The Canadian Chronicles: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie....

Monday, May 7, 2018

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie....

One of my life's dreams is to live in a place where the weather is nice enough to enjoy outdoor spaces a good portion of the year. This spring, Houston may actually be that place! I have enjoyed more patio days this spring than any other in recent memory. We were blessed with moderate temperatures, low humidity and plenty of sunshine in the month of April. I hesitate to even acknowledge this for fear I will curse our good luck and summer's heat and humidity will suddenly be here. (I wrote too soon, it's May and the humidity has found us...).

I spent much of April chasing a little white ball around in the great outdoors!

It all started on Easter Sunday, the first day of April. It was a glorious day, in more ways than one. We sat outside all afternoon, enjoyed the patio and played with Logan. The month just continued to provide us with day after day of perfect weather. Except on the weekends, if you ask TJ. Many of his Saturday morning training bike rides were cancelled due to rain. Those Saturday showers ushered in nice cool, dry air for the rest of the week though! There was one slight problem with all of that outside time. April is also allergy season in Houston. The more time I spent outside the more allergic I became. It was a small but real price to pay. In spite of my sneezing and stuffed up ears I spent as much time outdoors as I possibly could and so did everyone else around here.

Always with a bat and a ball!

We took advantage of the good weather by tearing up our house and then putting it all back together. We finally got a new roof.... which was like opening Pandora's box! A new roof led to new gutters. Our old roof leaked during Harvey and we had water spots on the ceiling inside which are finally repaired and painted...because we got a new roof.

April was also a perfect month to clutter up our yard!

When an entire roof is thrown onto the ground, flower beds take a beating. Flower beds also suffer when you are away for the summer and the plants that did survive the summer neglect were frozen during our unusually cold winter. It was so lovely outside ... we replanted the flower beds. With the flower beds looking so spiffy our wood patio furniture looked a little tired and neglected so TJ decided to refinish it. The entire experience started to feel like that child's book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. There was one point in the process of house improvements I had the sinking feeling that out of the blue my husband was going to sit me down and say, "by the way honey, I've decided to sell the house." I am happy to report we are not selling the house and it now looks like the people who live here actually care... just in time for us to vacate for the summer.

If you put a new roof on you house
you are going to need to replant your flower beds.

One of the few days in April that did not have a brilliant blue sky and moderate temperatures was the day our ski friends went on a sunset sail. As you all probably know....I am not a boat person. The lure of a sunset and spending time with good friends caught me in a weak moment and off we went into the open waters for a three hour tour. None of us fell out of the boat or got seasick. We had some good laughs, a few glasses of wine, felt the wind in our faces and returned just in time for a somewhat lame sunset and we all want to do it again...on a sunny day!

Trying to look comfortable on a boat....
while holding on for dear life!

We can do better than this...next time!

I really did have to pinch myself some days just to make sure it wasn't all a dream. I adopted the "why not" approach to life and became somewhat carefree and impulsive. "Want to play golf?" "Yes!" "Want to eat diner outside?" "Yes!" "Want to take a walk?" "Yes!" "Want to go somewhere and have a drink?" "Yes!" The house was a bit dusty...partly due to construction dust, partly due to mass quantities of pollen flying around, partly due to the open doors and windows, and partly due to my neglect. It was a small price to pay for a month of outdoor living.

Why clean the house when I could be here?!

The final weekend in April was spent enjoying someone else's spring. It was my grandson's 1st Communion in Madison and we went up to celebrate with him and his family. I hung out with three of my grandsons and three of my own kids. We played basket ball and baseball outside, we took after dinner walks/runs/bike rides around the block, and we partied on a beautiful lake front patio after the 1st Communion.