My Birthday, Plants, and Flowers

I tried bulbs this year, for the first time. These are paperwhites. I think they turned out pretty well.

It's hard to tell here, but the boys each bought and planted their own grape vines here. Sam on the left, Alex on the right. Right now, they're just dormant sticks, but we hope for more in the springtime! :-)

Here are some of the indoor plants that we've started.

Also, tomorrow is my 35th birthday! So, that's fun. I bought myself a bottle of Fiji water, a little container of bath salts, and a rose that was yellow with pink tips. :-)

Playing in the Backyard

These are just some pictures from a day in December when we were playing in the backyard. I think it was on Sam's birthday, actually. The falling leaves were very pretty. They're all gone now, but the pictures remain. There's a video at the bottom here of a game the kids made up involving a swingset and a hula hoop!

Beautiful Things

Here are some screen caps of views from me flying on Flight Simulator. I decided I could start sharing those with you from time to time, for fun. :-)


Somewhere over a beautiful ocean at sunset.

Philipines

South Padre Island

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

Take off, somewhere.

Ok, so some of these are old, and I don't remember where they were taken. It's a fun program, though, has the whole world programmed in there!

Next time on Beautiful Things... my new hobby, container gardening (gardening with pots). :-)

Music by Joss Whedon

Recently I discovered that even things I saw a long time ago have been placed on You Tube. We had a wonderful time in December reliving the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the musical. Here's the first song from that episode.

And here's arguably the best song of the episode... Enjoy!

Anyway, the point of this is that I really like Joss Whedon's songwriting, so I looked to see if he has written any more. Turns out he wrote an internet-only show/musical called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It's great. It's about an hour long, and it's really funny. My boys and I enjoyed it. Here's the promo, which is really funny...

Here's part one. There are six segments: 3 Acts, 2 Parts each. (Just thought I'd tell you so you don't waste time like I did looking for Act 1, Part 3.) :-)

So, enjoy the show, and see whether or not he gets into the Evil League of Evil. :-)

House Modifications & 14th Anniversary

I know, I'm really behind in my blogging. Sorry about that. I hope to do better now that it's the new year. It's a nice relief now that the holidays are over, so much more free time. :-) Also, I'd like to take a moment to say:

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO BRIAN AND ME!! 14 YEARS!!! YAY!!!!

Ok, that was fun. I'm hoping this will be a great year, with a great anniversary. I'm happy that we are starting the next year of our marriage. :-)

Below, I have some pictures to show you of modifications we made on the house over the Thanksgiving break....

This is the new ramp for the back door, to the back patio. It's also a portable, foldable, ramp, so it can be taken to other places when needed to help me get into some one-step houses and such. It's really heavy though, so Brian has to carry it for me. I love that we have this ramp now, because I can go in the backyard. I didn't go in the backyard, other than rare instances where I walked one step to a chair on the patio, at all since last May, so I really missed it! I feel so free being able to go back there!

This is the doorway to the master bathroom. It was 24" wide, but we hired a carpenter who took it out, cut the wall, installed more framing and bracing, and installed a new 32" door! It's great. For the past 6 months, I was transferring at this doorway to a rolling office chair that was in the bathroom. Those extra transfers were really wearing me out. Now I'm free to go in and out of my bathroom with ease! You can see the other doorway in the distance, that's the doorway to our closet. It's 24" wide, the same size that this door used to be. It's a huge difference.

The new door, closed. It's not painted yet (it came primed), so we'll do that someday.


Downstairs, we added a landing and a ramp. This step is 7" tall, so we got a 7' ramp, which is what is needed for that height. The landing is a wood box that was custom made by Brian and the carpenter for that spot. Pedestrians can walk straight off the edge of the box, while wheelers can turn and go down the ramp. I must've been upstairs when this pic was taken, since you can see my downstairs wheelchair, Zoe, on the left there.

The box. We want to get some matching carpet to staple to it, but it's too small for a carpet remnant, no one will sell us a piece this small. They told us to go through their trash bin, which I can't do and Brian hasn't gotten around to yet. So, last week I painted it the same color as the surrounding walls. Temporary (possibly), but at least it doesn't look like we're in construction anymore. :-)

Here's my view, about to go down the living room ramp.