house upgrades

This week was spent doing a couple of big upgrades to the house, namely repainting and some additions to the landscaping. Although the landscape stuff was fairly minor, I am happy with how it turned out. The big project was to repaint the interior of the house, as this had not been done since new. I decided to add some rich color as the white walls had become boring to me. It amazed me the crew of 3 people were able to get the house done with 2 11-hour days. Here are the before and after pictures.

the month of May

Well the month started off easy enough, and I took a week off work to go back to Missouri and help Mom with some things around her place that needed to be done, plus play chauffeur to her doctor's appointments. It was a nice week there, except for the more-than-needed rain that permeated the week. Still, it was great to be able to be there for Mother's Day and her birthday before I headed back to Phoenix.

Then, just over a week later, Jim, Jule, and Grace came to Phoenix to pay a visit, as Julie had a conference here. We had a nice weekend that included a off-road tour of the desert in a Hummer, and then a relaxing Sunday night at a free concert in the local park. As they left on Wednesday, I decided to relax during the rest of my vacation week - I did not even go back to the Ozarks like I have for the past 14 years! It was nice to stay home and rest, though, and I enjoyed another Sunday night concert in the park with friends.