Yesterday, I heard Nala chattering like crazy - she's usually very chatty watching birds in the yard every morning but the volume and excitement was different. I turned to see what she was excited about and there were two deer on the golf course! They wandered over to an area past the 12th tee where there's a low area with grass growing. They had a good snack and then went to a shady area near a house and took a rest. One of them was injured - limping a bit and holding a hind leg up off the ground - and very skinny. Maybe injured and has been healing - but s/he got around OK. We were super excited and I planned to watch them all day!
Walked out of the room for a couple minutes and poof! They had moved on.
It was super cool because the golf course started having golfers use the tees further up the hill - staying away from the deer and giving them plenty of space.
We live in such a beautiful place.
The overhead garage shelves are in and WOW! We have so much room!! We never asked the handyman his rate - didn't fret too much about it (a little. OK - I fretted a little) but he charged us his 'neighbor, friend and family' rate of $32 which is a bargain. $400 for 12.5 hours of work. It was a big job. I know J. totally could have done it - he installed all the overhead shelves we had in Tracy - but really, we are officially at the point where doing things that might involve a fall or tons of hard effort, we'd rather pay for help.
We will definitely use him again - we will eventually buy an outdoor shed so he can help us set that up. And I'm toying with adding some shallow shelves in my closet - there's a completely blank wall and I could really use some additional storage space.
I trekked to Atlantis today for free play - had a good run on several machines - including a new machine that I've seen there but never played. I saw a You Tube video yesterday of someone playing it so I gave it a try - did great! I think I'll start using free play on that machine to see what happens. It has a lot of potential! I also played Lu Lu Tong - the machine was pretty hot - much like it was when H. and I first played it last Fall - kept giving me bonus after bonus and I was hoping it would drop the Major or the Grand. Not this time! But we'll be back on Saturday for more free play so...we'll see. I came home up $100 and I played for a couple hours so that felt good. I also stayed the heck away from Dragon Link machines. Gave it a go with a $20 when I first arrived but hit absolutely nothing so I moved on.
Atlantis added plexi dividers between 3 machines that I regularly play. My first reaction was 'yay!' because I was kicked off a machine on that bank because someone was there before me on the middle machine and I couldn't be so close on the machine to the left. I understood - and complied - but no one wants to get booted off a machine they've invested in. Unfortunately, the middle machine has such a narrow space between the two plexi dividers, you have to (literally) pull the chair all the way out, into a busy aisle, put yourself near the machine, pull the chair back in behind you and try to get situated. It was challenging and felt a bit claustrophobic. I used my free play on the machine and left up $200 (at that point in the day) but was happy to move 'out' of the center spot.
It's always great to turn free play into real money -
After the handyman left, we went into the garage to marvel at all the 'stuff' we can stash up - and I decided to use the shop vac to clean the floors. Dust gets everywhere here - the wind blows it in constantly under the small crack of the garage doors. We retired our old shop vac when we moved here - it had served us well for 20 years and wasn't worth moving. The new one we bought is a silver metal finish - reminds me of R2D2 - and that's what I call it. Got the floors swept which felt great - and marveled at how much heat the garage doors absorb. During winter, if we're ever cold, we'll head to the garage and stay near the doors. When the sun is out and on them, they generate a lot of warmth.
J. is busy putting together the bench we bought (from Target) for the mud room. It's a beautiful teal color with an off-white cushion. We'll have a place to sit in Winter to take off wet boots, etc. -
Good news for H. . He has officially been hired by Dr. Pepper Keurig and will start training in a week(ish). It's a much better paying job than the gas station - $16.50 an hour + $3.50 hazard pay because he's a frontline worker. He's super happy and can't wait to start. We'll be working through a budget with him when he starts getting paid. He's got a long way to go in terms of budgeting, planning ahead and recognizing that having a balance in your account doesn't mean you have discretionary income to blow through.
Last night, we had dozens of finches come into the neighborhood. I noticed them when I could tell things were darting around behind me (from my chair in the office). I looked out to see birds everywhere - darting onto the roof, windowsills and walls of neighboring houses. We headed outside and watched dozens of them line up on our fence and made use of our birdbaths. It was so amazing.
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