A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.

So last weekend our lawn mower died.  Well it didn’t so much die as go on work-to-rule.  As in the self-propulsion declined to function.  Our lawn is large, lovely, and hilly.  I didn’t realize just how hilly till trying to shove a machine that’s supposed to power itself *sigh*   Suffice to say this was less of a fun game. Especially after just starting to exercise again.  You’re not new here.  You know I didn’t start slowly ;)  So Chris and I debated about whether to fix it (it’s somewhat ancient and on at least its second, if not third or fourth, home) or give up and buy a new one.  I could see arguments for either side given that we don’t know where we’ll be living in the (hopefully near) future.   But in the end, we decided that really the house was a much better use of Chris’ time than trying to revive a dying lawn mower, and shopping we went.  The only thing I was pretty insistent on is that if we get a new one, it needed to be one I could start.   The old one I could only start once it was warmed up – less than useful.  Of course that did limit our options somewhat, but there were two choices.   I more affordable green one and a less affordable red one.  We got the expensive one.  Who’s surprised by this?   Chris listed a remarkable number of totally valid reasons we really needed that machine (up to and including availability of parts to repair it in the future), but I still suspect the deciding factor was that it’s red ;-P   It’s fair – the green was fairly ugly *g*

I can't believe I just found this!   Apparently it's a thing ;)

Anyways – this weekend it was time to test out said new red lawn mower.  Step one – it starts!  Woohoo!  With no effort at all.   It also takes very little physical effort to maneuver it and is much easier to hold on to.   Sweet.  But the entertaining part is that the self-propulsion speeds up or slows down depending how much you depress the handle. So theoretically as you walk faster, it mows faster.   All good right?  Except that I, of course, felt the need to test this theory.  Hahaha ended up chasing the lawn mower downhill.  Kinda ridiculous but it kept me amused.  I then deigned that it was not necessary to mow the lawn at a jog, or even a power walk, but rather a relaxed stroll would do the job just fine.  Hahaha took longer than necessary (albeit still noticeably faster than with the other mower) but it was good daydreaming time and there was nothing useful I could’ve been doing at that point in the house so may as well enjoy the weather.

If you look *really* closely, you can see the new toy hiding under the tree :)

I did discover this one doesn’t off-road nearly as well as the other one did ;)   oops.  And it has a significantly sharper blade.  It’s also either lighter or better balanced as I could go sideways across the hills without it falling – something that really frustrated me I couldn’t do with the other one.  Got it all worked out in the end though so mission accomplished.

This afternoon we watched American Pharoah lope away with the Triple Crown.  Start late, book it out to the front, and then just stay there, let the others think they might have a chance at catching up, and then proceed to pull farther and farther from the others.  You know, it’s just that easy.  Hahaha first Triple Crown winner in my lifetime.  Was very impressive to watch.

In case you missed it ;) 

Then it was off for another exciting Saturday evening at Home Depot.   The tone of ‘exciting’ changes depending whether it’s Chris or I speaking ;-P  I’ll be very happy when we get to have a home reno store free weekend.  But alas, this was not that weekend.  And even worse, we got trapped in Home Depot Jail!!!   Hahaha we of course wanted something off the top shelf, but not only can they not just get it down, they have to close off all the lanes around it (and it would be in an intersection, so the sales people had to scrounge the shop for enough fences).    Anyways eventually they got our new laundry-room sink down and we were good to go.  Except Chris and the sink were on one side of the fence and I was on the other.  Yeah – this problem was fairly easy to resolve by moving the fence.  Smiling and nodding the whole time the Home Depot employee was telling me I couldn’t possibly go through there, while continuing to proceed.   Ah well – what’s the worst that can happen, get kicked out of Home Depot?    I’m not sure I see that as a negative ;)

Chris amusing himself in Home Depot Jail

And then, because that wasn’t exciting enough, we had to follow up with a trip to Lowes.  *sigh*  I’m not even kidding.   On the plus side, that should actually be the *last* construction trip we need to make.  Woohoo!!!!   Still have a ton of work to do and it seems to go oh so very slowly…  But we’re almost there. 

A promising start for the downstairs washroom

Sunday we spent making that happen.  Got the vanity in the downstairs washroom (Clarencing at it’s finest – I held it in place while Chris did everything else).  And then the rest of the day was dedicated to tackling the hard wood floors.  This is actually significantly easier than I’d have thought.  At least given the collection of power tools Chris has ;)   I spent most of the day laying pieces out and playing with the saw while he measured and nailed things into place. About the only productive way we could figure to make a one-person job into a two-person job.

It's slowly starting to look like a house!

And a random mom and baby deer came to visit.  Yup, this has no place in my story other than that it made me smile, so it gets included here too J   Somewhat amazed the power tools didn’t scare them off, but maybe that meant we were too busy and too noisy to sneak up on them ;)