the %$#@*&} patio

Ok, so if I blog again today, then I am caught up through next week. Or is that cheating, Angelee? Whatev… take me out and shoot me. (please?)

Big news: We finished our patio. We had a pretty patio summer. And it's a collective "WE," WE, as in the entire family finished our patio(s).

First Angleee (of course) started it all with HER beautiful artfully shaped, stained and stamped concrete work of art.

Here's the concrete inspector taking an unannounced look at the finished product

Then my sister jumped in with her beautiful natural stone with decomposed granite patio walkway (installed single handedly by her un-sung and underappreciated yet generous and magnanimous little boy, Sammy – with the help of his wing-man, the very patient and long-suffering “D”.)

MaRee's stone cold patio

My baby nephew threw in his creation which was perhaps the most creative. He built a cabana-type structure on the deck of his second floor condo (shhhh….). Yours truly helped him with that, handing him tools and sweating in the hot July heat.

(no photo yet of the undisclosed location... )

And ours is finished now too. And may I say that ours too was graced by the loving, hard-working, and generous hands of Sammy (and wing-man “D”). It would not have been possible to do it this summer without his help, encouragement and hard work during the hottest week (so far) we have had in July.

After Sam’s excruciating diligence on the excavating, compacting and leveling of the undercarriage, Darryl went to work on the visual piece; the actual stone laying (and individual leveling). He also worked in one of the hottest weeks in July – but was able to do so by taking advantage of the very generous Furlough Fridays, graciously donated by our Dear Governator.

Heres the nit-picky job foreman inspecting the first part of the stone laying

And here's the finished product

So there you have it... 3 fine examples of Americans capturing and destroying open natural space and turning it into cold hard evidence of our continuing encroachment and domination of the wild lands of planet earth. (And one guy who built a cabana.)

Throwing down the gauntlet

Well, here I am again, after my 4 month hiatus. My niece has "challenged" me to blog once per week. I know I should blog more. I actually enjoy it, really I do. The problem is that I don't have anything interesting to say (consistantly, that is). I have no actual experiences. Just stuff other people tell me or I hear about somehow. No interests; I go nowhere, see no one. (sigh)

So SHE says, "Why don't you blog about the camping trip we took to Lake Almanor? If you blogged about it, then I wouldn't have to." Don't try to kid me Miss Angelee. You'd blog it all whether or not every single person in the country blogged it (by your own admission, blogging is your "crack").

So anyway, I told HER, "I just don't want to look pathetic. Look at poor pathetic Jo; she doesn't have her own family so she has to blog about other peoples." To which SHE promptly replied, "WE ARE YOUR FAMILY. IT WOULD BE OK TO BLOG ABOUT US! NO ONE WOULD THINK IT WAS PATHETIC" Whatever, Angelee... However you want to twist it.

And that's when the challenge came in. SHE said, "You should try to blog once per week." To which I replied, "I wish I would. I would like to. I love it so much." (Oh and get this: Not only does SHE want me to blog once per week, SHE also wants me to use pictures too... Next SHE'LL tell me she expects it to be interesting. How difficult can SHE make it? Once per week? And pictures? I have no pictures... (SHE has everything; I have nothing).

So here's a picture in which I look good (I'm on the left). Of course it was years and years ago... But that 's not the point.