Adventures at Home
I took a break from the big house projects this weekend, to focus on smaller projects, and relaxing. I very much wanted to take time to enjoy my house for awhile. I've worked on it so much, it hasn't quite been just my fun house, yet.

Even in the small projects, there is adventure. This weekend I did simple things, like hang more window coverings, pictures, and some minor cleaning projects. It was a decorating and hodge podge weekend.

In my now completed, newly repainted bathroom, I came up with the most brilliantly creative plan in all of my cute house stuff, thus far. I'd taken pictures of the bathroom, before, during and after, to chronicle the journey and pain of the major bathroom re-decorating project. I rummaged through my stash of frames and found one that would go perfectly in the bathroom, complete with a photo mat. I framed a few of the before pictures, then added some of the after pictures, and hung it prominently in the middle of the blue wall across from the mirror. It was fabulous! Not only does the framed picture collage break up the blue-ness, but now everyone who uses the bathroom can see what I went through to make it look like it does now. And if they don't like the finished product, they can at least see that it's better than it was before.

No, it is not weird to frame pictures of my bathroom, to hang in said bathroom. It's creative. It's art. I don't have to explain it.

I hung a few other things around the house, then headed out to the garage for the adventure I was dreading: the attic. I haven't yet been in my attic, because attics are dark, scary, and often full of bugs and critters. I had a couple of boxes of old things that I need to store elsewhere than inside the house, so obviously the attic is the place for them to go. Ugh.

I cautiously folded the ladder down, half expecting some creature to come flying down, landing on my face, causing me to run and twist and scream and frantically try to pull the creature off of my face, in pure Chevy Chase fashion. But, that did not happen. The coast was clear.

I crept up the ladder, flashlight in hand. I poked my head up and began to look around, shining the light across the attic floor and into all the nooks and crannies. As I expected, it was pretty disgusting up there. And I decided I did not need to venture any further up than my stance on the ladder.

I went back down and grabbed the boxes, pushing them up the ladder ahead of me, one at a time. I shoved them to the side, climbed back down, and closed the attic door. Done and done. I don't plan to go back up there ever again. If I ever move from this house, well, that stuff can be a nice gift for the next people who venture up into the attic.

I also got out in the backyard to trim the Fig Tree of Unusual Size. Or FigTUS. It's literally the largest fig tree in the world. I needed to trim the branches from off the ground for two main reasons. One, to see what may be living under the tree and against the fence next to where the tree grows. There may be a small family of some lost tribe of North Texas living there undiscovered for millions of years. And two, to get the dead leaves out from under it and allow water, sun, and grass to grow there. My nice crop of grass magically stops around the edge of the tree where the branches start, even though there is no physical boundary there. It's as though the grass fears what lies beneth the fig tree . . .

Trimming the branches was easy. Fig wood is very soft and light, so I felt super strong cutting through the bigger branches as though they were no problem. I was finally able to crawl under the tree, and I soon found myself among a jungle of branches and leaves. Apparently this area under and behind the tree was used by previous owners as the dumping ground for old, no longer needed, general crap. I found broken pots that once housed plants, wire contraptions of some sort, and a flurry of other things left there to be forgotten. I cleared out as much of that stuff as I could, then tried to find my way back out of the fig tree. I should have left a trail to ease my escape back to the sunlight, but eventually I made my way out. Phew!

I bagged the branches and admired my handiwork. Not the prettiest trim job, but at least I could now keep an eye on whatever lurks amongst the fig leaves. Which, by the way, are huge. I can see the appeal of the fig leaf for Adam and Eve, when choosing a leaf as an outfit.

Yesterday I wandered throughout my yard, just looking and enjoying. I have a fabulous backyard, complete with another giant tree which provides lots of shade. My peaceful wander through the yard was abruptly disturbed by the smell of something. I quickly determined that it was the smell of poo. Hmmm. That's odd. It seems to be coming from a pile of . . . poo! In my yard! I figured the poo was probably from my dog. Then I remembered I don't have a dog. Hmmmm.

I was perplexed. I'd suspected for several weeks that I had a mysterious night critter of some kind lurking about. I found places in my bushes and flower beds where something had dug some nice holes for me to fill back in. I'd seen a cat wandering about on several occassions, so I hoped the critter was that cat. Today, I was not so sure. This was a definite pile of poo belonging to a critter, but it was in my backyard. Don't cats poo in litter boxes? My yard is not a litter box! I hadn't seen the cat back there, but naturally it could get back there without any problems. My house is not contained within an invisible force field. Animals do come and go.

I was suddenly very offended. I don't really have a problem with a critter wandering through my yard on occassion. But for it to dig up my sad plants, which are already desperately clinging to life, and then to brazenly take a dump in the yard on the side of my house in the back, well that's just rude. The backyard is my peaceful haven. The smell of poo certainly disrupts the peaceful zen quality of my yard.

I began to wonder what the critter might be, if not a cat. Bird? No. This was definitely not bird bomb. Squirrel? The pile was almost as big as a squirrel, so either it did not belong to a squirrel, or I had a Giant Squirrel of Unusual Size, possibly living in the FigTUS, with some major stomach problems. Dog? I couldn't see a place where a dog could get through my fence on any side of the yard, so that was unlikely. Raccoon? I don't think we have raccoons in the area, seeing as I live in the heart of a major city in North Texas. Bear? No bears, either. I hope.

Well, that left cat as the obvious critter, as far as I could tell. I sincerely hoped it was just a plain, run of the mill domestic cat. As opposed to the bobcat or mountain lion variety. Did anything escape from the zoo overnight? I sure hope not.

I ran away from the poo, to the other side of the house and continued my peaceful nature walk through the yard. Then I went inside, got a book, and came back outside to sit on my patio and read. It was heavenly!

As I sat, the woodland creatures of the yard slowly began to come out of their hiding places. It was very Gorillas in the Mist, except without the gorillas. Or the mist. I marked 'gorilla' off the list of possible poo-depositing critters.

I sat very still, and watched as various birds flitted about the yard and in the fig tree. They seemed to accept me as one of their own, although I was not flitting about or standing on tree limbs or eating stuff off of the ground. They were not bothered by my presence, and they gradually grew more comfortable with me in their world. I was amazed to see a brightly colored red bird perched on one of the lower branches, standing out from all the other black birds and green leaves. At this point I wished I was a nature photographer so that I could take pictures of the wildlife in my yard, sell the photos to National Geographic, and be very rich, never having to leave my own backyard.

I continued to sit and read, woodland creatures all around. A squirrel (completely normal-sized) made his way over from the fig tree, to the other big shade tree, just a few feet in front of me. I watched him. He watched me. Then he went all spastic or something and began darting out from the tree, flopping around on the ground, then darting back to the tree. It was an odd squirrel game. Or maybe it was a dance. I may never know. But I went inside and found a jar of peanuts I'm never going to eat, and decided the spastic squirrel could have peanuts for dinner today. I threw them on the ground and watched as he threw a fit and gathered them up. Eventually he wandered off and I concluded my day in the yard.

I love my home, and the adventures therein.

Except for the poo. I could do without that.

C.T.