Two More Weeks

With the exception of trees along the front sidewalk, our landscaping is complete. We have a tree in the side yard that will shade the porch, another behind the back fence, and each street will be lined with a different species of tree. Those in the front are waiting for the root barrier, which, if we're lucky, will prevent complete upheaval of the sidewalks in another 20 years.







Pete was a stow-away in our plants. Timothy says his name is Sparky, but I think it's Pete. We've spotted him one other time, on the fence to the side yard. I hope he sticks around.



Small changes are continuing on the inside of the house. Today we met Jimbo in the attic, finishing the A/C installation. He gave us our thermostat instruction manual, lots of pointers, and promised to pre-program our thermostats the way he thinks they ought to be. Timothy thought he looked like the French actor Dominique Pinon from Delicatessen.

Now that our garage has been cleared of debris and other houses' trim, we've both parked in it. Not yet at the same time, but I think with some maneuvering from the narrow alley to the narrow garage, we should be able to make it work. I guess we'll find out in two weeks.

Closing day can't come soon enough. After four months of commuting from northwest Austin, we're looking forward to living close to downtown again. Our daily routine involves 30 minutes of sitting in traffic on MoPac in the morning, driving to check on the house at lunch, going back by after work, and then heading home exhausted in the evening. This racks up about 40 miles per day on my car, and sometime last week, I missed seeing it roll over 100,000 miles.



Speaking of driving, our neighbor Aaron swerves dangerously fast around the curves! Watch out for his hybrid car, and co-conspirators Toby and Griffin hiding in the back seat.