The Stress of Selling

I read this and thought how true, “most people sell because of the well-known four D’s: death, departure, divorce and debt, but there is another: downscaling.” The lady that sold the house to us was the death factor, her husband passed away and she sold her house to be closer to family. As for us, it’s downscaling, hard to believe that the house outgrown us and it’s most likely the other way around for most people.

It has been extremely stressful in the last 2 months. Bo and I worked around the clock to get the house ready, and it finally went on the market last week. The house is in a move in ready condition, in a good school district and good neighborhood. I’m hoping that we’ll get lucky.

I never knew how a minimalist live until now, and I have to say that it takes some getting used to. Our house is lived in, and now I have to be a clean freak, can’t wait to get back to normal again. 🙂

I’m glad this part is done, now we’ll have time to work on the new house. I have a painting project, and looking forward to painting Lee’s new room, the office, the hallway, bathroom and deck.

Bo’s project is putting down the hardwood floor and he has several rooms to do.

We expanded the existing fish pond and moved the fish about 2 weeks ago.

They are happy in their new home. The new pond is soupy green at the moment and it should clear up in a week or so.

The quails are extremely happy in the backyard

The female never laid eggs before, and they are the mail order birds that Bo purchased via the Internet.

She started laying eggs when we moved her to the new house.

Max loves the acreage, and his freedom to roam in the woods.

I was surprised to see the Mountain Laurel flowers in the backyard, I just didn’t expect to see it in our area.

Max loves it out here.

My Garden Update

It has been a week since I added more plants to my garden and the weather has gotten a lot warmer, I think we finally get over our cold spell. There is still a lot of work to be done, and I’ll be busy gardening in the next few weeks. The photos were taken early this morning, you know the saying ‘the early bird gets the worm.’ I guess in my case the early photographer catches the warm golden rays.

I planted the purple eggplants that I purchased from the local nursery. I’m hoping that my sister will plant the Thai eggplant seedlings or I might have to ask Bo’s mom for some young plants this year.

It’s Jalapeno peppers this year, I still have a lot of chili peppers in the freezer from last year so there is no need to plant more.

I planted both pickling cucumbers and regular cucumbers, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for any fury creatures out there.

I planted 3 cherry tomato plants, and this one has flowers already.

Lee is doing an herb garden this year, and she planted her Peppermint last week.

Her garden bed gets plenty of sun during the day.

The mixed vegetable seeds that I soiled last month took a growth spurt in the last week or so.  I think it must be the warmer weather in our area.

My Bok Choy plants are ready to harvest.

I’m glad the rabbit didn’t come back for more, these are the Romaine lettuces that’s left for me. I started harvesting some last week and they were crunchy and sweet.

Mint

Parsley

Grapevine

Rosemary

More Rosemary bush, I actually don’t cook with these and kind of odd to have them planted in a Lao garden since we don’t use it with our cooking.

The Water Hyacinth plant finally made it to the fishpond.

All photos were taken with 5DMkIII, Canon 24-105mm f/4L lens.

Lotus and Water Lilies at Wat Lao Buddhavong July 3, 2010

The best time to photograph lotus and water lily is early morning when the buds first open, and my schedules on Saturday and Sunday morning were so hectic that I took these photos on both days while I was waiting for my dad and sisters.

The floating gazebo adds a visual interest to the pond.