed we had our very first cactus flower!  Check it out, its quite pretty and has already been joined by a few other blossoms. At the time the first picture was taken three little bees were dancing it up in the flower.

      

After a quick, and successful trip to Ikea I returned home with all the equipment I needed to clean up and better organize the laundry closet. I took a break from my projects to try an cheer up a mopey Jackson, but it was of little use.  He was clearly disappointed that Jonathan was away.  Even when I got home from Ikea I was greeted with one of the most lack luster Jackson greetings I've ever experienced.  By this point I was starting to get a little parent envy, slightly bothered that he was so pouty with only my presence.

Sunday I was enjoying a decent run when with 1 mile to go some sort of foot failure occurred forcing me to somewhat hobble my way home.  Not sure what happened but the challenge of not putting pressure on toes that feel like they're being hit with a hammer on each step is just plain obnoxious. With coffee in hand Jackson and I traveled to the dog park, where he chased the ball about for a little while, before heading back to Lowes for more rock.  I only bought 10 bags this time.  I continued laying a foundation of pebble then spreading white rock and wouldn't you know it, I was about 2 1/2 bags short.  There was no way I wasn't going to finish this project so I hopped back in the truck and picked up 4 more bags just to be sure. When I finished spreading the rock I had about a bag and a half left over, but the sense of completion and look of the walkway was worth the extra trip!  I randomely came across the picture on the right (below)which shows the front yard just after we scraped off all the red rock and got the grand idea of starting a very difficult, time consuming walkway.  Took quite some time, but look how great its turned out!!

 

After I finished the walkway I turned inside to finish the laundry closet as well as start working on priming the hall bath.  I wish I had a before picture, but below is a view of the improved laundry closet.  It may not look like much, but we used to have an open-back book shelf loaded with random stuff cluttering the area, so the cabinet and hooks help quite a bit.

 I finished up Sunday with some wall washing and priming, and despite not get nearly as much painted as I had intended, I'm quite happy with all of the progress made this weekend.  And, as an added benefit, by the end of the weekend Jackson was starting to perk up, as if hanging out with me wasn't all that bad.

Big ole kitty in one of his favorite compact spots.